Jesse Parker, the fiery coaching legend with a heart of gold beneath a rugged exterior, passed away Friday night. Parker was 77  --- a week shy of his 78th birthday. He passed due to complications from cancer.

Longtime friend and assistant coach Angelo Paffumi, now the head coach at Skyline, chatted with Parker about a week ago. They talked about football much of the conversation, but Paffumi remembers Parker not as a win-at-all-costs coach many believe he was. Paffumi asssisted Parker at Gilbert during Parker's tenure there.

"Football was the vehicle to him to develop character in kids," Paffumi said. "Jesse wanted his players to win in life. Be the best at whatever they did. If you're a janitor, be the best janitor. If you fix cars, be the best repair man. Sure, he didn't like to lose games and he was tough on kids. But he wanted them to be the best they could be in life."

Parker coached for better than 40 years starting out in Arizona in the Phoenix Union High School District where he guided Camelback to a state title in 1974 and runner-up in 1973.

He moved on to begin Mesa Mountain View's football program in 1976 and coached there through the 1994 season notching four state titles (1978, 1983, 1986 and 1993) plus three runner-up finishes (1987, 1988 and 1992). 

Parker's time at Mountain View intersected with the coaching prowess of McClintock's Karl Kiefer, Westwood's Jerry Loper, Phoenix St. Mary's Pat Farrell, Mesa's Jim Rattay, Dobson's Mike Clark and late Amphitheater coach Vern Friedli. Those schools often took turns beating each other and were the dominant programs and state champions in the decade of the 1980s. Parker looked forward most to watching wits with Kiefer, Loper and Farrell. 

Parker left Mountain View in 1995 for a calling in Texas as a coach and athletic director in Texarkana, Texas, but returned to Arizona in 1999 where he took over as head coach at Gilbert. Gilbert had struggled most years in the 1990s prior to Parker's arrival. Gilbert managed to make the playoffs in seven of 10 years Parker was coach. He left Gilbert after the 2008 season, his final head coaching stop.

Parker's interest in his players didn't stop with football. He supported them in their other school activities and in other sports. He reveled in helping those who he viewed as particularly needy -- based on his life growing up poor as sharecropper's son with a handful of brothers just after the Depression.

Parker took as much pride and more in teaching. He taught history, including many advanced placement courses at Mountain View and earned nearly as many teaching accolades with his coaching success.

Parker was honored by Mountain View last fall by having the field at Toro Stadium named after him. That honor truly humbled Parker, who at the time was beginning in earnest his battle with cancer that gradually began to spread.

Parker is the second legendary coach to pass in the state this week. Friedli, the second-winningest coach in state history, passed away Friday in Tucson.