Longtime Merced High teacher/coach dies after long battle with cancer

Longtime Merced High history teacher and aquatics coach Jon Dibblee died on Wednesday morning after a long battle with cancer.

There was a somber mood on campus after news spread of Dibblee’s passing. Dibblee was 60 years old.

“Jon was just a tremendous person,” said Merced athletic director Paul Hogue. “He was a no ‘BS’ guy. He was going to tell you like it is, get the job done. The girls loved him and respected him. He knew how to win. He was a great strategist and a great person.”

Dibblee coached the girls water polo and swimming team at Merced for 30 years. He spent 24 of those as the head coach, leading the Bears girls water polo teams to 10 Central California Conference championships.

Dibblee coached former Merced High star Margie Dingeldein, who went on to play with Team USA and win a bronze medal in the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

From 1988-96, the Bears won seven league championships and reached the Sac-Joaquin Section championship game in 1996 where they lost to Johansen 4-3.

“Both our teams were at the top of the CCC at that time,” said former longtime Johansen coach Brent Bohlender. “If it wasn’t me, it was him and it was back and forth. We traveled to places with our high school teams. Not together, but our teams would play in the same tournaments. I remember we were behind by two points in the section championship game (1996) and we ended up scoring three goals to win by one.

“After the game, I remember him telling me if it’s not me, I’m glad it’s you winning. I got to return the favor when we had our 128 game winning streak and his team beat us to stop it. We were competitive, but when the game was over forget it. Our friendship was a lot more important.”

It was Bohlender who asked Dibblee to help coach the Junior National Women’s Water Polo team. Together Bohlender and Dibblee traveled across the country and to places like Cuba and Europe, coaching the 20-and-under team.

As Bohlender describes it, they would often use the good cop, bad cop routine to deal with the players. Dibblee would play the role of good cop.

“He just had the right disposition for that position,” Bohlender said. “He was an excellent person to travel and coach with.”

Steve Eccles coached along side Dibblee at Merced High for 15 years with Eccles coaching the boys teams and Dibblee coaching the girls.

Eccles says both programs were built on the same foundation: “Being there and working hard.”

“My first year there, both our teams made the section final,” Eccles said. “We started together on a good note. He had a lot of success with the girls program. As a person, one thing I always admired – and I wish I had – was Jon’s smart wit. He just had a clever way of interacting with people. If you talk to any of the girls who played for him, he was pretty special.”

Eccles also got to spend time away from the pool deck with Dibblee and his wife Cindie. They would go to music concerts where Dibblee would introduce Eccles to a variety of difference musicians.

“He lived his life,” Eccles said. “A lot of people work, work, work and then they retire. He didn’t get to have much of a retirement. Luckily he did a lot of things a long the way. He traveled with the junior national team, he was a baseball aficionado and he did a lot of traveling.”

Eccles and many people at Merced High were astonished with the positive attitude Dibblee showed while battling cancer. Dibblee’s first bout with cancer came when he was in high school and he’s battled it off and on throughout his life, but you never caught him complaining about it.

He faced his challenges head on.

“What a beast,” Eccles said. “There’s a TeamDibblee page on Facebook and a lot of his girls have made posts. It’s been going on for a couple months. The positive attitude he’s shown throughout has been incredible. That’s the attitude he’s always had: It is what it is. No sense in crying about it. Right now, he’d be saying there’s no crying in water polo. The spirit he had down the stretch was amazing.”

When Bohlender was diagnosed with prostate cancer he thought about who he could call.

“Well, I thought I can call Jon. He’s had cancer,” Bohlender said. “When I told Jon, he started laughing and said, ‘Welcome to the big C club.’ He and I talked a lot. We talked a lot about how were feeling. In a lot of ways he was like a counselor to me.”

Dibblee was survived by his wife Cindie and son Alex.

This story was originally published December 13, 2017 at 2:24 PM with the headline "Longtime Merced High teacher/coach dies after long battle with cancer."