In a unanimous decision by the Fremont Union High School District board of trustees, the Homestead High School baseball field is officially going to be named after the school district’s legendary P.E. teacher and coach Chuck Camuso.
Carmen “Chuck” Camuso worked for the FUHSD for nearly 50 years. He coached football, track and tennis, but was especially remembered as a baseball coach, with his teams in that sport racking up more than 600 career victories.
In addition to his coaching, Camuso officiated in the professional sports world as a referee for both the NFL and the NBA.
He died in 2012 at the age of 77.
Spearheaded by Homestead physical education teacher Steve Wishart, the effort to name the field received an outpouring of support from teachers, administrators and the school site council.
“We had this new field, and he played on it only for one year. He was such a legendary baseball coach; we thought it would be a nice way to honor him,” Wishart said. “It’s just so well deserved. We all thought it would really be nice to have a remembrance of him on campus, and everybody was so helpful along the way.
“It’s just a neat thing to know he would have liked it. He’s just a legend, and it’s the appropriate thing to do.”
Camuso began working, teaching and coaching in the Fremont Union High School District in 1963. He coached at Cupertino High School and the now-closed Sunnyvale High School, but perhaps made his biggest impact at Homestead High, where he capped off a 25-year tenure as head baseball coach in 2010.
Chuck Camuso also spent more than five decades working as a football and basketball official in Santa Clara Valley, retiring prior to the 2011 sports season.
“‘Moose’ was a great coach, teacher and, most important, a friend to me,” Homestead physical education department chair and teacher Shawn Hook said. “I loved that at 73 or 74, he still had a fire to compete and cared about the kids that he taught and coached. I would often go sit in the dugout with him during games, and he would tell me why baseball was so special to him and that he loved the competition of it all.”
A dedication is scheduled to take place at Homestead High on May 12 at 3:15 p.m. The field is the first to be named at Homestead since the new fields were completed in 2010.
Homestead principal Greg Giglio said the naming of the field is a chance to recognize someone who gave a lot to the district and Homestead community.
“The school itself just celebrated its 50th anniversary, and Chuck was in this district for most of that,” Giglio said. “He represents the legacy of Homestead, and a lot of the athletic program was built around him.
“It’s fitting now to have his name on our fields for future generations to know about this important figure in building that program.”