Ex-Track Coach Jack Rose Dies From Choking

Dr. Jack W. Rose, former head track and field coach at Long Beach State, died from choking on a piece of meat, his son Mark said Tuesday.

Rose, who was 66, died Monday night. Efforts by paramedics failed to save him.

Rose was the track coach at Long Beach State from 1956-73. He is a past president of the National Track and Field Coaches Association, and helped found the USA Track & Field Hall of Fame, originally located in Charleston, W.Va., and now located in Indianapolis.

“Without Jack Rose, there is no USA Track & Field Hall of Fame here,” Pete Cava, the organization’s media information officer, said from Indianapolis. “He was a major fixture in transferring the Hall of Fame from West Virginia here in 1986.”

Rose was dining with his wife Susan in their Long Beach home when a piece of steak apparently got lodged in his throat.