Larry Heinz, who spent 17 years as the head baseball coach at Rochester High School, died Wednesday morning after a short battle with pancreatic cancer, his family announced. He was 76 years old.
“He definitely has had a long-lasting impact on the program, still to this day,” said Brad Quarnstrom, Rochester’s current baseball coach.
Heinz took over at Rochester in 1985, and proceeded to compile an overall record of 317-82. His Warriors won 11 league titles, five district titles, and two state championships – in 1993 and 1995.
Between 1991 and 2000, Heinz led the Warriors to an .883 winning percentage (227-30) with four trips to the state title game, shaping Rochester’s identity as a program for multiple generations.
“I didn’t know any different,” said Quarnstrom, who himself played for Heinz as a teenager. “That was what I had watched growing up as a kid, was Coach Heinz and the style of baseball and the style of a program he was about. It was ‘give it all you had every single day.’
“I would say that’s the one thing that always impressed me the most about him and I try to emulate — he got every ounce he could out of every kid. He expected it out of you and demanded of you, but not in a bad way. As a player for him, you wanted to do nothing but try to make him happy and try to make him proud of you.”
After he retired in 2002, Rochester named its baseball field in his honor. In 2021, the high school added the name of Justin Rotter, a longtime teacher and assistant coach, at Heinz’s request.
Raised in Spokane, Heinz graduated from North Central High School in 1965 and went to Spokane Community College as a two-sport athlete. There, he starred on the college’s inaugural baseball team in 1966. The team made the state championship game in its first season — at Centralia’s Fort Borst Park.
He also started on SCC’s men’s basketball team as a point guard, helping lead it to a state title in 1967.
From there, he went to Eastern Washington, then the University of Portland.
Along with Rochester, Heinz coached the Centralia American Legion team, which won a state championship in 1993 with Rotter as its ace.
After retiring from teaching and coaching, Heinz moved to Arizona and lived in Goodyear until his death.
Heinz is survived by his wife Karla, his son Erik, his daughter-in-law Quinn, and his three granddaughters: Charlotte, Chandler, and Sawyer.
According to a post on Facebook, his family is currently hoping to organize a memorial in September in Rochester to celebrate his life and impact.
“He’s truly going to be missed, for sure,” Quarnstrom said. “He touched the lives of thousands, if not millions, of people.”
