Sutton was born September 23, 1938, in Victorville and grew up in South Pasadena. He graduated from Occidental College, where he majored in physical education, life science and social science.
He went on to Cal State Los Angeles, graduating with a master's degree. He played baseball during his high school and college years.
In 1969, he married Heather Schommer in Malibu. The couple moved to Glendale and he began his teaching and coaching career at Hoover High School.
He moved his family to Agoura, where he taught and coached basketball and girls softball from 1973 to 1978 at Agoura Hills High School.
For the next two years, he was dean of students at Calabasas High School.
He was dean of students at Oak Park High School from 1980 to 1982 and principal from 1982 to 1988.
He moved to Salinas, where he taught at Pacific Grove High School in Monterey for a couple of years, before moving back to Agoura.
He was principal of Calabasas High School until retiring in 1998.
For the past two years, he and his wife have lived in Salinas.
His hobbies included reading, golfing, basketball, baseball and watching horse racing.
In addition to his wife of 31 years, he is survived by their daughter, Katrina Sutton Gilpatric of Brentwood; sons, Mike of Corona and Brian of Laguna Hills; and eight grandchildren.
Los Angeles Times, September 24, 2000
James Tomlin (1961)
Remembering Bob SuttonBob was our baseball coach in Middle League 1957 and 1958. We were something like 28-4 and Bob was selected as the all-star coach. He was only about 20 himself when he started but even then he was a great teacher, so it's no surprise that he went on to be an outstanding educator. We sometimes practiced on Saturday mornings and then Bob would take us to the beach. The last time I saw Bob in 1975 he was a basketball coach, and had taken his Agoura team to the CIF 4A finals where they had the misfortune to play Verbum Dei. He was a great guy and a teriffic role model.
I once watched him play a double header when he was at Oxy. He was hitting something like .425 at the time, but went 0 for 5 in the opening game. In between the games we talked, and he said,
"0 for 5, sorry you had to see that, but you know what that means?"
"No," I replied.
"It means I'm due."
True to his vision, Bob homered and doubled in the second game, driving in four runs. He was selected All Conference that year for the second time.
RIP
Tom Bauer (1956)
Bob was one of my very closest friends from junior high through college. He was warm, caring, and a heck of a lot of fun to be around. To show what a great friend he was, one day Phil Towle conned Bob and I into putting on the boxing gloves and sparring with each other. Neither of us was too enthused. A few seconds into the "fight" Bob landed a right cross on my jaw and I fell. I wasn't really hurt, but tears welled up in Bob's eyes and he began to cry. That's the kind of guy he was. I'm so glad to learn that he had such a successful life.