Lester Bond was a coach, educator, husband, father, and a friend. His legacy continues through the many lives he touched in the 209.
Bond died of pancreatic cancer on Aug. 14, in the comfort of his Manteca home, surrounded by loved ones. He was 80 years old.
“This was a very big surprise to us,” June Bond, wife of Lester Bond, told The Stockton Record. She described her husband as someone who “loved people” and “saw the best in everybody.”
“People really don’t know how much he loved everybody,” she said. “Somebody would walk by and he would remember, oh, that’s the guy that went to Cal and this is what he did, or this is the guy, he works for PG&E and he’s really good at what he does, or she jumped this far and that’s really good, she’s got a lot of potential.”
Track pioneer’s early beginnings
Bond was born on Oct. 27, 1943, in Chicago, Illinois.
His parents were native Tennesseans and he had an older brother, Bruce Bond who died in the 1980s, June said. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was a child.