In Memoriam: Doug Rossi, 1954-2022

Doug Rossi, in 2016, who often said, “I never met a swim I didn’t like.”

Doug Rossi’s lifelong love affair with sports began when he was a boy in the late 1950s in his parents’ backyard on 21st Street in Santa Monica, where he and his older brothers Jon and Chris played wiffle ball with avocado trees as their backstop. The boys loved baseball and would take long bus rides from Santa Monica to watch Dodgers games at the L.A. Coliseum. Doug’s abiding affection for the transcendent nature of Dodgers announcer Vin Scully’s voice started then as Doug began to discover his talents as a natural athlete with a love of competition, sportsmanship, and team camaraderie.

At Santa Monica High School, Doug added varsity basketball to his sports repertoire and continued playing through his years at Amherst College in Massachusetts. The spark of competitiveness that propelled his success in sports may have led him to law school at USC. Following graduation in 1979, Doug began a lifelong career at the storied Price, Postel & Parma law firm in Santa Barbara, where he first worked as a law clerk, and at the time of his death last June 2022, he had become the firm’s senior partner. He and his estate planning practice were highly respected throughout the region and beyond.

Santa Barbara was already home to Doug’s family when he and his new wife, Suzanne Sanders, arrived in 1979. Doug’s parents, Alex and Dale (Rhodehamel) Rossi, were both natives. Doug’s paternal grandparents had emigrated from northwestern Italy. They lived on East De la Guerra Street, where the Rossi boys enjoyed many holidays, always with their grandmother’s homemade chicken ravioli from her family recipe, which required a key ingredient: ground chicken feet. Doug’s Rhodehamel grandparents lived nearby on North Alisos Street, and at their country home — the historic Ballard Adobes/Stagecoach Station near Los Olivos. Doug’s maternal great-grandfather, James Sloan, came to Summerland as an agent for the Southern Pacific railroad in the 1890s and served as Santa Barbara’s mayor in the early 1920s.

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