David Matuszak

Early years

Matuszak is the youngest of three sons born to retired school teachers, Frank and Vera Matuszak. His childhood was influenced by Western culture. In The Cowboy’s Trail Guide to Westerns, he remembers his early years during the golden years of the Hollywood Western. Many afternoons were spent playing Cowboys and Indians. “I was 6 years old...and riding with the ‘Ardendale Kids.’ We were a tough bunch. Riding Schwinn ponies with our Mattel ‘Fanner Fifties’ strapped to our side, we roamed the length of Ardendale Avenue in the suburbs of Los Angeles every afternoon from three to five.” Matuszak attended Holy Angels parochial school located directly across from Santa Anita thoroughbred racetrack. The racetrack culture further fostered his love of horses and the West. In the summer of 1960 at the age of six, he began nearly two decades of annual retreats to the backwoods of the Oregon Cascades. There the family operated Moose Creek Boys' Ranch. At “the ranch” he learned to shoot, horseback ride, fish, pan for gold, log, and other frontier skills that would shape his adulthood. At the ranch he became an NRA competition range master at the age of fourteen.

During his eighth grade confirmation at Holy Angels church, Matuszak, born without a middle name, chose Francis as his confirmation name because of his admiration for Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, nature, and the environment. Thereafter, he used the name David F. Matuszak.

The son of a high school coach, Matuszak was exposed to a wide variety of sports at an early age. He excelled in baseball and wrestling. At the age of eighteen he became a southern California (CIF) high school wrestling official. Matuszak earned a bachelor's and master's degree in Kinesiology from California State University, Long Beach. Later he earned his doctorate degree in both Western history and exercise science.

In 1977, Matuszak left Long Beach to accept a head wrestling coach and teaching position at Yucaipa High School. In 2010 he began his 34th year on the staff. Matuszak’s teaching position allowed ample vacation time to pursue frontier adventures.

During the 1980s, Matuszak performed with The California Bounty Hunters. The Bounty Hunters were widely recognized throughout the 1960s 70s, and 80s as one of the most authentic Wild West re-enactor shows in the country.

In the mid-1980s, Matuszak completed training at both the San Bernardino and Riverside County Sheriff’s Academies in preparation for his service as a peace officer with the Redlands Mounted Police.

Author

In his The Cowboy’s Trail Guide to Westerns, Matuszak chronicles the first century of Western filmmaking and compares the real West with the “reel” West. Charlton Heston commented, “[Matuszak] has in hand a remarkable book on a crucial subject…the American Western.” He is a popular speaker at Western film festivals and acts as a Western filmmaking consultant.

In Matuszak’s Nelson Point: Portrait of a Northern Gold Rush Town, he chronicles living conditions during the California Gold Rush. Matuszak allows the miners to tell their own story through their journals, diaries, and other primary source data.

Educator

Matuszak is a pioneer educator, writer, and researcher in the areas of kinesiology, biomechanics, and curriculum. His teachings and books, The Elementary Teacher’s Guide to the Gold Rush and The Physical Educator’s Guide to Portfolios, have guided educators for nearly three decades.

During his tenure at Yucaipa High School, Matuszak developed the Kinesiology and Physical Education department into one of California’s model programs. In 1991, he was named California’s co-physical educator of the year. His work with the California Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (CAHPERD) has been instrumental in drafting policy and curriculum for decades.

Coach

Matuszak was the head wrestling coach in 1976 at Mayfair High School in Lakewood. In 1977 he became the head wrestling coach at Yucaipa High School in Yucaipa. At Yucaipa High School he was also head girls' gymnastics coach, head girls' volleyball coach, and currently assists with the school's baseball program.

Businessman

Matuszak is the CEO of Pacific Sunset Enterprises. He oversees the daily operation of Pacific Sunset Publishing, Pacific Sunset Livestock, and Pacific Sunset Surf and Snowboarding Apparel.

Environmental

The housing boom and indiscriminate development of Riverside and San Bernardino County wild lands in the early 1980s alarmed Matuszak. When urban sprawl and pollution threatened Matuszak’s ranch lands and hunting grounds, he became politically active. By 1988, he joined a new grass roots environmental organization, the Friends of Live Oak Canyon. In 1990, he was elected president and has served in that capacity ever since.

His work to fight pollution and large-scale track home developments by corporate building interests is credited with preserving significant portions of Southern California wild lands.

In 2006, Matuszak filed a San Bernardino County Grand Jury Complaint accusing the City of Redlands of the misappropriation of Environmental mitigation funds.

Health & Safety

Matuszak is a consumer and political activist focusing on health and safety issues.

Sports doping

In the early 1980s, Matuszak became concerned about the use of steroids in professional sports. By the late 1980s, he became alarmed by the growing use of steroids in high school sports and began to campaign against them. By 2009, he witnessed clear evidence of an epidemic of steroid use by high school athletes. In 2010, Matuszak concluded his sports doping research and released his public awareness anti-doping program, PEDs: High Sports’ Dirty Little Secret.

Frontiersman

“Matuszak’s fascination with frontier life has taken him all over the West. During each experience he duplicated wherever possible an authentic frontier adventure. Breaking and training horses then packing them across the West. Whether it was riding in a modern Old West show, training and riding horses with Mexican charros, riding with the mounted posse, competing in shooting competitions with Old West weapons, bowhunting or just stretching barbed wire in the desert southwest, nearly every aspect of his life has contributed to his understanding of frontier life.” Matuszak drew from these experiences when he wrote The Cowboy’s Trail Guide to Westerns. “He explores the unique relationship between the myth and spirit of the Old West by comparing the real West with Hollywood’s myth.”

During the summer of 1981, while packing across the Cascades on horseback, he encountered a gold prospector dredging in a mountain stream where he learned to pan as a child. The following summer he filed mining claims in both the Cascades and Sierra Nevada Mountains. Matuszak partook in the modern gold rush of the early 1980s. During that time he began the research for his doctoral dissertation about the California Gold Rush. That research led to his classic gold rush history, Nelson Point: Portrait of a Northern Gold Rush Town.

Wishing to experience the last two frontiers remaining in North America before they disappeared, Matuszak planned expeditions to Baja California, and Alaska. Soon after learning to surf in the early 1970s at Huntington Beach, California, Matuszak grew fond of the Baja frontier. He made regular surfing safaris there for decades. In the 1990s, he became one of the earliest participants in the building of an American surfer’s colony at Punta San Jacinto where today he regularly surfs and visits his Mexican vaquero friends.

In the summer of 1991, Matuszak made a solo prospecting expedition to the Brooks Range in Alaska. Legendary bush pilot, John Hankee, flew him from Bettles to the Glacier River. Hankee left Matuszak and his German Shepherd dog on the banks of the Glacier River. Midway through the expedition, Matuszak was burned out by wildfires. He packed nearly 30 miles to safety at a remote mining site where he hitched a ride to an oil pipeline truck stop. It was there when the smoke cleared that Hankee landed his Piper Cub plane and retrieved Matuszak.

During the bicentennial years (2004–2006) of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Matuszak and his teenage son, Christopher, followed the Lewis and Clark trail. They re-enacted portions of the expedition and utilized period supplies, tools, weapons, and provisions.

In 2009, Matuszak founded the Californio Ranch Roping Club in order to revive the traditions of the Californio vaquero. “Californio Ranch Roping Club is dedicated to preserving the art of the Californio vaquero ranch-style roping. It is our intention to practice the traditional roping techniques of the Californio and to utilize their traditional reatas, bits, spurs, saddles, tack, gear, attire, and customs.”