Joan Carol Unger Dinaberg
One of the most loving, kind, tough, and determined people on the planet — Joan Dinaberg — passed away peacefully on February 24, 2025, just a couple weeks after her 87th birthday. A lifelong Californian, she was born in San Francisco, grew up in Beverly Hills, and spent most of her adult life in Santa Barbara. She attended Uni High in Los Angeles, University of Colorado Boulder, UCLA, and Cal State Northridge and it was at UCLA where she met the love of her life, then UCLA lineman Bob Dinaberg.
She was just 18 when they met, and 19 when they married, but as Bob wrote of their union as young college students: “We were married when we both were very young. Besides her beauty, she was the nicest person I had ever met. I knew that if I did not propose soon someone else would and I didn’t want to lose her. That proposal and her acceptance was the highlight of my life.”
Soon after their graduations, the young couple moved to Clovis for Bob’s football coaching position and the birth of their two daughters, Leslie and Pam. Very soon after Pam’s birth, they moved to San Diego for another coaching position at Cal Western University, and then shortly after to their ultimate family home in Santa Barbara, where Bob was the Head Football Coach and Athletic Director at Santa Barbara City College for many decades while Joan was his #1 cheerleader and the de facto hospitality queen, as she always opened their home to his many players and colleagues and made them feel like family.
As her children entered school, Joan began to use her teaching credential, first at Harding and then for many years at Roosevelt School, where she taught with many colleagues who would become her lifelong friends. Joan also began to play tennis in her early thirties, discovering a latent but fiercely competitive side and meeting a whole slew of new lifelong friends on the courts at Cathedral Oaks Tennis Club.
Meeting new lifelong friends was a pattern for Joan, who had so many genuine close relationships it was a bit overwhelming for her family to keep track of — but never Joan! She always had time for a chat over a glass of wine, a kind word and a shoulder to cry on for her many close friends. Whether she met them in her youth, through her family, through work, on the court, on cruise ships, or during her many volunteer hours (at the Breast Cancer Resource Center, Santa Barbara Tennis Patrons, Assistance League, SBCC Booster Club, Assisteens, Dyslexia Resource Center, and Housing Authority after school programs, among others), once Joan befriended you she was your friend for life.
Challenged by breast cancer in her 40s, followed by lung cancer and many other health conditions, which finally led her to a stroke in 2024, Joan was a fighter who continued to fight against her illnesses with dignity and determination for most of the last 50 years. Joan loved to cook, entertain, play cards, and do sudoku. When she couldn’t play tennis anymore she got heavily into crafting, joined three different book clubs, faithfully did water aerobics and continued to surround herself with friends old and new. Despite all of her physical frustrations and pain, as Bob wrote, “She remained the nicest person I know throughout her life. She has an incredible number of people who love her.”
With all of her many cherished friends, her love for her family — including her beloved brother Henry and wife JoAnne, sister-in-law Marilyn and husband Stan, their children and grandchildren, Joan’s daughters Leslie and Pam, their spouses Zak and Brian, and their children (Joan’s adored grandchildren), Lauren, Koss, and Jordan, and Bob, her devoted husband of 67 years — was always front and center in her life and her heart. Even in her last conscious moments, her last instructions were about the family and taking care of each other.
In lieu of flowers, Joan would have loved donations to the Breast Cancer Resource Center (https://bit.ly/3XmPm9Z).