Former art school, gallery and bookstore owner Philip T. "Peter" Cate, a longtime soccer coach and referee, a friend to countless students at Santa Fe Preparatory School and a man with twinkling eyes and a penchant for corny jokes, died Sunday in Santa Fe. He was 91.

Cate brought soccer to Prep after moving here from the Boston area with his wife, Marsie, in 1970, and refereed games well into his 80s.

Prep athletic director Todd Kurth said that in recent years, any time he ran a soccer game on the school's field, "I always set a chair out for him, and he would invariably show up."

Not only that, Kurth said, but "he would always tell me what my teams were doing wrong. And he always had a word for officials to let them know whether they were out of place, or what calls they missed — always in a polite way. He was always trying to improve the game."

While he had a passion for the youth sport — and coached Prep to two state championships — Cate was instrumental in forming the Santa Fe Adult Soccer Club in 1978.

Cate was also known for his jokes, especially one in which he would stop somebody, hold his pointer finger and thumb in a circle and claim he could poke his own eye through the circle. People would give him a funny look, and then he would poke his eye through the hole with a finger from the other hand. His friends say they couldn't resist chuckling.

Steve Machen, former head of Prep and now chairman of the school's language department, said, "The unforgettable things about Peter are his very quick wit, his absolute love of language, his sparkling eyes and smile, and his disposition. He was very easygoing and not critical. Kids appreciated that about him."

In addition to coaching and refereeing soccer and later watching Blue Griffins games, Cate also helped out with the middle-school physical education program and assisted in the Prep library.

June Dickinson said she met him when she took a photography course at the Los Llanos School of Arts and Crafts on Old Santa Fe Trail, which the Cates founded. Later, when she was newly divorced and living in Santa Fe, Peter helped her older son, Jamie, transition to a new home. "He was very difficult. Peter took him under his wing and completely turned him around, just being a father figure. To this day, Jamie still considers him his surrogate father."

Cate was born Sept. 28, 1918, in Cambridge, Mass. He graduated from the Cate School in Carpinteria, Calif., which was owned by an uncle, in 1937. Daughter Nancy Cate said he went to work after high school to help support his divorced mother. He met Marsie at her house in Cambridge in 1941, and they married six weeks later. He was drafted into the Army and was sent to Europe 90 days after the D-Day invasion.

After his discharge, Nancy Cate said her father worked for a sporting-goods store and with his wife ran a bed-and-breakfast inn in New Hampshire. He taught skiing at Cranmore Mountain and was later an assistant to the headmaster at Cambridge School of Weston, where he coached skiing and soccer.

After moving to Santa Fe, the Cates opened their arts-and-crafts school, then started a cooperative art studio and gallery on Canyon Road, also named Los Llanos. That also was the name they later gave to the bookstore they operated between 1981 and 1993, first on East San Francisco Street and later in Sanbusco Center.

Marsie Cate died in 2002.

Nancy Cate summed her father up by saying, "He loved soccer, he loved Prep and he loved making people laugh."

Machen said he once asked Cate the secret of his longevity, and he replied, "Well, I haven't worked in an office for 30 years."

Cate was named a Santa Fe Living Treasure in 2008. He is also survived by his son, Duncan W. Cate of West Roxbury, Mass.; two grandchildren; three stepgrandsons; and six great-grandchildren. A memorial service at Prep is tentatively scheduled for Nov. 8.

Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or aconstable@sfnewmexican.com.