David Schmalz here. Growing up just east of Berkeley, I heard the name Joe Kapp quite a bit, as my dad was (and is) an avid Cal football fan, and Kapp coached the team for some years in the 1980s, three decades after he played at Cal.
But it wasn’t until the past few years that I really knew who the man was, and that he spent formative years in his youth living in Alisal.
Sadly, I never had a chance to meet the man—who Sports Illustrated once dubbed “The Toughest Chicano”—before he passed away in May of last year.
For this week’s cover story in the Weekly, I took a deeper look into his fascinating life, and the more I researched, the more it became clear he was one of a kind.
It was a labor of love, because there’s no sport I love more than football, but the story has plenty to offer if you’re not a football fan at all—while the sport hangs in the background throughout, it’s the story of Kapp’s life, not his football career.
It’s a breezy read, a look back at a legend whose early years in Salinas shaped him into a man who achieved greatness.
I hope you’ll check it out.