The event will support memorial fund in memory of Estancia Graduate Brian Kapko.
By Andrew Edwards
Daily Pilot
October 6, 2005
Former Estancia High School football star Brian “Bubba” Kapko’s name has been attached to a new golf tournament intended to preserve his memory and aid local athletes.
“We wanted to put this memorial on for him,” said Dan Oliver, president of the Estancia High School Athletic Booster Club, which is organizing the tournament.
“He was such an interesting kid. He was larger than life when you saw him on campus.
“I’m getting choked up just thinking about the kid.”
Kapko’s life was remembered in a September memorial service that was attended by about 850 people. The well-liked 19-year-old was killed in an August car crash in Colorado.
The inaugural Bubba Kapko Memorial Tournament is scheduled to be held Nov. 14 at the Costa Mesa Country Club’s Los Lagos Course. The competition is set to play out in a “shamble” style with shotgun starts.
A shamble means the members of each group each hit a drive for each hole, and teammates pick the best shot and each play from that spot. The best score from the group is tallied.
The booster club held a golf tournament called the Booster Classic, along with an auction, in the spring, Oliver said. From now on, the club plans to hold its golf tournament in the fall and keep the auction in the spring.
Tournament details are still being worked out, Oliver said. He and other organizers are still looking for corporate sponsors and figuring out how the proceeds will be divvied up. Money gained through the tournaments is set to be divided between scholarships for Estancia’s student-athletes and the Brian Kapko Memorial Fund.
Mike Scheafer, a former Costa Mesa City Councilman and friend of the Kapko family, started the Brian Kapko Memorial Fund. He said the former athlete’s parents will direct how money donated to the fund will be spent.
“The family’s going to decide how to use the money,” he said. “It’s going to go to scholarships or to underprivileged kids. Whatever Rick and Nancy [Brian Kapko’s parents] want to do with it.”
Oliver and Scheafer both want the event to become a Costa Mesa tradition. “His name is going to live on forever, as far as I’m concerned,” Oliver said.