Golf tournament to honor football star

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.

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers business and the environment. He can be

reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at

[email protected].