Note: This is part two of a two-part series regarding Land Park resident Lou Coppola.

Land Park’s longtime resident Lou Coppola has certainly drawn much attention for his ongoing work with the Nor Cal Big Bands Preservation Society and his longtime career in radio. Another detail about his life was his involvement in sports, both on and off the radio airwaves.

Voice of the Solons

RADIO BEAT. Lou Coppola, far left, sits alongside KGMS radio owners, left to right, Irv Schwartz, Jack Matranga and Steve George, at an Adlai Stevenson for president speech on the state Capitol grounds in October 1952. / Photo courtesy, Lou Coppola

Many former fans of the Sacramento Solons – the Pacific Coast League baseball team that provided entertainment for local sports fans long before the 2000 debut of the Sacramento River Cats – remember Lou. Or they at least remember his voice.

It was Lou’s voice that was heard at Edmonds Field at Riverside Boulevard and Broadway during the Solons’ latter years in Sacramento.

The son of Italian immigrants Emilio and Rosa Coppola, Lou worked at the stadium as the Solons’ public address announcer from 1956 to 1958 and in 1960.

‘Can-do’ attitude

Obtaining the job was a self-motivated endeavor, Lou recalled.

“I had heard that (Solons co-owner) Fred David was not happy with the guy who was doing the PA, so I went over there and I said, ‘Hey, I do PA, no problem. I’m at home and I’ve done it at all these places. I’ve done radio in Korea and I’ve done radio in Pittsburg and in Oroville and I’ve covered every sport.’ He said, ‘Would you like to go to work?’ And I said, ‘Sure.’ He said, ‘I’ll pay you $10 a night.’ That was a smile. Boy, $10 a night to do the PA!’”

Lou noted that that amount of money was a large upgrade from his former days of being paid $2 per night as the PA man for city softball games in Concord.

He added, “To get the $2 a night, I had to drag the field and line it for the games. In those days, $2 just went so far.”

Play-by-play announcer

Lou’s career also included providing play-by-play radio coverage for Sacramento State College (today’s Sacramento State University) and Christian Brothers, El Camino and Woodland high school sports, promoter J. C. Agajanian’s 200-Miler at the old State Fairgrounds, an LPGA tournament at Valley Hi Country Club and local tennis and boxing competitions. He also interviewed many Major League Baseball players during spring trainings in Tucson, Ariz.

Crafting an image

In 1959, Lou helped create mental images for many radio listeners who tuned into KCRA’s AM radio station for Solons home and away games. KCRA later added the FM station, KCTC.

During one of his recent interviews with this publication, Lou described his memories of that year.

“Only one year did (KCRA owners, the) Kellys decide, ‘We want to take (Solons radio broadcasts) away from KFBK,’ and they made a bid and got it,” Lou said. “I think they paid $32,000. (At Edmonds Field,) I did the engineering, but (Stu Nahan) would do the play-by-play for maybe the first six innings and then he’d have to leave to go do the 10:30 (p.m.) sports on (KCRA) Channel 3 for the TV side. I continued (the play-by-play) by myself, finishing up the game. I also was the official scorekeeper at the same time. I had to score while Stu did the play-by-play and then I did the play-by-play and continued scoring.”

Re-creations

ON THE AIR. Lou Coppola is shown during his KCRA radio years in this 1970s photograph. / Photo courtesy, Lou Coppola

Lou also shared his memories about providing re-creations of Solons away games for the KCRA radio station.

“The re-creations were fun,” Lou recalled. “We borrowed a lot of the things that we heard from other people doing re-creations and the fact that you had to have a certain kind of crowd noise there to emphasize whether it was an important play during the course of the game. We would have to make it sound special that the ball hit the bat and it was going to be a good hit. You had to make that sound. And you would have a little mallet and the mallet would make the sound of the ball hitting the bat. We would have a little hanging bat with a flat surface and one side had been shaved, so when you hit it, it wouldn’t bounce off. The catcher was so close to our microphone – we pretended he was – ball one, outside, ball two. We wouldn’t call curve balls. We could say, high and inside, we could say high and outside, we could say low. From our vantage point, we couldn’t tell really what were the breaking pitches. We could only tell by the speed of the pitch which was a fast ball, which was a breaking pitch. And there weren’t too many pitches in the dirt. The pitchers for the Solons were all very, very accurate. I don’t think they gave a lot of walks, as I remember.”

And in recently re-creating one of his often-used re-creations, Lou slapped the inside of one of his thighs. He then explained that the sound made by this action was used to simulate the sound of a hardball hitting a catcher’s glove.

Tony Koester

Although Lou and Nahan provided radio play-by-play in 1959, the most notable play-by-play Solons game announcer was KFBK’s Tony Koester, who spent about 20 years working in that role.

During the Solons’ final season in 1960, Lou returned to his former position as the Solons’ public address announcer.

Met Solons players

Lou said that he had the opportunity to see many notable Solons players, including infielders Harry Bright, Milt Smith, Nippy Jones and Leo Righetti, catchers Cuno Barragan and Bob Roselli, centerfielder Al Heist and pitchers, Bud Beasley, Marshall Bridges, Roger Osenbaugh and Bud Watkins.

These players played under the managerial direction of the rotund and jovial Tommy Heath.

Unique baseball memory

Although Lou has a great number of baseball-related memories regarding Edmonds Field, when asked to describe one of his favorite moments at the old ballpark, he shared a memory that was not directly associated with the game itself or anyone on the playing field.

“One of the best things that I can say about Edmonds Field is that my son attended a lot of ballgames (at the stadium) – actually before he was born,” Lou said. “The year was 1957 and it was my second year at the PA. I had a box seat for my wife (Betty) given to me by Fred David along the first base line and she was allowed to sit there with Charlie slowly growing inside (of her). And on the night of July the 4th, 1957, Mrs. Coppola, Betty, was saying, ‘I don’t feel good and will you tell Lou, I’m going home?’ And she told the usher to tell me that and he said, ‘She’ll see you at home.’ She got home and I had to do an extra inning ballgame that kept me up past midnight. So, when I got home, it was about 12:15 (a.m.) – we lived in Hollywood Park then – and about a half an hour later, she said, ‘I think we’ve got to go to the hospital. I think the time has come.’ We got over in about 15 minutes to Sutter Memorial (Hospital) and we had in 35 or 40 minutes a new boy, a new son, Charles Christopher Coppola.”

And as a sort of icing on the cake, Lou added that the Solons won the extra inning affair, 2-1.

Unfortunately for the baseball city of Sacramento, after the 1960 departure of the Solons, it was without a professional ballclub until 1974, when another PCL team, which was also known as the Sacramento Solons, began the first of its three years playing at Hughes Stadium.

Another professional baseball drought followed until the arrival of the River Cats.

‘Thrills galore’

Lou, who also played as the catcher for the Concord Athletic Club’s traveling team from 1947 to 1950 and spent 19 years playing on a Golden Seniors Softball Club of Sacramento team, said that he fondly looks back on his days of working for the Solons.

“It was low key, compact and kind of challenging (working in the PA box), but it was just enriching,” Lou said. “For a baseball guy who played in high school and semipro for about 10 years in the Bay Area, it was a great experience working for the so-called ‘open league.’ It gave me thrills galore. It was good baseball, good offense and defense and good guys.”

Note: This is part one of a two-part series regarding Sacramento resident Lou Coppola.

Many Sacramento area seniors, especially those from the Land Park and Riverside-Pocket areas, are very familiar with the name, Lou Coppola.

BIG ON THE BIG BANDS. Lou Coppola of the Nor Cal Big Bands Preservation Society holds some of his favorite CDs, including a CD with recordings of the Benny Goodman Orchestra. / Valley Community Newspapers photo, Lance Armstrong

And in addition to being familiar with Coppola, who is a longtime Land Park resident, many of these seniors are very appreciative of him.

This is so, because they understand his role in preserving the music of their era – big band music of the 1920s through the 1950s.

After all, it was Coppola, 84, who founded the Nor Cal Big Bands Preservation Society, which hosts nine or 10 dances per year at Elk Lodge No. 6 at 6446 Riverside Blvd. in Sacramento.

Organization beginnings

The year was 2001 when Coppola and four big band leaders founded the society as a way of preserving a genre of music that was dear to their hearts.

The original bands of the society, which played a mix of tempos from swing to cha chas, were Bill Rase, Orval “Buddy” Harpham, Len Casey and George Bruno.

Today, Buddy Harpham, 90, continues to lead his band at the society’s dances.

The dances’ other main leaders for many years have been 86-year-old Fred Morgan and 77-year-old Warner Seargeant, who was the SwingMasters orchestra’s leader as of this month. Beginning in March, the SwingMasters new leader will be Bob Fry, a retired, 23-year band leader with the U.S. Navy and a graduate of the Navy School of Music.

Also performing at the dances are youth bands consisting of students from Rio Americano, El Camino and Pleasant Grove high schools and a group of Davis area students led by music instructor Celia Cottle.

Although Coppola’s society does not have a committee, he said that the organization receives assistance from sponsors, including the Avalon Hearing Aid Centers, which are owned by Michael Kemp and his wife Betty Voosters Kemp, and other help such as those who provide desserts and prizes.

Commenting about this assistance, Coppola said, “Volunteers and the many dance hosts provide both musical help and great food.”

He added that the society is always in search of additional volunteers and sponsors.

Singing with nuns

Coppola said that his involvement in music basically began when he was 12 years old.

“Music began with me thanks to two nuns at a Catholic church in Concord, Calif.,” Coppola said. “The two nuns said, as they listened to me, ‘You’re 12 years old and you should be singing and you should be singing the Latin Mass. And I said, “But I don’t know Latin.’ They said, ‘We’ll teach you and we’ll practice.’ And that’s what we did after school and I sang the Mass for about two years.”

Coppola, who was a tenor at the time and has been a baritone since he was 14, also sang in the church’s adult choir during the same era.

His early experience with music also included singing in grammar school under the direction of his teacher, Mrs. Davis, who taught her class English, Spanish and Italian songs.

While attending Mt. Diablo High School in Concord, Coppola, who eventually became the high school’s student body president, sang in the school’s choir and attended many dances.

Coppola’s instructor at Mt. Diablo High was Howard Brubeck, the brother of the legendary jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck.

In reminiscing about his early memories of big band music, Coppola said, “It was the music of the 1930s that really was our TV or digital camera of today. The records, if we could afford them, we would go and get and we had turntables – some of us had turntables – and later on we had 45s. And the 45s were even a smaller (media). The 45s became like the later CDs.”

Saturday night dances

Because of his love of the covers of music of the era that was being played by bands at his high school, Coppola was inspired to attend dances at the Masonic Temple in Concord. The big orchestra that played at the venue was Hank Gallagher, a band that Coppola later emceed and recorded every Saturday night at Concord’s Diablo Country Club in 1949.

Coppola said that the Masonic Temple dances furthered his love for big band music.

“(The high school dances) turned me on to go down to the dances put on at the Masonic Temple for 50 cents every Saturday night,” Coppola said. “I went there when I was 16, 17 and 18 years old. Concord had a very active group and it was very well done. It was supervised and there was no liquor, people never got into fights and everybody danced with everybody. The gals didn’t turn you down and you had kind of a gradual friendship gathering.”

Broadcasting beginnings

Through Coppola’s singing ability, he was recruited in 1944 to be the first person to operate a PA system for Mt. Diablo High’s football games.

After high school, from 1945 through 1947, Coppola was a member of the U.S. Merchant Marine, at which time he sailed mostly in the South Pacific.

Toward the end of 1947, Coppola enrolled at San Francisco State University, where he followed the lead of his former social studies teacher, who encouraged him to become involved in radio.

Coppola said that one of his finest memories of attending San Francisco State is his involvement in helping to establish the school’s first radio station.

Radio talent

Although he had planned on graduating from San Francisco State, Coppola said that he was lured away to Pittsburg, Calif., where a new radio station was about to be opened.

“I was hired by the station KECC (representing East Contra Costa) 990 AM to mainly handle sales and sports and live remotes,” Coppola said.

In 1950, Coppola was drafted to serve in the Korean War.

LOU COPPOLA discusses his lifelong love for music. / Valley Community Newspapers photo, Lance Armstrong

Within six months of joining the Army, however, Coppola was transferred by Eighth United States Army request to be a part of the new Armed Forces radio network, AFRS (Armed Forces Radio Service) in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The five-station network’s purpose was to bring music, news and sports to roughly 400,000 troops.

His initial 12-month assignment was operating the eight-man vagabond radio station in Seoul.

Following his service overseas and after entering civilian life, Coppola began his major work in radio in Sacramento in 1952 with KGMS 1380 AM.

A year later, he was selected by the owner of radio station KYA 1260 AM in San Francisco to assist in the operation of a small, 1,000-watt station in Oroville. The station, KOMR 1340 AM, covered Butte County.

One of the highlights of Coppola’s time with KOMR from 1953 to 1955 was broadcasting information regarding the critical flood of December 1955.

Coppola recalled how the floodwaters of the Feather River reached within four feet of the top of the levee and less than 50 feet from the station’s building and transmitter.

In January 1956, Coppola returned to Sacramento to work for KCRA AM 1320, which was owned and operated by the Kelly Broadcasting Co. and the Hansen family of the Crystal Cream and Butter Co.

It was also in 1956 that Coppola married one of his co-workers, Betty Groth, at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. The couple had their only child, Charles “Chuck”, 13 months later.

In 1977, 1320 AM was purchased by Chicago Tribune Properties and became known as KGNR.

KGNR was also affiliated with KSFM 96.1 FM – today’s KYMX, “Mix 96.”

A highlight of Coppola’s time with KGNR was his travel talk show, which aired from 1982 to 1996.

Through his show, “Travel Talk,” Coppola would escort groups to different parts of the world.

On one occasion, he headed a Korean Revisit event, which presented an opportunity for ex-servicemen, who served in Korea from 1950 to 1955, to revisit Korea.

Coppola also traveled to Hong Kong on a food trip with Lena Fat of the local Fat family restaurants and about 30 people in 1992.

Coppola retired from KGNR in 1996, when the station was sold to Henry Broadcasting, which was sold about two years later to Intercom, owner of four other Sacramento stations.

Despite his retirement, Coppola continued working for 1320 AM, voicing commercials and emceeing the station’s big band dances until the formation of the society.

Coppola said that as a “radio man” he was a sort of “a jack of all trades,” since he was versatile in all areas of the radio field.

“I covered sports in Sacramento and Korea (such as the 1952 Olympic Boxing Trials),” Coppola said. “I interviewed various Hollywood, music, sports and political celebrities, including Ginger Rogers, Duke Ellington, Arthur Fiedler, Betty Hutton and Raymond Burr, and I was involved in promotions, commercials and grand openings for local businesses. For me, my life has been filled with good socialization, including sports, information and music of the great era of America’s songbook.”

lance@valcomnews.com