For the past five years, Stephen Stramback has been helping
local high school and community college athletes continue their
education while playing the game he loved
— golf. And, the 1998 Live Oak High graduate has done it despite
his tragic death at the age of 19 in an automobile accident five
years ago.
For the past five years, Stephen Stramback has been helping local high school and community college athletes continue their education while playing the game he loved — golf.
And, the 1998 Live Oak High graduate has done it despite his tragic death at the age of 19 in an automobile accident five years ago.
That’s because Stramback’s father, George, and friends have kept his memory alive through an annual fundraising golf tournament that awards scholarships to local golfers.
“It’s a way to remember him,” George Stramback said, “and to let others remember him.”
The Fifth Annual Stephen Michael Stramback Golf Tournament will tee off at noon on Monday at Coyote Creek Golf Club. Check-in is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. for the shotgun scramble format event.
The event includes a post-tourney awards banquet, a raffle and a silent auction. This year’s theme is “Sunflower Garden,” and the raffle will include gardening-related items.
Auction items include a Barry Bonds-autographed baseball, an autographed Felipe Alou jersey, Giants tickets, a Jeff Garcia-autographed football, wine from Guglielmo and Kirigin, golf packages and lessons, spa treatments, and more.
There will also be a $10,000 hole-in-one prize on No. 16, and a putting contest, as well as tee prizes.
Cost is $175, or $40 for the banquet only, and there is space available. Details: call 779-6407 or 778-0115.
Over the years, the event has raised more than $45,000 and awarded about $12,500 in scholarships to 25 student-athletes from Live Oak High, Gilroy High and Gavilan College.
This year’s winners, who will be feted at the awards banquet, include: Live Oak’s Braden Goodere, Sean Woodland and Maggie Taylor (the second female scholarship winner), Gilroy’s Ryan Dinsmore, and Gavilan’s Chris Ericksen, Brian Mikrut, Kevin Noto and Kevin Moyles.
The rest of the money goes into the Stephen Michael Stramback Memorial Trust Fund, which will be used to eventually make the golf tournament self-sustaining.
George Stramback said helping young golfers pay for their educations is the ideal way to honor his son’s memory and devotion to the game.
Stephen Stramback picked up the game during the summer before his junior year at Live Oak when he and his dad took golfing lessons.
The following season, Stephen Stramback joined a Live Oak boys golf team that included John Ellis, Chris Ellis and childhood friend David Letts, among others, and would go on to win a Central Coast Section title in 1998.
His teammates were among the first scholarship award winners from the first golf tourney held in Stephen’s memory in 2000.
Today, John Ellis is a professional golfer who recently played in his first pro event at the AT&T at Pebble Beach, Chris is in college on a golf scholarship, and Letts has graduated from college and returned to Morgan Hill, where he works as a lifeguard at the new Aquatics Center and helps coach water polo.
They are just a part of the growing legacy left by Stephen Michael Stramback and his memory.
