It was the last day of January when remnants of San Diego County’s Chicano Movement and Reagan-era Sweetwater High School Red Devils a bit long in the tail filled Our Lady of Angels in Sherman Heights to welcome the Beef Daddy into the afterlife.
Mark Baca, 58, the playful National City chavalito who became an unlikely and unforgettable basketball star, died of cancer New Year’s Day. He was already a SUHI legend. His friends insist he is now the guardian angel of the Red Devils.
Pages of the Star News in the mid-1980s were awash in the exploits of the basketball standout who looked more like Kenan Thompson than Klay Thompson. His burly frame made him a force in the paint and inspired his teammates to bestow his bovine moniker.
SUHI cheerleaders waved signs imploring “Where’s the Beef?” as sportswriters from the San Diego Union and Star News queued up for one of his witty post-game quips. Star News sports staff nominated him for News Maker of the Year, probably with tongues in cheeks but grateful for the great copy and gut busting quotes. He was not exactly the paragon of fitness or anywhere near the best athlete at SUHI but was chosen Big Man on Campus in a rout. Beef Daddy was the face of his campus and a source of pride in National City.
On this day X’s and O’s gave way to Ecclesiastes. “There is a time to speak out and a time for silence” read his cousin. Seldom had such an outspoken crowd been so silent as when Mark’s family entered the church carrying his mortal remains in a cardinal, white and grey urn – Sweetwater to the end. A floral arrangement of the same colors was an oversized 84 with a sash that read “Beef Daddy” draped at a graceful angle across the petals. It was his graduation year and his favorite number. His expansive, freshly dry cleaned letterman’s jacket cast a shadow over the altar.
Our Lady of the Angels was the perfect venue for Beef Daddy’s final game of his season on earth. A sanctuary in the venerable Chicano neighborhood of Sherman Heights, it is a cozy chapel with smooth wooden pews whose backs are worn past the varnish to its original grain, stained by the sweat and oil of countless hands. Kneelers with upholstery tattered by legions of petitioners praying for hope, forgiveness, mercy and charity creak under genuflecting mourners.
Legendary muralist Salvador Barajas stood along the back wall like a loyal sentinel, watching over his community as he has watched over Chicano Park since its fiery birth in 1970. A wiry and spry octogenarian, Master Barajas said he did not want to take a seat from a lady or elderly person. There are four Salvador Barajas murals in Chicano Park, one of which features Beef Daddy’s own daddy, the Chicano Rights icon Herman Baca.
South County Chicano royalty populated the congregation – las familias Cazares, Bareno, Avalos, Hernandez, Mendez, Alvarez and many others in the sea of black coats and dresses. It was an honor to marinate in the gathering and a reminder of how far this community has come since the racial profiling, shoot ‘em in the back days of the Wild West 1980s when only the Star News bothered to speak to Herman Baca and give la raza a few column inches.
Colorful, comic Mark Baca was an entertainer but also baptized into la causa. He was six months old when Herman carried him on his first march. He walked on his own during many more, including boycotts of grapes and lettuce on behalf of farm workers. He was a teen who marched to the border to protest the mistreatment of migrants and the ugliness of vigilantes from the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party.
“Mark marched in the Chicano Movement to seek fairness and justice for the poor and defenseless in our community,” his father said. “He cared about the community.”
Heads of black, brown and grey hair nodded in agreement across the audience. Speakers shared tales of Mark Baca’s unquenchable love for National City and Sweetwater High. Countless hours helping football and basketball coaches with video, planning alumni events, co-founding a benefit golf tournament, decorating, cleaning, opening and closing. Herman said the only thing his son loved more was “his 105-year-old dog, Pepe,” a wobbly but energetic perrito that would fit inside a basketball.
“National City has lost an ambassador and an icon,” said Sweetwater coach Gary Zarsky. “Sweetwater High School has lost a legend. Rest in Peace Beef Daddy.”
Max Branscomb is a playwright and Southwestern College journalism professor.
