[Editor’s Note: Technical difficulty occurred when this story originally ran nine days ago.]
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Mr. Chabola as a young man
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From left, June Chabola and Joe Chabola flank their children, Jackie Flannery, Judy Chabola and Jerry Chabola
A funeral mass for Joe Chabola, father of longtime Culver City High School coach/athletic director/teacher Jerry Chabola, was held last Mondayat St. Mark’s Catholic Church, Venice.
Mr. Chabola, who was 90 years old, died Tuesday, Oct. 1, following a fall in mid-summer.
A carpenter most of his life, he moved his family from his native western Pennsylvania, the tiny community of Linnesville, to Southern California, home to his in-laws, in 1955. They timed the move to arrive before Jerry would start school. He spent his 20 final working years with LAUSD, as a carpenter and maintenance supervisor.
But Mr. Chabola’s primary, all-consuming identification was otherwise.
An enormously active father/coach/athlete/sportsman until his final months, his profile is an exact forerunner of son Jerry’s – intimate involvement in a panoply of sports was his daily menu until he suffered a fall in July and went into decline.
Last May 28, on his 90th birthday, Mr. Chabola and his son played 18 holes at the Westchester Golf Course. He even birdied a par-3 hole.
“That is a huge, huge memory right now,” Jerry said.
Sports was Joe Chabola’s life, Jerry Chabola said as he reflected today on his father’s richly lived life.
“When he was five years old, he sustained an extremely serious injury to his foot,” Jerry said. “In spite of that, he was an all-county basketball player and baseball player. He was an outdoorsman, and he coached kids his whole life.”
He sounds like the first Jerry Chabola.
“He was amazing,” his son said, “and he was significantly better than I, I’ll tell you that.
“He always had a passion for sports, whether organized team sports or hunting, fishing, boating. Being outdoors was his persona.
“When he moved to the West Coast, he didn’t have as much opportunity for the hunting and fishing. As (Jerry and his two younger sisters) got older, he tended to gravitate to boats, used boats he monkeyed around with, fussed around with, fixed up good enough that we could water ski and do things like that as kids.”
“Camping always was a big part of his life. Moving to the West Coast was big decision because he left behind that whole outdoors part of his life. It was a sacrifice for him.
The Chabola girls, Judy, now deceased, and Jackie, were cheerleaders and deeply involved in competitive activities. Judy was group choreographer for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and she also worked in the Olympics at Barcelona and Atlanta while choreographing halftime performances for 10 Super Bowls.
When Judy began her career as a special education teacher, her father, ever handy and willing, created platforms for students who were not ambulatory so they could have an entryway into a pool to learn with his daughter.
“He would do all of those things – it didn’t matter,” Jerry said.
“He has coached all of our grandchildren. When (my son) Casey was in Little League, he helped coach that team. He was a guy who was just involved, always in the middle.
“In the Knights of Columbus, he was a knight for 30 years, and he ran their free throw shooting contest for 25 years. He would get elementary school kids together and take them to different cities.
“He and my mom (June) square danced for 40 years.
“He bowled right up until last May or June. He was in a league in Westchester. The week before he finally had to back off from bowling, he bowled two 200 games.”
Joe Chabola’s legacy?
“The man was incredible,” Jerry said.
He was born May 28, 1923, in Pennline, which straddles the Pennsylvania/Ohio state lines.
Sixty-five years ago, he married a girl named June, and when their children were named Jerry, June and Jackie, they were known as The Five J’s.
Besides his widow June, Mr. Chabola is survived by son Jerry and his wife Janet, daughter Jackie and her husband Patrick Flannery of Redondo Beach, grandsons Casey Chabola (Kim), P.J. Flannery and Shane Flannery, granddaughter Janice Beighey (Robert), and great-grandchildren Kayla, Sierra and Joey Chabola, Hannah, Justin and Tyler Beighey.
Mr. Chabola’s ashes will be buried here and near his Pennsylvania hometown.
