In an interesting turn of events it appears that, pending administrative approval, Joe Kmak will join the St. Francis-Mountain View High baseball coaching staff as an assistant.
Kmak is a former major leaguer who starred at Serra High School and coached for many years under Pete Jensen at Serra. Kmak is also a teacher at Serra.
“I knew who he was when I was coaching at Fremont," said new St. Francis High coach Mike Smith. "I used to watch him coach because I enjoyed watching the WCAL schools play just because of my love of the game and because it helped my coaching. I really appreciated what he did and so after I got the job I reached out to him.”
Kmak has a son, Kevin, who is an underclassman baseball player at St. Francis. The former UC-Santa Barbara and big-league catcher lives in Foster City.
Another of Kmak's sons, Joe, was a star swimmer at Serra, being named the four-time school MVP and winning the CCS championship in the breaststroke as a senior.
Smith is enthused about adding the elder Joe Kmak to the coaching staff.
“When I first spoke to him about it he was excited and I was excited as well,” Smith said. “What he’s done speak for itself. I think our staff will benefit greatly.”
Kmak, Smith said, will coach the varsity catchers and hitters and Eric Pini will continue to handle the pitchers.
Kmak played in the big leagues in 1993 (Milwaukee Brewers) and ’95 (Chicago Cubs), hitting a combined .227 with one home run. A high school teammate at Serra of all-time big league home run champ Barry Bonds, Kmak was a star in his own right, earning Serra’s Blanket Award (most valuable player) in 1981, capturing the WCAL batting title in 1980, making first team All-WCAL in 1980 and second team in 1981 and first-team all-San Mateo County in ‘80 and ’81. The 1980 Serra team won the WCAL title.
While Kmak was an assistant coach at Serra, the Padres won seven WCAL titles and the 2009 CCS championship, defeating Archbishop Mitty in the title game.
St. Francis is the two-time defending Central Coast Section Open Division champion and a rival of Serra in the WCAL.
Kmak applied for the vacant Serra head coaching job following the 2009 after Jensen retired from coaching, but was not hired.
Regarding Smith taking over the program in general following former Lancer coach Mike Oakland’s decision to coach St. Francis softball, Smith said: “I’m super excited. I’m still getting used to it. I loved working with coach Oak and now I’m excited to take the next step and hope we can continue our success on and off the field.”
