49ers Kaepernick once a hero, now goat in hometown
URLOCK, Stanislaus County — Hurricane Colin has hit this town hard.
The ferocious nationwide storm caused by Colin Kaepernick’s star-spangled sit-down did some of its deepest psychic damage on the city where he grew up and where he was, until last week, a hero, legend and treasure.
Now Kaepernick isn’t even a cookie or a hot dog.
The cute little 49ers’ No. 7 jersey cookie is no longer available at Olde Tyme pastries, and the Kaepernick-tribute hot dog is off the menu at Footer’s. Karma payback for the young man who has given the town a tummy ache.
“It made me sick,” Mike Anderson says of his reaction when Kaepernick sat out the national anthem last week. “I cry when the national anthem is played.”
Anderson, a Vietnam vet who says Agent Orange caused his cancer, is drowning his angst in a noon hot dog and beer at Hauck’s Grill in Turlock’s historic downtown district, where an American flag flies from every lamppost.
Until the storm, Hauck’s proudly displayed a Kaepernick helmet, signed jersey and photos. They’re now gone.
But Kaepernick himself is about to appear Thursday night, on a dozen TV screens. KapFrenzy? Never happens, not here. This is a hot spot for TV sports, but not tonight, despite the drama over the national anthem, and over Kaepernick’s start, which might be the last stand — NFL-wise — for Turlock’s mystery man.
There are about 20 customers, mostly families and kids. Zero buzz. Zero reaction to Kaepernick’s silent protest at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. Chalk it up to preseason blahs? Turlock Kaepernick burnout?
Who knows? Kaepernick doesn’t sit on the bench — as he said he would continue to do — when the anthem is sung, instead kneeling with teammate Eric Reid. When he takes the field for the game-opening drive, Chargers fans boo him roundly. The catcalls continue throughout the night, every time he touches the ball.
Kaepernick, though, seems unaffected by the backlash. Playing better than he did a week ago in his preseason debut, he leads the team to a touchdown on its first possession.
But there’s no way people here have forgotten the controversy. These are sensitive times in Turlock, a town quite uncomfortable in this new spotlight. Best not to ask questions about disappearing cookies or helmets.
“I’m just not commenting one way or another,” says one business owner who has scrubbed away all Kaepernick traces. “Whatever I do or say, either way, it’s going to hurt my business.”
The Dust Bowl brew pub, across the street from Hauck’s, is off-limits to media bloodhounds and vultures. Same deal with Kaepernick’s alma mater, Pitman High.
And that was the case before the socks hit the fan Thursday morning, the news of Kaepernick’s police-mocking footwear. That news was a gut punch to the few folks supporting their guy.
When I came here to do a Kaepernick story after the 49ers drafted him, and again when he was riding high, the mood was dramatically different. Pitman’s principal turned his office into a stage on which teachers and coaches told inspiring and genuinely touching stories.
Kaepernick, more than Pitman’s most famous alum, is the school’s Founding Dude. He was a string-bean freshman when the school opened in 2003. Pitman was so uncool, zero tradition, but Kaepernick said defiantly, “We’ll start our own tradition here,” and boy, did he.
But when Hurricane Colin hit last week, the school district put Pitman off-limits to the media. The new principal, Kaepernick’s math teacher, cited a need to not distract the students.
Kaepernick’s best friend in high school and beyond now runs a local gym. He tells me Wednesday, sure, he’ll talk about Colin, then Thursday he doesn’t answer his phone or return calls.
A sad, dark cloud hovers over Turlock, 72,000 population (about 2 percent black). The city is small and rural. At Perko’s the restroom sign reminds patrons, “Don’t squat with your spurs on.”
Everyone seems to know Kaepernick or know someone who knows him, but his approval rating has slipped from about 200 percent to single-digit.
“I think what he did was right,” says Gricelda Barajas, the only pro-Kaepernicker I find. “He’s standing up for what he believes in.”
She said she’s no fan of Kaepernick the player, but, “I support his ideas.”
Her boyfriend, Abel Lopez, sporting a 49ers’ tattoo and No. 85 Vernon Davis jersey, disagrees. “I don’t really care too much about Kaepernick. Only all the girls like him.”
The criticism is mostly tempered and sad, not angry and loud.
Phillip Gallardo, a cook at Jams 209 sports bar, played youth football and baseball with Kaepernick.
“A lot of my friends don’t want him on the (49ers) anymore, it’s a circus,” Gallardo says, quietly. “Of course there’s injustice and people are getting mistreated. Go do something about it.”
Gallardo objects to Kaepernick using his workplace as a protest forum. “You know what? It’s your job to do your job.”
At the Turlock Poker Room and Casino, Kim Nichols says she wishes Kaepernick had done something to unite, not divide.
“He would give back more by standing up and saying all of us, black and white, need to come together. He could do more, (such as) donate to a police program for cops and inner-city kids. I think he could have done a better job, and that’s why I think folks are disappointed in him.”
Colin’s parents, Rick and Teresa Kaepernick, who now live up the road in Modesto, are quietly riding out the storm.
“Teresa and I have had nothing but support from our friends in Turlock,” Rick Kaepernick says via email, “and we have had nothing but support from those who reached out.”
He adds, “This is the same kid who they embraced when he was representing the town on a national level. People have been told not to talk about it. This is the problem, people don’t want to address the issues. They will hurt their business or they don’t want to take a stand. As a family, we greatly appreciate the people of Turlock who have supported us.”
On TV at Hauck’s, Kaepernick is looking sharp, moving the 49ers.
“What happens if he starts playing well?” asks a customer, Kevin Bixel.
That’s a wrinkle most of us didn’t anticipate.
Quietly, the storm rages on.
