DAVIS, Calif. -- In a Roseville house he never really called home, Jake Mossawir found himself sifting through 10 bags of belongings, most of which he had not seen since graduating from UC Davis in 2004. His parents, Mark and Marcy, moved from the Bay Area soon after his graduation and dutifully brought the contents of his old bedroom with them. By 2020, however, Jake had added a master's of business administration to his bachelor's degrees in political science and African-American Studies. He was wrapping up his fifth year as president and chief executive officer of St. HOPE, a role that has made him a pillar of Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood. 

In other words, it was high time that the youngest member of the Mossawir family had claimed his treasures from the trove. 

Among the goods Mossawir rescued were two UC Davis football jerseys. One was his own, bearing the number 91. The other had No. 58, and was once worn by his friend, teammate and fellow co-captain, Mark Manfredda. Mossawir has no idea how or why he owned the second jersey. Typically, players turn in their gear to the equipment room at the end of their final season. And if they do receive a jersey, it is usually their own, presented and framed as a senior gift at the team banquet months later. 
 

"I think maybe I saw it after my last game and I stole it, thinking I would just give it to Marc someday," says Mossawir. "Or maybe I bought it. But I thought it was super-weird."

Indeed, the timing of this find was both serendipitous and tragic. The previous March, Manfredda suffered a severe head injury after taking an accidental fall. He underwent emergency surgery but was unable to recover. He was just two weeks past his 38th birthday.

"The loss is still hard to process. Manfredda meant a lot to everybody that he touched," Mossawir said. "One of Marc's best qualities was instilling confidence in others through the confidence he had in his own abilities. When you were alongside him, you knew you would do good things. He wasn't going to let you down. His confidence made you confident. He really cared about the people around him."

Standing 6-foot-2 and weighing 300 pounds, Manfredda was an outstanding four-year starting center for the Aggies from 2001 through 2004. He earned the team's T. Palmer Moody Award as the outstanding sophomore, adding All-Independent Football Alliance honorable mention in the process. As a senior, Manfredda earned first-team All-Great West Football Conference acclaim. He also became just the seventh player in school history to participate in the East-West Shrine Game, and earned an invite to the San Diego Chargers' rookie minicamp. In the years since, Manfredda had gone on to a successful career as an executive in the construction and trucking industries. He was happily married and living in Florida at the time of his accident.

"When I think about all of the guys I played with, Marc stands out," said Mossawir. "Manfredda was larger than life. Not just because he was a big dude with those big, meaty hands. But personality-wise, he always had a twinkle in his eye. He brought a persona that was as big as he was physically."

A few days after Manfredda's death, current Aggie associate head coach Tim Plough offered a plea on his own social media channels: put his old teammate into the Cal Aggie Athletics Hall of Fame. Plough had nominated Manfredda before, but given the lack of statistics for offensive linemen, such players often struggle to differentiate themselves on paper. Even Dave Roberts, one of the program's first All-America first-team honorees, did not enter the CAAHOF until more than three decades after his career finale. As Plough urged on his Instagram post, "let's celebrate his achievements and his memory by putting him where he belongs."

Mossawir could not agree more. On the field, he had lined up against numerous offensive linemen and tight ends who later went on to play in the NFL, and Manfredda was every bit as skillful. Even among his UC Davis teammates, Elliot Vallejo, Cory Lekkerkerker, Brad Lekkerkerker and Daniel Fells each went on to play active time in the league. And yet it was Manfredda who Plough (and head coach Bob Biggs) had submitted for CAAHOF consideration. 

"When Timmy said that," Mossawir said, "I thought it was a perfect thing to get guys to rally behind." 

Mossawir created a campaign on social media, seeking support from Manfredda's closest teammates. He drafted language and assembled talking points to aid in the process. Letters and emails began to pour in. Collectively, the correspondence will be added to Plough's nomination of Manfredda for the 2021 induction class. More personally, they were compiled into an album for the late center's wife and family. The various Aggies also dug up old photos and posted them on social media, tagging Manfredda and allowing others to share their friendship.

"Marc, even in his passing, is still bringing guys together," said Mossawir. 

Additionally, Mossawir became an active cheerleader for the Marc Manfredda #58 Memorial Fund, established by the Manfredda family shortly after Marc's passing. The Aggie teammates from the letter-writing campaign have essentially formed a committee to help raise money for a scholarship in the great center's honor. Their goal is to raise $58,000, in honor of the jersey that Mossawir later unearthed from his parents' storage. Donations to this new fund can be made by clicking here or the link above. 

In all ways, Mossawir's devotion to honoring Manfredda represents a culmination of his adult life: an enriching experience with UC Davis, lifetime friendships, plus multiple skill sets from his work in public relations, marketing and now community leadership. 

Mossawir was a relative late-bloomer at Bellarmine High School, mostly because an older player starred at his position through his junior year. He finally got his opportunity in his senior season, during which he earned West Catholic Athletic League Linebacker of the Year, All-Central Coast Section plus all-area accolades from two Bay Area newspapers. This delayed breakthrough may have kept him off the recruiting radar for Division I programs, but UC Davis had enjoyed a recent tradition of bringing in Bellarmine grads, including defensive linemen Greg Gatto, B.J. Brust, Erik Taylor and Aaron Latzke. 

Still, Mossawir admits reluctant in his initial choice of UC Davis, despite its more forgiving weather and closer proximity to home compared to the Ivy League schools he also considered. After all, the Aggie coaching staff saw him as a defensive lineman, not a linebacker, meaning he would have to abandon the very position that brought him success.

This move put him under the watch of beloved assistant coach Fred Arp. Mossawir, like every other player blessed by Arp's tutelage over the years, now cherishes the experience and still voices his affection for his former mentor. However, at the time, he was still learning D-line from a man whose coaching style did not focus on the physical aspects of the position. 

"I love Fred, but Fred is not an in-your-face coach who says 'stand right here and do this and this.' So I'm trying to learn this position that I've never played before. Defensive line and linebacker are very different, and Fred was not giving me a lot of guidance," he said.

As such, Mossawir admits his early years as an Aggie were frustrating. He even heard a rumor from one of his fellow D-lineman that he might get cut from the team. Mossawir met privately with Coach Arp, who reached into his mountainous stack of VHS tapes and pulled a recording of Chicago Bears great Richard Dent. But this cartridge was not a classic from the NFL Films vault. It contained no Super Bowl highlights, no John Facenda narration – instead, it showed Dent running drill after drill on a practice field.

Mossawir went home the following summer, imitated the drills on Arp's tape, worked out with his old Bellarmine coach, and put on solid pounds in order to bulk up for the D-line. By his sophomore year, he earned the team's Coaches' Award as most improved player. "In high school, you want MVP," Mossawir said. "But for me, it was recognition that what I was doing was paying off."

By his senior year, Mossawir was selected as team captain, becoming just the fifth defensive lineman in the Bob Biggs era to earn that role. Perhaps not coincidentally, two of the previous instances were also Bellarmine grads: Brust in 2002, Gatto in 1998.

That journey instilled in Mossawir three major characteristics: fortitude, a strong work ethic, and leadership skills. When it comes to resilience, he says, you make the choice between crumbling or pushing through. A tireless work ethic is the great neutralizer: athletes may have little ability to regulate their raw talent, but they can control the quantity and quality of the reps. As for leadership, Mossawir thrived as a captain. The football field provided a space where he could call out others for not putting in the effort, and likewise, it was an arena where he had to hold himself accountable. To this day, each of these qualities continue to serve him in his professional life.

"Leadership isn't always about being well-liked. Otherwise, you're just championing what everybody else already thinks," said Mossawir. "You have to go out of your way to call it as you see it. It might not make everybody happy, but you're not going to push forward if you're only out there to get consensus all the time. That was something I learned from football."

After graduation, Mossawir worked for two years as a constituent affairs representative in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's office. Do not be fooled by the fancy title, it was effectively an entry-level customer service job. Mossawir fielded thousands of phone calls, letters and emails from all types – ranging from lobbyists for a key immigration bill, to prisoners seeking to have their sentence commuted, to misguided souls who felt compelled to call the governor over a disputed charge on their cable bill.  

"It was like running drills for communication," Mossawir said. "It trained me how to communicate on multiple issues to multiple constituents in multiple ways. It was like getting reps everyday. As much as I hated so much of that job, the repetitions helped me transition to other things a lot more easily."

Cutting his teeth in that environment vaulted Mossawir to a career in public relations. A contact made during his internship landed him a job with Randle Communications. Then during that brief stint, he was head-hunted by Moroch Partners, best known as the marketing and PR agency for McDonald's. Mossawir worked out of Moroch's Sacramento office, handling communications and connecting with various organizations seeking fundraising dollars. This put him out in the community, building relationships and serving on boards of directors. 

At this point, former NBA star Kevin Johnson had retired from basketball to become the 55th mayor of Sacramento. His major focus was in education reform and bringing national organizations to improve his home city's academic foundation. Among the groups Johnson brought in was the Boston-based City Year, which served dozens of communities both in the U.S. and internationally as part of the larger AmeriCorps network. Through Moroch, Mossawir formed an alliance between City Year and McDonald's outreach efforts. He also gained valuable insights to the organizational culture behind the non-profit agency.

Then in 2012, looking to broaden his repertoire beyond communications while continuing to serve the community, Mossawir joined City Year as the Sacramento chapter's first executive director. He added his MBA degree from Drexel in 2015, the same year he assumed the role as president and CEO for St. HOPE.

"The best way I can describe us is that we're a little city," said Mossawir, about his current organization. "Our mission is to revitalize Oak Park, which for generations was known as an under-resourced community, both in education and in economic development."

St. HOPE, which stands for Helping Others Pursue Excellence, was founded in 1989 by Johnson early in his NBA career. It largely began as an after-school program, but has since expanded into a multi-faceted organization. The after-school program is now St. HOPE Public Schools, a network of charter schools that serves the full K-12 spectrum. St. HOPE Development has rehabilitated a number of buildings, both residential and commercial. 

"There has been a huge jump in economic development, but the inverse of that is concern about gentrification," Mossawir said. "We're almost a victim of our own success, so our mission is about preserving the cultural aspects of the neighborhood."

As such, one of their projects is an 1885 Victorian house, renovated and converted as offices, and renamed for civil rights activist Huey P. Newton. Additionally, St. HOPE invests in and operates a variety of businesses, such as the historic Guild Theater, which is part of the larger 40 Acres retail complex; and Underground Books, one of the few remaining black-owned bookstores in the country. 

Between his work with Moroch, City Year and now St. HOPE, Mossawir has devoted nearly his entire professional life in service of a community in which he did not grow up. As a younger man, he never foresaw himself in Sacramento. The Bay Area, sure, or maybe Southern California. Fast forward, and the adult Jake Mossawir puts his overall positivity to work, seeking to make the capital city a more desireable home for others.

"It's more of a philosophy: how do you want to live your life? Do you want to genuinely build relationships? Do you want to smile, get to know people, get to know their stories and try to help? Or do you look at everything transactionally?" Mossawir says. "I went to a Jesuit high school, Bellarmine. 'Men For Others' is one of our mottos. We did a lot of service in high school. I was president of a service club. We used to go down to Mexico and build houses. There has always been a natural idea of 'how can I help?' My parents are like that. If everybody were to lead their lives like that, everything would be a lot easier."

"It goes back to football. You learn how to work hard and have fun at the same time. I realize it doesn't work for everybody. Some people are very straight-faced when they're in a professional environment. That's not how I work. I've been trained to do both. When I build relationships, it's work but I also like to have fun."

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