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Biography current as of January 2024
Joseph Belluzzo is considered the father of soccer in Santa Rosa. In the mid-1950s, Belluzzo was instrumental in forming the Kickers, which became the first men's soccer team in Santa Rosa. Made up of immigrants who had played the sport since childhood, the team was a melting pot of playing styles and political backgrounds, including Italians, Germans, English, Irish and Eastern Europeans. The players' nostalgia for a game that most Americans knew nothing about created a close-knit team.
The Kickers traveled to San Francisco for games because there were no other teams to play in the North Bay. They disbanded in 1962.
Belluzzo, who worked in his hometown as a machinist, was drafted into the Italian army in 1940. Captured in North Africa in 1943, he was brought to the United States as a prisoner of war. He can recall picking cotton in the hot Arizona sun during that time.
Offered the chance to work as a machinist, he was sent to Oakland. During that time he met Doris at a dance, but Belluzzo was sent home in 1946. In 1947 her family traveled to Italy, where she and Joe were married. By the mid-1950s, they returned to the United States and settled in Santa Rosa, where they raised three children.
In 1965, Belluzzo wanted his son Rick to be able to play soccer, so he began recruiting other kids. Belluzzo talked men who played soccer in neighboring cities into putting together youth teams, and the Sonoma County Youth Soccer league was formed. Within four years, 200 kids played on six teams in Rincon Valley.
Belluzzo has received many honors, including a complex of soccer fields in southwest Santa Rosa named after him in 1986. He was a lifetime board member of the Santa Rosa Youth Soccer League.
