"Big John" Garcia seems to care about everyone, especially kids he hasn't even met.

It's second nature for the man who has devoted his life to community service, even as cancer consumes his health. But the round, proverbial grandfather type won't let his three-year battle with melanoma or the specter of death derail his life's mission or tarnish his sterling reputation for selflessness.

People call him "coach" at City Hall, where he works as a recreation supervisor, and fellow supervisor Gayle Glines said he earned the nickname ever since he walked in the door 31 years ago.

"He's the one who gives you a kick in the butt when you're down about something - the support I've had throughout all these years," Glines said. "The days that are really tough to take are the ones when he's down."

But that rarely happens. Garcia, 62, buried his tendency to fight instead of talk as a young man and realized his life's calling to help others one hot day in 1965 on the Gavilan College football field.

"I think I would've gone in the wrong direction without Wayne Howard. He was like my father, and I owe my life to him," Garcia said of his former football coach who took the sophomore sociology student under his wing and showed Garcia how empowering another person's faith in him could be.

"After I met (Howard), I promised I would always help people out and do anything I could to let individuals know that there are people who care for them," Garcia said.

Since he made that promise more than 40 years ago, Garcia has fulfilled it over and over again.

For starters, he joined 64 other people more than 20 years ago to found the Sportsman Chefs Association, which recently held its Christmas Dinner Dance and raised $2,500 for St. Joseph's Family Center, a local charity that helps residents get on their feet. The association's hallmark event is an annual fishing trip in June for about 130 mentally disabled people called "Fishability Day."

In 1993, a drive-by shooting occurred, jolting residents and spurring Garcia to help create the Gilroy Gang Task Force along with former mayor and current Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage. Fifteen years later, Garcia still serves as the group's executive director, working with the police department and various community groups to temper gang activity.

Growing up poor on a ranch east of Gilroy, though, Garcia often used his fists instead of his mouth. Picking tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, corn and prunes on the family farm along with 13 other siblings, six of whom have passed away, wasn't easy, he said.

"All the money we worked for went back into the household," Garcia said. "That meant a pair of Levi's, a t-shirt and a sweatshirt."

But Garcia wanted more, so he got a job as a stockboy at El Charrito Market, which still stands downtown on Monterey Street. He also mowed lawns and washed cars, displaying the drive that Howard noticed while Garcia, otherwise known as "Hoggy" on the field, played defensive tackle.

"He was the type you could help because he was somebody who really wanted to make it," Howard said from his home in Myrtle Beach, S.C., where the 77-year-old has retired after two and a half decades as a football coach. "I would really be surprised if he wasn't doing the things he is. He could always set a good example because he had been through hard times himself. He was there, and he knows how tough it really is."

Garcia followed Howard to UC Riverside and Long Beach, helping Howard coach while continuing his studies. After school he married his wife, Clara, and they had two children, Greg Garcia and Heidi Trujillo.

"Every time I cut school, he knew about it before I did," Greg Garcia said, adding that growing up around his father and fellow Gavilan football coaches Bobby Garcia and Paul Latzke instilled within him a respect for everyone.

His sister agreed.

"Let's just say I did not do anything wrong while I was growing up," Garcia's daughter said while coloring a client's hair at Image and Design, a salon on First Street. "Basically, he taught us how to help others. We were always donating our groceries," she said. "He taught us that kids aren't born wrong. They just deserve a chance."

That's what Garcia tried to do again in 1994, when he helped establish the city's youth center to give kids a safe place to play and learn. His son, Greg, volunteers there when he's not working at Mount Madonna Continuation High School or coaching football at GHS.

Almost immediately after joining the city in 1977, Garcia noticed many kids could not afford to join the soccer or basketball programs he promoted, so he and some colleagues started the Gilroy Youth Scholarship Program, and he has run it ever since. The program doles out hundreds of scholarships each year, the money coming from local groups that Garcia, with his signature selflessness, said deserve the true thanks.

"I'm only a spoke in the wheel - it's just that I'm a big spoke," Garcia said.

For all his fortitude, Greg Garcia said he thinks his father is starting to see the bigger picture and discover a greater sense or serenity as he battles cancer.

"He just keeps walking forward and overcoming," Greg Garcia said. "I think he's starting to see the full picture unfold in front of him."

Six months of chemotherapy will do that to a person. Until his next treatment Jan. 31, Garcia will continue taking chemo pills. To soothe the voice his treatment has scratched, Garcia sucks Halls lozenges. He said giving up is not an option - he just does what he does and will continue to do so until his last breath.

"It's been a great life," Garcia said. "Until my body can't do it anymore, I'm going to continue doing it."