His name is on one of Blount County's largest and oldest construction firms, and thanks to the generosity of the late Joseph R. Zappa's family, it will soon adorn a new
Maryville College Football practice facility tentatively titled the Joe Zappa Football Complex.
Three days before the College celebrated
Homecoming 2026, New Jersey resident Kelly Zappa Thompson, Zappa's daughter, returned to East Tennessee to finalize details of the $1.5 million gift in her father's name. It's the largest gift ever received by the
Athletics program, said
Dr. Andrew Wu, the College's Athletics director, and MC Football
Coach Ben Fox added that the facility it will fund — phase one of a multi-part long-range project to revitalize football infrastructure at MC — will be transformational for the team.
"It's going to make this a true 365-days-a-year facility," Fox said recently, standing near the end zone of the College's current practice field. "It's going to really increase the ability for us to efficiently move our team in and out during the day, to maximize the players' time, to maximize the coaches' time, and to really maximize the development of the team. The real construction of a football team happens on the practice fields, and it's really awesome that we're going to get to do it in a premier facility."
The complex – scheduled for completion in time for the 2027-28 academic year – will include a turf field, which will allow for practice in inclement weather as well as on sunny days, and new lights will give the team the ability to practice after dark or before sunrise.
"Sometimes in spring practice, we go out in the mornings, and this will eliminate having to move down to the (
Austin Coleman Piper Memorial) track, which we're currently having to do," Fox said. "It'll just make things really, really efficient. And the awesome part about it is the unique layout will give us one 120-yard field running along the current setting of the practice field, and there will be two smaller 60-yard practice fields running perpendicular to
Cooper Athletic Center. And that will allow me as a head coach to really oversee all of the happenings of the football program throughout practices during the season."
A life built on integrity, hard work and family
Born in Pittsburg, Joe Rocco Zappa Jr. mapped out his life goals while he was still in high school, Thompson said. He was 16 or 17 years old when he wrote a paper about the man he wanted to be as an adult, she recalled, and even though he received a C on the assignment, the paper's intentionality stuck with the family so much that when it came time to plan Zappa's celebration of life after his death a year ago due to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Thompson drew on it for her eulogy. Afterward, the Rev. George Doebler – spiritual adviser at the University of Tennessee Medical Center – used it as the foundation for a
column about Zappa in the September/October 2026 edition of Knoxville's Cityview magazine.
"In it, he kind of manifested his future," she said. "He talked about morals, values, integrity, working hard, playing hard, respecting your partner, what he wanted his kids to be like, and that he knew he was going to make mistakes and fail, but that he would own his mistakes and learn. Dad started
Joseph Construction in 1972 from nothing and built it into a successful business that helped shape Blount County, but that's not his greatest accomplishment."
"His greatest achievement is his family and relationships that he created. His kids, my mom (Roberta "Cookie" Zappa, who was married to Joseph Zappa for 61 years before her death in February 2024), and his grandchildren were the stars in his eyes. After my father passed, the number of people who would tell me that he was one of the best people they ever knew, that he was honest and was one-of-a-kind, that he was true to his word and how they cherished the meals he prepared, the cocktails they shared, the laughter, the life advice and his one-liners … this is his major accomplishment, and in my mind, his best attribute."
Thompson still has that paper, and a glance at Zappa's accomplishments revealed he hewed closely to the declarations penned within it. He graduated from West Virginia University, then started a family and moved to South America, where he worked for the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) and eventually settled in Maryville. He established a tile company as his first business venture, Thompson said, and after it went bankrupt, he dusted himself off and established Joseph Construction.
Over the next several decades, it grew to become one of the premier construction companies in East Tennessee, and because of the family's proximity to Maryville College, Thompson said, the institution became a daily part of life in the Zappa household, regardless of the fact that no Zappa ever attended college there.
"We actually used to live on Broady Lane, which is right across from the
Maryville College Woods, so we would walk here," Thompson said. "I took swim lessons here. My mother and my brothers took swim lessons here. I did gymnastics here. I was on this campus every day from 5 years old until I graduated high school, and I think with my father dropping us off and picking us up all of those times, he got to see what a gem this small liberal arts college was for the community and for its students. And I think he wanted to be a part of that."
Zappa made his first donation to Maryville College in 1989, and over the years, his contributions grew generously. During fundraising for the
Clayton Center for the Arts, which opened in 2011, he donated $250,000 over the course of a few years; in 2023, he donated more than $200,000 in stock and property to fund capital projects for the football program.
A longstanding relationship with College Hill
Wu was brought on board as athletics director in 2024, and while he never had the opportunity to meet Zappa because of the latter's ALS diagnosis, the name was synonymous with greatness around the Cooper Athletic Center, Wu said.
"Joseph Construction has been a great partner for us, and the Zappa family has been a great partner for us," he said. "They've supported Athletics, the Clayton Center, Fayerweather Hall, the
Maryville Fund, and Joseph Construction has built a lot of buildings on campus."
Wu was introduced to Joseph Construction President Justin Marcus, who acted as a liaison between the College and the Zappa family, eventually introducing him to Zappa's daughter. During a visit to campus, Wu presented Thompson with the phase plans for the rejuvenation of the football practice field, and she immediately recognized an opportunity to honor her father.
"I believe she was excited to be talking about the possibilities, and even though we walked away from the conversation unsure of the direction it was going to go, we presented it as a really important project for the community, transformational for our Athletics program and something that would be really great to honor her dad," Wu said.
"Before my father even passed, we talked about how his legacy was going to continue," Thompson said. "My dad kind of had a hand in his own gift, so to speak, because we knew we were going to do something; we just didn't know where it was going to go. But after he passed, my brothers (Jamie and Chris Zappa) and I decided as a family that Maryville College was probably a great way to get everything done that he wanted to do, and a great way to leave something for his legacy."
Zappa's grandchildren are of college age, she added, and given her father's career, the opportunity to build another facility after his death has given the family an opportunity to shape the dreams and future plans of Maryville College students. The siblings reached their decision during planning for their father's celebration of life, Wu remembered, and he described the phone call announcing that they would make the Joe Zappa Training Complex a reality as "one of the best moments of my time here at the College."
The announcement was a humbling one for Fox, he added, and a validation of the work he and his coaching staff have put into the football program since his arrival in the spring semester of 2021. The opportunities Thompson talks about, Fox said, will be literal game-changers for future student-athletes on the football team.
"Personally, I think it's going to make our players' daily lives better," Fox said. "It's going to free up space for a lot of other sports. We won't get in the way of a lot of other programs, and it will give our players and football alumni a unique place that's theirs. It'll set us apart in recruiting, because we're going to be one of the only few schools that has a unique designated training facility that's separate and just for us."
"A gift of this magnitude is honestly overwhelming. It is very humbling that people believe in the mission of what we're doing with our program, and the vision we have of our program, and want to give to it. I think it speaks to the leadership we have across campus, and what I enjoy most is that this gift is going to enhance our players' experiences without having to subtract from anything else on campus."
"This is a unique gift to the football program that's going to really enhance our day-to-day operations and, I think, be a nice centerpiece of our training and facilities that hopefully inspires more giving," Fox added.
A gift that changes the game
Completion of the complex, Wu said, will wrap up phase one of long-term planning for the transformation of Maryville College Football. The program is in the midst of a period of growth and competitive success, he said, but its facilities require some attention.
"I think we have everything we need from a staffing, coaching, player and culture perspective, but we're just lacking a little bit as far as facilities go to keep moving our program forward," he said. "We've readjusted our plans for these facilities, and this gift allows us to get a major project done so that we can demonstrate to our community that we are moving the needle for Athletics and for football."
The next phases will involve indoor locker rooms, coaching offices and meeting spaces, and down the road, improvements to
Lloyd L. Thornton Stadium that will make for a better fan experience. There's no timeline for completion of those phases, he added; much of it will depend on donor support and fundraising opportunities that come from unexpected places … like the estate of a successful businessman who never attended Maryville College, but loved the school nonetheless.
"When you think about the Zappa gift in the context of being the biggest we've ever gotten, it really shows our community, our alumni, our current students and their families that we are pushing, and that we know that we need to keep improving what we have here in order to keep getting better and better," Wu said. "It's been a great five years athletically across the board for us. I think we've gotten much better, but we've got to put more wins on the board and win more championships. And we need to keep moving the needle in other ways to get on that national scale, and facilities are the big thing."
For Joe's family, the gift was an easy decision, Thompson said. After all, they're a family of student-athletes, and Zappa himself understood what it took to be one: teamwork, grit, tenacity and all of the underpinnings of fortitude that players have to reach down inside themselves to pull out in challenging times and tough games. The proposed facility that will bear their father's name, she said, is a great way to meld those two traditions together.
"This is going to be incredibly moving for our family and friends," she said. "Dad not only changed the landscape of East Tennessee with his construction company, and now his legacy can shape something far more enduring – the character, dreams and futures of Maryville College students."
And if her father was still alive, Thompson added with a smile, he'd likely make a fuss over the fuss surrounding his name on the proposed complex. He was, after all, a humble man who shied away from accolades and attention (except, she said with a chuckle, when it came to his cooking). At the same time, she added, he would likely take the opportunity to give the team a pep talk …
"I could, in my mind, see him going to the team and saying, 'Alright, team, you have this facility; now go out, make me proud, show me what you can do, and go kick some ass!'" she said.
… and then he'd slide into the stands beside an old friend, push a friendly elbow into his comrade's ribs, and deliver a signature catchphrase that's become something of a meme among members of the Zappa family.
"If I close my eyes, I can see it: My dad always had this great big smile, and he had a gap in his two front teeth," she added. "He would raise his eyebrow, and he would be like, 'YEAH, BABY!' That's what my dad would always say when he was really happy about something."
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