Four years and nearly $5.2 million after the concept came up, the Don Christopher Sports Complex was officially dedicated at the high school named for the Gilroy businessman and philanthropist.
Don and Karen Christopher donated $4.3 million of that total to build the track and field complex.
The March 2 ceremony at Christopher High School on Day Road brought together students, parents, coaches, Don and Karen Christopher and members of their family, city and school officials and a group called “the football dads.”
Gilroy schools superintendent Debbie Flores could not have been more effusive after the event in her praise for the Christopher family and for members of the community and school staff who worked to make the sports complex a reality.
She called the Christopher’s donation “the most generous act I have ever seen in my career.”
At the dedication, Don Christopher told the story of how he and Karen got started. He said Wednesday that he is aware of how grateful people are for what they have done for the community.
His response is to simply thank people back.
“What more can you do,” he said.
A sports complex was designed and all set to be built as part of the high school, which opened in 2009 at a cost of $58 million. But when the nation’s economic crisis hit and money ran low, the district scrapped plans for the complex and a state-of-the-art theater, saying they would have to be put on hold until finances improved.
“We built the most beautiful high school in the nation, but in order to do that some things had to be dropped … we were devastated, but we understood why,” said Darren Yafai, former CHS athletic director as he recalled the sinking feeling that the complex would never be built.
Now a history teacher and assistant coach at CHS, Yafai was in the thick of the action when the original plans and specifications were drawn up for the CHS sports stadium.
A few years after the school opened, word went around that Don Christopher was thinking of helping to finance the missing sports complex. This brought smiles to faces, Yafai recalled, including that of John Perales, the school’s founding principal who also worked long and hard on the original plans not just for the complex but for the entire school, he said.
By that time, some CHS teams were being bussed across town to use the sports fields at Gilroy High School, while others had to make due with turf at CHS that was in such poor condition it became a safety concern.
And that was part of a discussion at a BBQ during the football team’s 2012 annual Midnight Madness fundraiser—attended by Don and Karen Christopher at the invitation of football parents.
Six of them who came to known as “the football dads” were joined by the Christophers in their discussion of the poor condition of the sports fields at CHS, recalled George Sammut Monday, one of the six—all of whom had sons on the football team.
He said Christopher, who’d already poured more than $1 million into the high school project, was concerned about the potentially dangerous playing fields—and that concern led to meetings with Gilroy Unified School District officials and to a commitment in April 2013 by Christopher to donate another $1 million to build the sport complex—a figure that grew to a total donation of $4.3 million before the project was completed.
Don Christopher said the real start of the sports complex project predates his 2012 discussion with the “football dads.”
He and Karen decided to help after a grandson’s lacrosse game and hearing kids complain about the playing field. After the game, they walked onto the field.
“We could not believe it was in that shape,” he said.
Sammut still recalls that Christopher at the barbeque “asked us to look into what it would take to fix things and kind of gave us the green light to move forward with research, and he challenged us to raise some of the money ourselves.”
In the end, more than $410,000 came from other donors and $452,000 came from Measure P, the school bond measure passed by Gilroy voters to repair schools, among other things.
And the community is among those given thanks by the Christopher family in a plaque they commissioned that now adorns one of two pillars at the entranceway to the sports complex.
Indeed, the sprawling complex includes the football playing field, the track that surrounds it, home and visitors’ bleachers and a snack shack.
A plaque on the other pillar was commissioned by the school district. It names the current school board members, the superintendent, the architect and the four main contractors.
Superintendent Flores also singled out Perales, Yafai and Jenny Derry, a member of the district’s building team, for their contributions to the project, and said the list of people deserving of thanks would run several pages long.
Of Yafai, she said, “He absolutely took the lead on this as athletic director at the time and put hundreds of hours into it.”
In opening remarks at the dedication, CHS principal Paul Winslow asked the crowd to join in a round of applause for Don and Karen Christopher “for their continued support of the children and future of Gilroy … this [complex] represents a very simple yet powerful idea, the idea of community.”
Addressing the Christophers, he said, “You are so much more than [this] facility or this plaque, you are an inspiration for the future generations of Gilroy.”
He added, “For all of the people involved in this project, the GUSD board of education, Dr. Flores, district officials, Jenny Derry, Donna Pray and the Gilroy Foundation and our six famous ‘super dads,’ I thank you again on behalf of Christopher High School for being role models of service for our students.”
Perales, CHS’s founding principal, who now heads the San Benito High School District, has a son at CHS. He also had high praise for the Christophers for bringing to fruition the vision that he and Yafai and others had when CHS was still on the drawing boards.
“The generosity of Don and Karen Christopher is unparalleled in our Gilroy community, they are the reason our children are experiencing the best school facilities,” he said in an email.
Calling it an “honor” to have his name on a plaque along with the complex’s benefactors, “football dad” George Sammut summed up what everyone seems to feel about the family that owns Christopher Ranch and sells garlic-related and other food products nationwide.
“Don and Karen are special people, they have done so much for this city, and not just at Christopher [high school] but all over the city. You can’t put a value on that.”
