Christopher High School has found a Gilroy guy through and
through to get its athletic department off the ground.
Forming what John Perales called an
”
army of two,
”
former Gilroy High football coach Darren Yafai has been selected
as Interim Athletic Director. The school has no other employees at
the moment.
”
Right now he is the interim because I needed someone to move
quickly,
”
said Perales, who will be the principal of CHS when it opens in
2009-10.
”
I’m completely impressed by him. He officially started on [Aug.
11] and he already has done a fantastic job.
”
Christopher High School has found a Gilroy guy through and through to get its athletic department off the ground.
Forming what John Perales called an “army of two,” former Gilroy High football coach Darren Yafai has been selected as Interim Athletic Director. The school has no other employees at the moment.
“Right now he is the interim because I needed someone to move quickly,” said Perales, who will be the principal of CHS when it opens in 2009-10. “I’m completely impressed by him. He officially started on [Aug. 11] and he already has done a fantastic job.”
Yafai coached the Mustangs for 16 years, seven as head coach, after graduating from GHS in 1986. He will continue teaching history at Gilroy this year, as he has done since 1991, while getting things in order for CHS’s first season of sports starting 12 months from now.
After just one week on the job, Yafai already has plans that extend years down the line.
“My goal in our first year is we’re offering every sport at the frosh-soph level,” Yafai said. “My second goal is in our second year those sports now have two levels (JV and varsity).”
Yafai added that by the third year, the soonest any students would be able to be seniors, he would like those varsity teams to be competing for league titles. In total, Yafai predicted the school would have 20 teams by the third year, 10 for both the boys and girls.
“My goal is to make sure we can field as many teams as possible,” Yafai said. “John and I sat down [Monday] and looked at all the sports and made a tentative list.”
Perales admitted to having a long list of sports in mind, with one for sure.
“I want to offer football from day one,” he said.
Doing so will take plenty of work. Yafai is currently in the process of filing paperwork with the Central Coast Section office to be placed in a league, which he believes will most likely be the Mission Trail Athletic League or the Monterey Bay Athletic League. After that, Yafai will focus on purchasing uniforms and equipment, as well as finding coaching staffs. The school’s mascot will be a cougar and the colors will be gold, teal, black and white.
Working double duty to get Christopher High’s sports programs up and running, on top of teaching at GHS, will take an incredible amount of energy from Yafai, something Perales believes won’t be a problem.
“I’m getting e-mails and voicemails from him, ‘We’re going to do this,’ ” Perales said. “I love it.
“He wants [the kids] to have a fantastic experience and with his understanding of playing sports at a high level, championship level – it was an easy decision.”
What wasn’t as easy for Yafai was deciding it was time to leave GHS.
“Sure, it’s going to be weird and sad to leave Gilroy High, but there’s a lot of positive and interesting things” that will happen at CHS, Yafai said.
Yafai added that so far no one has give him any grief.
“Today was our first day of teacher meetings and I made it through without being a called a traitor,” he joked. “I feel like I’ve always bled Mustang blue, but it’s still our same community, our same district.”
What will be interesting to watch is how the school splits Gilroy’s talent pool, and what type of rivalry will be formed.
“Jack (Daley) and I talk about how we want to develop a friendly rivalry,” Yafai said, referring to Gilroy High’s Athletic Director.
Daley, who coached football alongside Yafai for several years at GHS, is in agreement.
“A rivalry will be fun, but let’s have a good, fun rivalry, where they go out and play hard but it doesn’t become something that’s bitter or becomes ugly,” Daley said. “All of us are committed to that kind of a rivalry.”
While GHS is currently in the Tri-County Athletic League, that could change soon. Neither Yafai nor Daley believe it would be in the best interest of the schools to be members of a league that often has schools with attendance well over 2,000. After several years, it’s likely that both high schools in Gilroy would have attendance numbers coming close to 1,500.
“In my opinion, there’s no way that Gilroy High and Christopher High can compete at the TCAL level once they split,” Yafai said. “I think a decent scenario might be us in the Mission Trail and Gilroy in the MBAL.”
While it would be a step down in league, such an act would also allow both schools to offer greater opportunities, which both Yafai and Daley are in favor of.
“It may limit the talent pool, but on the other side of that it will open up opportunities for participation,” Daley said.
One thing Daley is sure about is he’ll have some good competition across town.
“I think he’ll do great,” Daley said. “He’s certainly well respected in the community and has a lot of experience on the coaching end of it.
“I’m looking forward to working with him.”
