Life can be a roller coaster as Christopher head coach Tim Pierleoni knows all too well.
In the middle of the 2015 season Pierleoni gathered his team and told them he was stepping away from coaching for an indefinite period to spend more time with his wife Jennifer, who had breast cancer.
On Nov. 1, 2015, Jennifer passed away leaving Pierleoni not only with a broken heart but with three of his four children still living at home.
“She was just so much of my life,” said a sobbing Pierleoni. “We had gone through it six-and-a-half years before, but when the cancer came back it had spread too far.”
The 54-year old Pierleoni was born near Buffalo, New York and grew up in Syracuse before the family moved to San Jose and then Gilroy shortly before he started high school. At Gilroy he was a three-sport star for the Mustangs in football, basketball and baseball.
Jennifer and Tim first met at Gilroy and dated but each went their separate ways for college with Pierleoni going from Gavilan College to what is now Cal State University-East Bay, and eventually Chico State.
After getting a degree in criminal justice from Chico State, Pierleoni hung around the area and had stints as an assistant at Pleasant Valley-Chico and Gridley. When he returned home in 1991 to take a job as a probation officer he and Jennifer were reacquainted.
Pierleoni started assisting at Gavilan and by 1995 and only after they bought a house, he and Jennifer got married, and that included a daughter from a previous marriage Lauryn, who Pierleoni calls one of his four children.
“I asked her every day but she wouldn’t marry me until we bought a house,” said an emotional Pierleoni. “Then, she was nice enough to marry me and we had the most wonderful 25 years together. I’m definitely a better man for it.”
“Nice enough” is probably an understatement. A coach’s wife must make more than a few sacrifices, and Jennifer raised four children while maintaining her own paralegal practice. Pierleoni rose in his profession as well, eventually being promoted to head of San Benito County Juvenile Hall.
That demanding job kept Pierleoni from taking the reins of a high school program, but he found time to be an assistant.
From 1992-96 he assisted at Gavilan, then went to his alma mater Gilroy as an assistant from 1997-98, in 1999 Pierleoni assisted at Live Oak, and in 2000 he went back to Gilroy where he stayed until 2005, and where besides his usual job as defensive coordinator the former Mustangs linebacker and tight end even had a one-year stint as the offensive coordinator.
In 2006 Pierleoni retired from the probation department, but not from public service. He earned his teaching credential and got his first taste of head coaching with Anchorpoint Christian’s eight-man team. When Christopher opened in 2008, Pierleoni was hired as a physical education teacher and the Cougars’ head coach.
But then life intervened, and Pierleoni had to step aside from the Cougars in late September 2015 to be with Jennifer. But it was a tough time, and he needed support and got it from people like Milpitas coach Kelly King.
“The same thing happened to Kelly,” Pierleoni said. King’s wife Sandy died in 2013 after a five-year battle with cancer, “and when he reached out to me I took a lot from his experience,” Pierleoni remarked.
“I don’t know if you really can console anyone in that situation, but Tim and I are friends and we were teammates so I tried to say something, anything, to make him feel better,” said King, who two weeks ago got career coaching win No. 200 in a victory over Saratoga.
After and even before Jennifer passed away, the family and community rallied around Pierleoni. His daughter Taylor, now 20, helped and continues to help with her younger brothers, 17-year-old Nico, a junior at Christopher who’s into acting and computers, and 12-year-old Trenton, who like his father plays football, basketball and baseball.
“Taylor is just a wonderful young lady. She helps with the boys, gets them ready for school and cooks meals,” Pierleoni said. “If I didn’t have her, I wouldn’t be able to do it.”
Taylor’s boyfriend, Joseph Lujan, who played for Pierleoni in 2014, also lends a hand. “He’s the salt of the earth,” said his former coach.
Tim’s sister, Carol Bundock, came down from Marysville to help and spent the last four months of Jennifer’s life with the family, and then stayed on two months afterward to help them get on their feet.
The entire Gilroy community got involved, including the rival Gilroy football team. People Jennifer had helped with her paralegal practice made contact and offered comfort and assistance.
“The community really stepped in and helped us. They fed us for a year,” Pierleoni said.
By 2016, Pierleoni felt stable enough to return to the helm of Christopher, and although the team went 1-9 and 0-6 in the Monterey Bay League – Gabilan Division, Pierleoni was doing what he loved and what he felt his beloved Jennifer wanted him to do.
Plus, when he made the decision to step aside in 2015, the administration at Christopher refused to accept a resignation and told him he was their coach whenever he wanted to return.
“When I stepped down she didn’t want me to, but we knew where it was going and I didn’t want to miss a minute with her,” Pierleoni said.
“I had to come back. I know it’s what she wants up there in heaven and I go to church every Sunday for my faith,” continued Pierleoni. “Taylor and Joseph, the administration at Christopher, everyone wanted me to coach. Personally, it helped me and got my mind working on the kids.”
After that tough 2016 season, there was a lot of work to do. With realignment in the Monterey Bay League for 2017, Christopher was moved to the Pacific Division which in the Central Coast Section pecking order is lower rated than the Gabilan, which features Catholic-school power Palma and a host of schools larger than Christopher.
Though the drop in division means the Cougars aren’t eligible to go to a bowl game, in the Pacific they are now one of the favorites along with Gilroy, and are 6-0 and 2-0 in league going into a Friday night showdown with their cross-town arch-rivals. The game, though, is more than just for bragging rights, as Gilroy is 5-0 overall and 1-0 in league, so the winner will have a league championship in its sights – and host Christopher hasn’t lost to Gilroy since 2010.
“I still bleed blue,” said Pierleoni referencing Gilroy’s colors. “I want Gilroy High to win every single game until they play us, and then win every game after unless they play us again. This year I truly believe we might see them twice (the second time in the playoffs) and I would love that.”
Love has played a big role in the life of Pierleoni and the people surrounding him, and will continue to do so.
“I miss Jennifer every day. I loved her so much,” Pierleoni said. “But I have to keep loving my kids and the kids at school. I love them and they love me.”
“I was hired to do a job coaching a team and developing character,” Pierleoni said. “I think it’s important to show the kids you can work through tough things in life, and we can take on challenges and win.”
And win is exactly what the Cougars’ faithful, in their black, gold and teal, hope for on Friday, as Pierleoni accepts another challenge in a life that’s been full of them.