Coach Papachristos Pens His Autobiography
Legendary Castro Valley athletic coach Zack Papachristos’ autobiography, “Papachristos,” debuted late last month. The book details how he came to the U.S. as a young immigrant and eventually achieved the American Dream in California.
“It took me three years to write it,” he says. “The reason I did is that my wife and I didn’t have any children, so this is a way for me to leave my legacy.”
Coming from a war-torn area of Greece at age 11, Papachristos arrived in America knowing no English. He watched movies, repeating the dialogue under his breath, to learn to speak without an accent.
His family eventually settled in Utah, where he graduated from high school and college. Always good at sports, Papachristos says the coaches he met in Utah inspired him.
“I knew what I wanted to do since 10th grade, which was to be a PE teacher and athletic coach,” he says.
While a PE major at the University of Utah, he recruited and coached so many intramural teams that he was given a key to the main gym. This solidified his decision to remain in coaching. He pursued that goal again after serving in the National Guard, moving to California, and working at places like Sunshine Biscuits and a “dude ranch.”
Papachristos started teaching middle school in Newark and moved to the old Hayward High site while the new Canyon High (now Canyon Middle School) was built in Castro Valley.
When Canyon High opened for the 1963-64 school year, he was one of the original teachers. By the time the first graduating class left in 1968, Papachristos had led its tennis and wrestling teams to become champions of the North Coast Section, Northern California, and Hayward Area Athletic League.
“We won everything in sight,” says Papachristos, despite Canyon High having only 950 students.
He was about to go on sabbatical to pursue his doctorate when Chabot College hired him as its wrestling coach and, eventually, golf coach. There, his teams won too many awards and tournaments to list here.
“I have never met a coach in my long career as an educator that won state titles in three different sports (wrestling, golf, and tennis),” said Dr. Pat Pohl, Chabot and Las Positas Professor Emeritus.
During his 14 years as Chabot’s wrestling coach, he elevated its program to one of the state's tops. The team won its first NorCal championship under his leadership and went on to win many more.
He was so dedicated to his students that he took his golfing team to Ruby Hill, Sequoyah, and Las Positas courses because, he says, “You need to play prestigious courses to have any sort of success.”
All in all, Papachristos taught and coached at Chabot from 1969 to 2018. He was voted California Community College Wrestling Coach of the Year six times and was chosen by colleagues as Wrestling Coach of the Decade for 1970-80.
When he heard in 1996 that a majority of the athletic trophies previously displayed at Chabot had been discarded into dumpsters by new administrators, Papachristos raised $30,000 to begin construction of Chabot College Athletics Hall of Fame, to showcase the names and achievements of past and present athletes.
“It was never about Zack, but about his team,” said Chabot’s head football coach Dr. Keith Calkins.
His former students agree. Al Fontes, who wrote the foreword to Papacrhistos’s book, says, “Zack has influenced and impacted many lives, myself included. It was an honor to contribute to developing this amazing book.”
Papachristos has lived in CV since 1962. He was inducted into the Castro Valley Hall of Fame in 2010 among his many awards and accolades.
“Nobody’s lived the American dream more times than I have,” says Papachristos. “Without a doubt, I was one of the luckiest individuals on this earth.”
The book “Papachristos, Memoirs of Zacharias G. Papachristos’ Life” is available on Amazon.
