Rick Klassen Field to be dedicated next week at Sardis Secondary in honour of the late CFL great

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Image: M. Vanden Bosch / PML / Rick Klassen Field will be dedicated next week Friday, September 30 at 1:30 p.m. before the Falcons’ home game against Belmont Secondary of Langford.

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“This is a very important and momentous occasion for not just Sardis Secondary, but also for Chilliwack as a whole,” said Dave Shepherd, athletic director at Sardis Secondary. “As a school community we are so excited to open Rick Klassen Field, and commemorate not just Rick Klassen and his journey, but also our Football program, and athletics as a whole. It is an important thing for students to see other students move past high school and onto post-secondary playing and academics, and for some onto professional athletic careers! In many ways, it shows our students another opportunity for their lives as they move out of the public school career!”

Six years after Klassen graduated from Sardis Secondary, the school was unable to field a team due to a lack of players. The program disappeared for about 35 years until 2018 when an alumni committee spearheaded an effort to revive the program.

“Our football program at Sardis slowed down in the early 1980s, as it did in many B.C. high schools, until the team could not get enough players out in 1983,” Shepherd said. “It was dormant until September 2018, with a lot of support from an alumni committee, consisting of Rick’s sister Kathy Klassen, George Chayka (B.C. Lions Vice President and former player), Walter Peters, Dean Simpson, John Tymoschuk, who was the first Sardis Falcons football coach, and former Sardis athletic director Brad Geary.”

Next week’s event is being organized by Sardis Falcons athletics, Shepherd and fellow athletic director Kyle Graves, along with help from school administration, P.E. staff, Sardis Secondary staff, SD33 staff, particularly facilities manager Mark Klassen, and the alumni committee Shepherd said.

SD33 trustee Heather Maahs, the school board liaison to Sardis Secondary, similarly welcomed the field dedication with great elation.

“It is an honour and pleasure to be part of this ceremony dedicating the field the new sign and celebrating the great comeback of football,” Maahs said. “Congratulations to all who worked so hard to make this a reality. Rick Klassen’s memory and contribution to the game of football will live on at this field under the banner of the namesake sign. Our students at Sardis Secondary can be so proud of this inspiriting alumni for whom they can aspire to emulate and look up to as a mentor.”