BENTON — Chris Griffin describes himself as a “competitor at heart.”
He has won a lot on the field as a former state honoree in Michigan and a college athlete at Grace College. He just recorded his next win inside the Fairfield Jr-Sr High School cafeteria Wednesday afternoon.
“First, I would just like to start by thanking our school board, administration and everyone that was a part of the hiring process,” Griffin told the crowd Wednesday during a Fairfield Community Schools board meeting to certify and approve his spot as the school’s next athletic director.
“Throughout the interviewing process, I thought the community did an outstanding job of sharing the very positive and healthy culture and just expressing confidence in the standard that is set here,” Griffin said. “Those are the things that attracted me to this position and I’m just very, very excited to join the Fairfield family. “
Griffin currently serves as the athletic director at Goshen Middle School. He’ll wrap up his time there soon with April 28 serving as his first day in Benton. Fairfield Superintendent Carrie Cannon has already begun what she called the “Falcon-izing process,” handing him school apparel.
Cannon told the crowd about the encouraging difference between this search, and the last one.
“Last time we had an interview for an athletic director, we didn’t get a lot of, didn’t stir up a lot of applicants,” Cannon said. “This time, we did that video and we had a lot of people calling. We had 15 applicants this time. Very highly qualified.”
Griffin met with coaches, athletes, parents and administration members afterwards for an hour. It strengthened the belief that he had coming in.
“I would say first impressions, just excitement in being able to see the community’s presence and seeing the coaches and athletes here and just community members reassuring that Fairfield is one big family and I’m just super excited to join that family and be a part of it,” Griffin said about his first impressions of the new community he’d be joining.
The former Grace College baseball player and Edwardsburg, Michigan native described what may have won him over with the selection committee — which included Fairfield’s football head coach Cory Stoner.
“I think the biggest thing for me was just having a vision and a standard and a good culture,” Griffin said. “I believe that culture is the starting point. You have to create a buy-in to have a successful department, not just individual teams. You have to have buy-ins from athletes, parents, coaches, everybody involved. Being able to share that passion was ultimately the thing that won Fairfield over.”
Griffin currently lives in Goshen. He and Alayna, his wife of over one year, appeared together Wednesday. Not having to move for this new role was something that encouraged Griffin to reach for a dream he has had since high school.
“It’s actually always been a dream of mine to be a high school AD,” Griffin said. “When I was a sophomore in high school, that’s the career path that I chose. Absolutely loved working K-through-6 and at the junior high, but I’m a fierce competitor at heart and moving up to that varsity level, that competition level just goes up another notch. Really, just having that competition and that drive at the high school level is something that is just really, really attractive to me.”
Griffin’s path to becoming AD took an odd turn from his high school days.
“Funny thing, I had actually wanted to be an aerospace engineer,” Griffin said. “Completely did a 180 and realized I didn’t like math that much.”
Before landing at Goshen, Griffin was a Youth Sports Coordinator at Zeeland Public Schools in Michigan. That stood out to Cannon and the board.
“At Zeeland Public Schools in Michigan, Chris was the K-6 athletic director,” ...
