After 23 years of teaching students and coaching the varsity football team, head coach Jim Fairfield has announced his retirement from Fountain Hills High School.

To say the guy is going to leave behind some pretty big shoes to fill would be something of an understatement.

Starting at the local high school the day its doors opened and working with students and athletes for more than two decades, you don’t get much more integral to a school’s history than that.

Growing up in California and eventually moving to the Phoenix area, Fairfield played football for nearby Saguaro High School.

He had the skills to go far, too, leading to a collegiate career that involved a bit of site hopping.

“Out of high school, I got recruited to Washington State,” Fairfield said.

“I spent a year at Washington State and played. I decided I wanted to move from tight end to wide receiver, so I decided to change schools.”

In order to make that kind of shift, however, Fairfield had to give up two years of eligibility.

“So I went to Scottsdale Community for a year and played there,” Fairfield continued.

“Then I got picked up and got a full scholarship to play at Chadron State [Nebraska], and I finished my time there.”

After school, Fairfield signed a two-year contract with the professional Canadian football team, the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Eventually, he came back to Arizona and got on with the Wranglers, which eventually disbanded.

“I was working out at Saguaro High School during the summer and Bob Keller, who was the head football coach at that time, who I also played for, knew I had just got married and was getting ready to have a child, and said hey, I’ve got an opening here, are you interested,” Fairfield continued.

“I said okay, I’ll do it for a year, thinking I’ll stay in shape, coach for a year and then go tryout somewhere else in the NFL.”

It didn’t work out quite that way, however.

“Well, I loved it,” he said.

“I was teaching math and PE and coaching football out there in ‘85 or ‘86, and it was great.”

Eventually, a new high school down the road in Fountain Hills was getting ready to open its doors and, once again, Keller gave Fairfield some sound advice.

“This was about five or six years after I started at Saguaro and he said if I was interested in being a head coach, then this was something I should check out,” Fairfield said.

“At that time I was also the head wrestling coach at Saguaro and an assistant track coach, so I was coaching three different sports.”

Fairfield made the trip out to the Hills and interviewed for the position, and was quickly brought on as head football coach, wrestling coach and PE teacher in 1992.

Fairfield said there was a “major difference” between what he had grown used to at Saguaro and what he discovered on the brand new campus of Fountain Hills High School.

The school hosted grades six through 12 at the time and, for the most part, his students did not go any higher than the sophomore level yet.

“There were a number of buildings that weren’t even here yet,” Fairfield added.

“It was a smaller campus and then, a few years later, they opened up the middle school and it became just a high school then.”

Fairfield said that enrollment started to rise, resulting in the construction of the rest of the campus buildings.

“Our first year of football we only had freshmen and sophomores,” Fairfield said.

“We didn’t have a lot of kids, but we still went 8-1.”

The team only played a JV schedule during its opening year, adding varsity in ’93. A freshman team was also added while enrollment was on the rise but, in recent years, that has faded away.

Looking back, Fairfield said that the culture has changed.

“The kids and society are definitely different,” Fairfield continued.

“But I wouldn’t say I ‘miss’ anything. Some things were better then while other things are better now. It’s a give-and-take sort of thing.”

The program has changed, too, with the shifts in squads, the new weight room being added on campus, improved facilities and, this year, the addition of artificial turf.

“There have been a lot of ‘best memories,’” Fairfield said.

“That’s a lot of years to go back, plus I had my kids come through, which was great. We treat it like a family, really. They’re all my kids, and I don’t treat anyone differently than my own kids, so it’s been fun.”

Fairfield said that every team has its own demeanor and character, giving him a “different every year” experience over the past few decades.

“Every year we have that one breakout game that we always remember,” he added.

“A couple of years ago we beat Paradise Valley, a school of 2,800, and we knocked them out of the playoffs. This year we had the Blue Ridge game, which was our first time beating them and put us in the playoffs…There’s a bunch of them.”

While the team has a handful of region titles and plenty of runner-up rankings, Fairfield said that the real reward has always been the three months of play the entire team got to spend together.

“Titles are always nice, but it’s what the kids do and what they learn from of it that’s important to me,” Fairfield said.

At his side through all 23 of those years has been Paige Fairfield, ever-present on the sidelines, organizing team moms, shooting pictures and taking part in team activities.

“She’s understood from the get-go that sports were a part of my whole life,” Fairfield said.

“She knew that if we were going to make it work, then she’d have to be involved. And she has been. She’s involved in everything we do.”

Fairfield said that Paige’s involvement has the added bonus of giving them a chance to see one another between August and November.

“As much time as I put in at this school during the season, if she wasn’t involved I’d never see her,” he added.

“So that’s been great, her being there.”

It’s that focus on family, Fairfield said, that’s led to the decision to retire at the end of the 2014-15 school year.

“She doesn’t have any family around here, so we decided that once I was able to retire, we’d move somewhere closer to her family,” he continued, adding that it wasn’t quite as simple as originally planned.

“I was able to retire a couple of years ago, but I wasn’t quite ready yet. She said it was okay, so I’ve stuck around a little longer.”

Retiring from FHHS won’t be a complete retirement, however, as Fairfield said he aims to stay busy once he and Paige reach their new destination of Seattle.

“Family is very important to us, so we’re going to move closer to Brandon and be grandparents,” he added.

“I’ll probably coach and teach up there, too. We’ll have to wait and see.”

By next season, a new coach will have stepped in to take up Fairfield’s post. His message to that person is a simple one.

“Just be consistent, fair, care and always be there for them, and you’ll be fine,” he said.

“Give it everything you’ve got.”

Fairfield said that his 23 years with the district has resulted in countless fond memories, which he’ll take with him as he says goodbye.

“I’d like to thank everyone who has given me a chance while we’ve been here,” he said.

“We’ve had great parent support, great community support and great support from the administration.

“It’s been a great ride.”