Jack Gifford had been donating time and money to college baseball teams for years, but when San Jose State coach Sam Piraro was diagnosed with cancer in 2002, Gifford started contributing in a far greater manner.
He sought out the best doctors for Piraro and his personal doctor kept track of the recovery process. When Piraro returned to coaching, an endowment had been set up to allow the Spartans to spend $10,000 a year on upgrading the program’s facilities.
“I don’t think of him as someone who just opened up his pocketbook,” Piraro said. “He helped our program because he had a great, great love of baseball, but more than that, he was just a tremendous humanitarian.”
Piraro and Santa Clara coach Mark O’Brien will honor Gifford’s contributions this weekend, when their schools co-host the first annual Jack Gifford Memorial Tournament, held Thursday through Sunday at SCU’s Schott Stadium and Municipal Stadium.
Gifford, the founder of analog chip maker Maxim Integrated Products, donated to San Jose State, Santa Clara, Stanford, Cal and UCLA over the years as a way of giving back to the sport that he believed allowed him to succeed in life. Gifford was married and had a child at 18, and his daughter, Tracy Jones, said that he may not have been able to attend college without the scholarship he received to play first base at UCLA.
“He truly felt that the lessons learned through sports could be applied to the business world,” Jones said. “He always appreciated what baseball did for him. This was just his way of giving back.”
Up until his death in 2009, Gifford still displayed his love for the game by occasionally stepping up to the plate for the Maxim Yankees, the summer team he founded. Piraro and O’Brien both sent dozens of players to Maxim over the years, and in 2007, they came up with the idea of a tournament to honor their mentor.
“Jack was always there for both our programs,” said O’Brien, who already has the tournament field lined up through 2012. “We want to make sure he is always remembered.”
