Derby Honors Its Past During Ceremony To Open New Athletic Complex

DERBY — For the past few years, the $3 million renovation of the Ryan Sports Complex/DeFilippo Field and the roughly $20 million assembly of the J.R. Payden Field House/Payden Park was a large-scale construction project off Chatfield Street complete with noisy machinery, a mishap, rock blasting and earth removal.

Time tends to move slower when you’re young. So the work seemed never-ending to Nicole Pracon, a senior on the Derby High School soccer team.

But last week Pracon stepped onto the new DeFilippo Field for soccer practice.

“It felt unbelievable,” she said. ​“This field is actually our field now. We can play on it.”

And play they did on Friday, when the Derby High School boys soccer and football teams hosted the first regular-season games on the new, multi-purpose DeFilippo Field.

The bleachers were full for the 7 p.m. football game, with the community arriving to check out Derby’s new instant landmark.

(More photos here)

Win or lose, the complex will be a destination for generations of Derby youth, Mayor Rich Dziekan said Friday.

“I was at practice last night, and looking up at the Payden Field House, and it’s just incredible,” he said. ​“We have a great gift, and I really want to thank Ms. Payden.”

Ms. Payden is Joan Payden, the founder, president and CEO of Payden & Rygel, an investment firm based in Los Angeles that manages more than $106 billion in assets. 

She paid for the 18,000 square-foot field house, the baseball/softball field (Payden Park), and the press box at DeFilippo Field. 

She did so to honor the memory of her father, Joseph, a Derby High School graduate who was the valedictorian of the class of 1915. A ribbon-cutting for those privately-funded projects is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 12.

The multi-purpose artificial DeFilippo Field and the surrounding 400-meter artificial turf track were paid for by a $3 million state grant.

The multi-purpose part of the new field is important. It’s not just football playing there. It’s also boys soccer, girls soccer, girls cross country, boys cross country, boys outdoor track, and girls outdoor track.

The new track is the dawn of a new day for Derby High School’s running program, which has established itself as one of the best in the state.

“The difference is night and day,” said Joe Musante, co-president of the Derby Running Club, and a former high school runner.

The field was previously surrounded by a running track made of cinder — a type of track that was all the rage in 1960.

“It was a cinder track and, over the last 10 years or so, there wasn’t much cinder. It was more of a dirt track,” Musante said.

The obsolete track could not be used for competition.

The new space has room for track and field events such as pole vaulting, something that could not be done previously.

Just prior to Friday’s football game, the community honored two Derby natives: Catherine Kelleher and Silvio (Foggy) Nero.

Kelleher is Derby’s most senior former cheerleader, while Nero is the oldest living former football player.

They participated in a coin-toss to start the game. Kelleher joked with the Derby players, asking them if they wanted her to run a few plays.

Jim Gildea, chairman of the Derby Board of Education, said Keith McLiverty, Rob Hyder, and core members of a committee supervising the construction of the multi-purpose field and track were key players in organizing the pre-game festivities.

“In honoring Derby’s past and linking it to today, I wanted to find the oldest living Derby football player and cheerleader, and have them do the coin toss at the first game on the new field in the new complex,” McLiverty wrote in an email.

“So often we forget our history and the roll men and women of the past play in our city and country. This was a moment to honor them,” McLiverty said.

Kelleher grew up in Derby and although she spends time in Florida, she still calls Derby home.

Her father was the chief of police in Derby. She married her childhood sweetheart, Jack, and had three children — Michael, Sharon and Christopher. Today she has five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

The family’s contributions to Derby can’t be undersold. For example, the Aldermanic Chambers in City Hall is named after Joan Williamson, her younger sister.

Nero, meanwhile, is the living definition of The Greatest Generation.

Born in 1923, he was one of 10 children. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, Nero left Derby High School and lied about his age to fight in World War II. While in the Navy his ship was attacked by 

Japanese kamikaze pilots. Upon returning to the Valley after the war, he married Grace Marchese and raised three children — Carl, Joyce and Lisa. They all lived in Derby for some 40 years.

The Derby Board of Education voted last week to award Nero the diploma he didn’t receive in 1942.

In an emotional ceremony, Nero wiped tears from his eyes as his life story was explained over the public-address system.

Schools Superintendent Matthew Conway awarded the diploma on the new field as Nero’s family snapped photos with cell phones.

“It was an amazing opportunity to be in the presence of both Mrs. Kelleher and Mr. Nero,” Gildea, the chairman of the school board, said after the ceremony.

“Derby is a small town. I feel like I’ve known Mrs. Kelleher forever. She’s a generational Derby-ite, which made tonight very powerful,” Gildea said.

Nero getting his diploma, and the man’s reaction, is something Gildea won’t forget.

“He gave up his education to serve his country. To be able to come full circle and to award him his diploma was one of the most moving things I’ve been able to do during my 26 years on the 
Derby Board of Education,” Gildea said.