Prince William parks name sports complex for Christiano

The Prince William County Park Authority opened the 2009 Woodbridge Little League season by naming the Little League complex at Veterans Memorial Park after former Park Authority Board member Stewart Christiano.

Reading the long list of his service and awards over 30 years was awesome, but didn't reveal the personality of the gentleman himself.

He is very modest about receiving the honor. "If you are having fun doing what you are doing, it's not that hard to do, but it's scary seeing your name on a building," he said.

With no siblings or living male cousins, he is the last of his line. He mentioned that his name is difficult to spell and remembered telling one gentleman that it was simply Christian with an O. It was quite amusing to him that the man said, "I didn't know you were Irish," having spelled the name as O'Christian.

Christiano participated in most sports as a youth but wasn't particularly great at any of them. He did best at baseball as a left-handed batter, but also played football, basketball and track.

He was educated at the University of Bridgeport, and had aspirations of being a lawyer. He gave up that goal to become a teacher when a favorite teacher of his became ill.

After serving two years in the U.S. Army, he attended the University of Virginia and earned his graduate degree. He began teaching at Mount Vernon High School in 1961 and has vivid recall of his days there.

The Eastern Prince William Sports Club was started by a group of citizens as a sports program for children. Christiano was a member of the original board of directors, who began with football, then expanded to basketball for girls, and then Little League in 1963 at Hillbrook Field in Wood-bridge. He himself coached a football team, the Hawks, which competed with other teams in Prince William County.

Mr. Christiano worked at a number of schools in Prince William County, "always near Route 1." Since his retirement, he has devoted time to the parks and recreation pro-grams.

Christiano is very enthusiastic about Veterans Park, saying that it is still the most heavily used park in the Prince William Park system.

Over the years, he coached both his daughters and all four of his grandchildren in soccer, bas-ketball, football and baseball through the Sports Club, Eastern Prince William Basketball and Woodbridge Little League. He recalls coaching a girls' softball team whose sponsor was a maternity shop called Ladies in Waiting. The team title puzzled the 9-year-old girls.

As for handling parents who provoked the coaches or got mad at their children for mistakes they made, he said, "I reminded them that the program is for kids, and then asked them to vol-unteer."

Looking back at the past 30 years, he said, "It's been fun. Everything I have ever done has been fun. Baseball is fun—all activities are fun. It is fun dealing with volunteers for all these activities. It is fun meeting the parents of all the kids over the years. It is fun seeing kids work out and grow up."