According to the old adage, the years you spend in high school are the best of your life. But while many people have fond memories of pep rallies and prom festivities, most reserve their checkbooks for their college alma maters. However, as the cliché goes, there’s always an exception to the rule.
Meet Clarence J. Kahlig II, owner of the North Park and Bluebonnet families of automobile dealerships collectively known as Kahlig Enterprises. This San Antonio native may have enjoyed athletics at Texas A&I University (now Texas A&M Kingsville) and UT Austin thanks to a football scholarship, but his years playing football and baseball at Central Catholic High School are particularly close to his heart.
“I have such good memories of Central,” Kahlig said. “We had really good sports when I was there. We went to the state championship in football and the state tournament in baseball, and Joe Cortez of the Sports Hall of Fame coached me in baseball. It was great.”
This is just a taste of the positive memories Kahlig could tell you from his years as a student at Central. He has such respect for this “outstanding institution” that he sent his son, Jeff, through Central, and is once again a Central parent, as his son, Cody, is currently a sophomore at the school. His daughters, Debbe Jo and Christie, attended Incarnate Word High School and Ursuline Academy and served as cheerleaders for Central.
In other words, as Billy Vaughn, general manager for North Park Lincoln Mercury and a partner in Kahlig Enterprises, said, “Clarence cares a great deal about Central Catholic and what [it does] for the young men who attend school there.”
Kahlig’s only less-than-stellar memory of his time as “one of the power hitters” at Central was the school’s lack of a baseball field. He and his teammates had to board buses and hunt for open public fields to practice and play games.
“Many times the game was rained out, and we couldn’t reschedule because there would be a men’s league or something that was playing the next day,” he said. “We never really had a home or a place to play baseball.”
Imagine Kahlig’s disappointment when he heard the Button baseball teams were still practicing and playing games under these “pretty rough” conditions more than 40 years after his graduation. But unlike many people, who would simply express their disappointment, he wanted to do something about it. And as the owner of “the leading Lincoln Mercury retailer in America” and a Lexus dealership that “is ranked No. 3 in the nation in customer satisfaction,” Kahlig had the means.
In a scenario a company publication likens to the ‘80s classic, “Field of Dreams,” Kahlig purchased a cornfield at the crossroads of IH-35 and SW Loop 410 a few years ago and turned part of it into Shovlin-Vehle Field at Kahlig Park, the first home of the Button baseball teams.
“When we purchased 54 acres for the North Park Toyota store, I thought, ‘this would be a great place for a baseball field for Central,’ ” Kahlig said. “So we began our dealership there about two years ago and carved out 6.6 acres of the land for Central. Then I started laying out the baseball field, and we made it from the ground level.”
After months of hard work, Kahlig, the Central community and others celebrated the field’s grand opening with a Mass and dedication, a savory barbecue lunch and the first district baseball game of the season on March 27.
“It’s a pretty little field,” Kahlig said. “It’s got an 8-foot wooden fence all the way around it, a beautiful batting cage, three lanes of hitting, carpet on the floor and some nice stands.”
In other words, with stadium seating for up to 250 people and practice fields on either side of the stadium, according to a company publication, the field has both style and substance.
No fairy tale is without its trials, however. The property’s former owners, Clara Shovlin and Mary Vehle, were hesitant to sell the property that had been part of their family since their grandmother purchased it in 1939, according to Kahlig. But this star Inner Circle salesman – one of the top 10 in Texas and Oklahoma – turned out to be just as good a buyer. After meeting with Shovlin and Vehle over several months and offering to name the field after them, the ladies – who also had ties to Central thanks to two sons and a grandson – sold him the property.
Buying land, creating a baseball field from scratch and donating the field to a high school is something you’re more likely to see in a movie than in reality. So what prompted Kahlig to channel “Field of Dreams” with such a generous gift? According to Vaughn, who’s worked with Kahlig for about 28 years, it had something to do with his “very unusual” genuine concern for people.
“Clarence is a very honest, straightforward individual who cares a great deal about people,” Vaughn said. “He believes in sharing his success, and he always makes sure that if he’s successful, the people around him are successful. He puts people ahead of money, and I think buying that field and donating it to Central Catholic is just one of many examples of him putting people first.”
Kahlig, on the other hand, was possibly just returning the favor. Since his graduation from Central in 1965, this multi-award-winning salesman entered the automobile industry at North Park Lincoln Mercury in 1970, where he climbed the corporate ladder the old-fashioned way, took the industry by storm and now owns a string of award-winning dealerships.
Although a quality college education surely played its part in his success, as far as Kahlig is concerned, it all started “with the great sacrifices my parents made to send me to Central, which really prepared me for college. The academics at Central are outstanding.”
And while Kahlig is a believer in giving back, he’s also a strong believer in Christian education, which is a very important cause for him. It’s also an important cause for Central’s resident Marianist brothers, whose level of commitment to Central and its students “is remarkable,” according to Kahlig. “I can give them a baseball field, but they give their whole lives to that institution. You just don’t find that hardly anywhere.”
But as Kahlig can tell you, Central isn’t just anywhere. As far as he’s concerned, “with its good athletics, good academic and moral education and the brothers and priests who teach there, you just can’t get a better four years for a young man. You can’t get a better high-school education than Central Catholic.”
For more information about Central Catholic High School,, visit www.cchs-satx.org.
