JJ SAYS: Football is still Garrigan’s life

Injury doesn’t end football for Makana Garrigan|

Over the last half century (that sounds more impressive than saying over the past 55 years), I have seen many outstanding athletes and many outstanding football players.

I remember many of them; many I have forgotten. Their skills, talents and dedication have been lost in the fog of time and old age.

During a speaking engagement a few years ago, I was asked who was the best high school football player I had ever seen?

It is a trick question. There is no right answer. How do you compare a running back with a lineman or a quarterback with a linebacker? How do you compare a gifted natural athlete with one who attains stardom through hard work and dedication?

How do compare Elijah Qualls with Joe Trombetta or JaJuan Lawson with John Ramatici? It is also unfair to a generation of Petaluma, Casa Grande and St. Vincent players who were starring during the score of years I was covering city council meetings and development in Novato.

I will say this, I have never known a high school athlete who loved football more than Casa Grande High School graduate Makana Garrigan.

After the end of his senior season, I interviewed Garrigan. I never will forget him telling me, “I live football.”

After graduating from Casa Grande in 2010 (I can’t believe it has been almost a decade), Garrigan was recruited to play for the University of Nevada.

In an all-too-familiar story, he was injured during his freshman season.

Unwilling to give up on the game he still loved, he stayed involved in the Nevada program as a student assistant coach.

He moved from Nevada to the University of Hawaii as an assistant coach. At Hawaii, he coached as a defensive graduate assistant and, last season, as the defensive quality control coach, specifically working with the linebacker unit.

Earlier this month, he was hired as an assistant coach for the University of Maine. In his new job, he will work specifically with running backs.

The announcement of Garrigan’s hiring triggered memories of the 2010 Casa Grande football team. I can’t call it the best Casa team ever, but it was certainly high on any list of Casa or Redwood Empire teams.

Over the years, I’ve seen so many great teams and great players that they often mix together, but that season is one that I will always remember.

Led by Garrigan and quarterback Nick Sherry, who went on to play for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the Gauchos were 11-2. Their only losses were to Ygnacio Valley, 36-28, and Concord, 26-21, in the North Coast Section semifinals.

With just a little prompting, like the announcement of Garrigan’s new job, I remember that playoff game against Concord. It was a hard-hitting - at times, almost brutal - affair that Concord seemed to control.

But, Casa Grande fought back. Trailing, 26-0, after three quarters, Casa Grande rallied for three touchdowns in the last period, two scored by Garrigan on pass receptions from Sherry. He also had 13 tackles and a pass interception.

Ironically, that Casa season came the year after Petaluma High put together another of those seasons that I distinctly remember. The 2009 Trojans, in coach Steve Ellison’s last season, were 12-1, not losing until a 245-pound monster back from Eureka named Soma Vainuku (Yes, I had to look up his name, but I will never forget his size, strength and speed) ran all over them in the NCS semifinals.

There are other great teams and great players, some I remember vividly, some that are mixed into a delicious soup of flashbacks.

But, I will always remember Makana Garrigan and his quote: “Football is my life.”

It still is.

(Contact John Jackson at johnie.jackson@arguscourier.com)

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