Rick Garretson

Affiliation: Chandler High School offensive coordinator, 2012-present.

Interview date: Sept. 14, 2016.

FA: I’m with Chandler offensive coordinator Rick Garretson, who has seen the progression of the Chandler program since the days his son was at quarterback to their present elite level.

So what drove you to want to come to Chandler High School and this area?

RG: Honestly, as far as coming to Chandler, that just kind of happened. I was living in Orange County and that was kind of at the height of the real estate boom. I kept asking my wife, ‘How much is our house worth now?’ and so it was kind of thing where we thought, you know what, let’s go ahead and make a change. My brother lived in Gilbert over in Val Vista lake, and my mom and dad lived at Dobson Ranch over in Mesa, so it was kind of cool to be with all my family, that sort of thing. As far as the Chandler thing, that just kind of — I know this. I remember the first high school football game I went to after I left Servite was Hamilton playing somebody. I knew some kids at Hamilton, and I knew a little bit about their program and everything. As time went along, my brother was telling me, I have a feeling I know where some guys are going to want to play. I asked where, and he said Chandler High School. I went and watched them play one night, and didn’t know that Shaun Aguano guy or anything — and this was back when Dion Jordan was playing and I think they played Gilbert and kind of toyed with Gilbert. One thing led to another, and next thing you know when my son got to the age of going to high school, he took a tour of Chandler, liked it and there it went. I stepped aside from Servite for three years, coached Darrell in youth ball and that kind of stuff. When he was a freshman at Chandler, I was just a dad, and then somehow, someway coach Aguano and coach Ewan reeled me back in and I’ve been there ever since. Very happy to be there, too.

FA: When you saw Chandler that first time with Dion Jordan, obviously it wasn’t the same program it is now. But did you see the potential there?

RG: You know, obviously they had players. I’m going to say, at least at that time, the coaching — I was watching some programs going ‘Oh, my God, man.’ Like I remember watching Desert Ridge before Jeremy [Hathcock] got there, and there were better freshmen teams in the Trinity League than what I was watching. I was kind of shocked in that sense, so seeing someone like Chandler that night, [it was a surprise]. They ran some tempo, he’s got some players, obviously. [Ewan] was doing things a little different and having some fun, and I think Kyle Hess was the quarterback at that time. When I lived here back in the 80s, I worked for an athletic shoes store and used to do business with the Nike team dealer back with Carl Keefer at McClintock and [Jesse] Parker at Mountain View and Delvin Schutes at Chandler. Of course, Chandler at that time, that was the end of the world. Once you hit Arizona Avenue and Chandler Boulevard, there was nothing back out there. I knew about the history of that school and obviously the communal support that school has as well, and you could tell that when you go to places like Servite or St. John Bosco, all these private schools in California or a Brophy, you have that brotherhood and that community kind of togetherness. You get it with that, but it’s hard to get at a public school at times, and a school like Chandler definitely has that. Of course, once you get inside — let’s face it, Chandler is kind of seen like a ‘hood school,’ and we know it’s the furthest thing from it. I always tell people that the last time I checked, I don’t see multi-million dollar aquatic centers being built at a hood school. It’s just a little different, and of course as time went along and seeing how Shaun [Aguano] operated it and how coach Ewan did originally and of course [Terry] Williams was the principal and eventually Larry Rother. It’s a really nice setup and a really nice place, and as time has gone along the football coaching in Arizona has really escalated. There’s a reason why people are coming into Arizona, and in particular into Chandler and the southeast valley to recruit kids. They’ve got kids with skill, they’ve got coaches who know how to develop it and they’ve got a curriculum where the Chandler school district does a great job of providing a curriculum for kids to excel in whatever they want to excel in whether it’s academics, whether it’s [International Baccalaureate] programs, whether it’s sports, what have you. It’s kind of a perfect storm. When you come, you only know what you know, so when you’re from someplace like Orange County, people think they must have great public school. Not really. They really don’t. You come here, and everybody’s got their stadium and everybody’s got their weight room, and I’m saying that in Orange County it’s not like that. Everybody’s got district stadiums. You find a night to play a Thursday or a Friday or a Saturday. I think everything’s come — and I’m in my seventh year at Chandler — that’s all changed, and now you have guys coming [into the state]. My son is at Oregon State right now, and there’s eight Arizona kids between Mountain Pointe and Chandler that are on Oregon State’s team. That’s unusual. That’s a lot of guys. Then you start looking at [Devin] Centers at Utah State or N’Keal [Harry] and Chase [Lucas] and all the quarterbacks from Arizona that are out in college football. The last five or six years, it’s kind of been a real hotbed of coaching, it’s a hotbed of recruiting and it’s just a really fun thing to see the support the schools give the football programs around the valley. It’s pretty cool. When I was at Servite, man, that’s the biggest of the big time, right? You play Mater Dei-Servite, you have 20,000 people. There’s no difference in that from Hamilton-Chandler. No difference. Same thing.

FA: What do you think has led to such a talent boom in Arizona, and do you think the national profiles of programs like Chandler and Hamilton have played a role?

RG: Obviously, the guys like Steve [Belles] and Shaun [Aguano], coach [Preston] Jones is a good coach who works hard at what he’s doing along with Gerald [Todd] over at Basha, just doing the things that they do. You try to set up a format that allows your program to do what they want, and I don’t know if it’s because ex-pro athletes live here — cause there’s a lot of ex-pro athletes that reside in the valley and especially the southeast valley. Of course, with the open enrollment, that changes a lot of dynamics of who’s got what and where kids go. You can go where you want to go, and not just have boundaries. People talking about how we have to have boundaries, but that’s back in the 1950s, man. This is the 21st century. Kids want to go, and parents want to send their kids, to schools and programs that will help them move forward. I don’t know how that’s happened, but I’ve seen it. Like I said, I’ve been here since 2005 and it’s just gotten better and better and better, and then you have guys with some vision like Norris [Vaughn] and Shaun and Jason [Mohns] over at Saguaro that are going out. I mean, people don’t realize who we played [Corona Centennial] two weeks ago in Southern California. People in Arizona really don’t know who they were out there. We were in position to win that thing and let that thing slip away. You can talk about the St. John Bosco’s, you can talk about the Mater Dei’s, you can talk about all those schools in SoCal but the number one school is Centennial High School, who we played. Shaun’s not afraid to go do that, whether it’s Valor [Christian], we played Bosco in 2013 and they won the national championship that year and they were down 28–10 with two minutes left in the first half [against us]. [Josh] Rosen got knocked out of the game with a broken collarbone, and they came back and ended up beating us. But to have a vision like that and get the programs like that in Arizona out on a national level and then having success doing what they’re doing. Of course, MaxPreps helps that, guys like [Rivals] help that of course with the social media and everything else, but it puts the forefront on the Chandlers and the Mountain Pointes. Steve [Belles] hasn’t gone anywhere since they went to Ireland and stuff, but all those things bring kids to your program because we travel every year. Hopefully someday we can get somebody to come to our place, but it’s hard to get people to come to Arizona at least early on because of the heat. I think it’s all just — all the guys I know, opposing coaches and guys that we work with — they work really hard at what they do. Having the ability to have basically a year-round weight training program and year-round in the summers with the passing stuff and obviously your camps and those sorts of things, the AIA does a nice job of allowing coaches that want to work things like that. They do a really good job. Then they work and they go out and they learn. It’s like the tech universe, right? The college guys learn from the NFL, the high school guys learn from the college, the youth guys learn from the high school and so it’s just kind of everyone going out and studying it and new concepts and new things. We’ve been fortunate enough to have guys like [Mike] Norvell the last couple years, [Chip] Lindsey over at ASU and Rich Rodriguez out at [University of Arizona] who do a lot of unique things that they’re not afraid to share with guys like us. All of a sudden, you apply those to your offense and that’s why you have some of the offenses that score a lot of points every night because it’s hard to defend. It’s not like the 1970s, when you ran dive left and dive right and threw the play-action pass off of it. [Now] it’s [run-pass option] and all that other kind of stuff, and that just makes it very difficult to defend. People know how to coach it.

FA: What impact do you think open enrollment has had in bringing talent to Chandler?

RG: Brett [Hundley] was out of boundary, Darrell [Garretson] was out of boundary, Bryce [Perkins] was out of boundary, Mason Moran was out of boundary. I mean, when you’re growing up and when you’re a youth kid, you want to apply yourself where you think you can succeed. If you’re an aspiring quarterback, I guess, there’s a way things are done at Chandler that maybe aren’t done at every place. I haven’t met a quarterback who throws to himself yet, so you have guys to throw to, right? Then you have guys like at a place like Chandler where you have guys with speed to throw to. If you’re ever looking or have a goal or potential to play at the next level, you know how to play with speed. It’s just a totally different idea of fast in the game when you have guys who can run and guys that can make things happen on the skill side of things. Guys who can cover, and things like that. The open enrollment as definitely played a big part of that. But it’s like anything, there’s only one quarterback. There’s only 22 positions out there, and I think the biggest thing at a place like Chandler is you have to go earn your playing time. I think that’s why our kids do so well when they go on to college, because they’ve already been part of that environment where they have to earn their stuff. There’s a lot of good players there, and I’m sure it’s the same thing at Hamilton, same thing at Basha, same thing at Perry. Those guys can’t think they’re the best and they’re going to show up and just play, because it’s not like that. You’ve got a lot of numbers, a lot of good players and a lot of good — I mean, there’s a reason they call it the ‘Premier’ region, right? Open enrollment has a lot to do with that. I don’t know how many guys we have in our starting unit that are from out of boundary, but I’m sure it’s quite a bit. As I’m sure a lot of other schools are, too. Same thing.

FA: Chandler’s always had the athletes through that track program, but how did you and coach Aguano go about developing the offense and how do you continue to tinker with it?

RG: I did not coach Brett [Hundley] as a quarterback, so the first guy I had was Darell [Garretson] as a senior. I told him the only way I was going to do that is if he allowed me to a) let the quarterback run the show, which means he’s in charge of protections, he’s in charge of reads and in charge of running the offense. The last time I checked, he’s the guy out there on the field, and he’s running the ship. He agreed to that, and we kind of ran with that and then started implementing things as we went along. I can remember [learning run-pass option football]. You have a run play that works together with a pass play, right? It’s option football, so you’re leaving somebody unblocked and you’re reading off of him. It depends on them whether you hand the ball off or you throw it. I remember the first time I was ever introduced to run-pass option was by Shaun [Aguano], who met with Mike Norvell and we did it against Basha in Darell’s senior year. We ran one scheme with basically a couple formations and I think that night we were like 14 of 16 for 250 yards and a touchdown on one scheme. From there, it just kind of developed itself and now Shaun goes around to different parts of the country and presents those kinds of schemes from a high school level. As time goes along, it’s like anything, defenses catch up with stuff and then offenses do something else. The defenses catch up, and then offenses [adapt]. It’s kind of a give and take, and of course that was back in 2012 so now it’s 2016 and we probably have a set of one version of that [play then] and now we probably have like eight. It just helps quarterback development, it helps receiver development and it’s nice for me in the fact that obviously we have kids that can spin the ball. I’m really lucky to have kids that are really smart and are football smart. But you work at that, too. We have film from every practice. We film every game. We film every drill, and we watch that before we go out the next day so all the film work and all the Hudl stuff and everything, it really allows them a foundation, so when they go out on a Friday night it’s pretty clear, cut and dry what’s happening. You allow your kids to go out and have success. We press them in practice, make things hard in practice and give them the most difficult looks they’ll have so when they get to a Friday night they’ll have success. Take like Bryce Perkins for example, where his junior people looked at him probably more as a runner and an athlete than a quarterback, and of course that was Bryce’s driving force. [He thought,] ‘I’m going to show people I’m a quarterback’ and look what he did in his senior year, throwing for 46 touchdowns with a 70-some odd percent and leading us to a state championship and getting a scholarship to play quarterback at ASU. We’ve got kids who love to work. We’ve got a staff who thinks outside of the box and allows kids [freedom]. We don’t just tell them to throw the ball to Johnny [Johnson]. We don’t just say Johnny Johnson needs to go get the ball. We don’t do that. It’s progressional reads, and that’s why you’ll see when you go back since I’ve been dealing with the quarterbacks and stuff, I’m going to say at least four or five guys have 20 or more receptions on our team every year. You have a multitude of guys who are catching balls throughout a game as opposed to just having a go-to guy or maybe two go-to guys. It’s a lot of fun, and it keeps everybody involved in a game and keeps everybody on the tip of their toes to have some fun and have some success. Shaun has a lot of fun. He’s an awesome guy to work with. And you mention the track, Eric [Richardson] is one of the top track coaches in the nation at the high school level, whether it’s girls or boys. It doesn’t matter, either of the two. We have that ability where, speed doesn’t know color, right? You can teach speed, and he does an unbelievable job of that so our guys in the offseason, they run track, they lift. If they’re a true track guy, they’re not going to be out running routes and stuff like that but when they come back in spring and then that fall, that track speed turns into football speed. The good thing about speed is, you can make mistakes and overcompensate for them. We’ve just been lucky to have it. Look at a guy like Ryan Johnson. I don’t know if you’ve seen him play, but that dude’s fast. He’s a guy that can make you miss and make big things [happen]. When that guy touches the ball, he makes big things happen just like he even did at [Corona] Centennial when he banged up his knee a little bit. It’s a great staff. Guys think out of the box. You’re always trying to learn, always trying to get better. Sometimes things work when they’re ideas you think about, sometimes they don’t and you adjust. You move forward, and you have some fun.

FA: When you’re a quarterback at Chandler, what is asked of you and how does that play a role in the last four quarterbacks winding up at Pac-12 schools?

RG: First of all, you have to have technique as far as throwing the ball. We do a really good job, I think, with that, with the kids understanding the mechanics of being a quarterback. Having to make their own adjustments if their ball’s tailing off and knowing why the football is offline. Nobody cares about that when you play, because everybody’s just trying to get a first down, so having the background and the knowledge of that allows the kids to have success just from the sure standpoint of how to throw the ball and how to be accurate. I can say that, from what we do, my quarterbacks are extremely accurate. Whether it’s Brett [Hundley], Darell [Garretson], Bryce [Perkins], Mason [Moran] and now Jacob Conover. Those guys throw strikes, and that’s part of a fundamental period. You have that fundamental period, for the most part, in the offseason. Do we work on technique during the year? Yes, but you’re more into schematics and just making sure you’ve got the basics down and balls in place. From there, you have the knowledge of what’s an open field, what’s a closed field, how do people roll. What’s a one-shade, a three-shade, a four-shade, an odd front, just all these different aspects of the game which we teach them. That comes into protections, because you’ve got to protect the quarterback, right? Whether it’s with a five-man protection or a six-man protection, my kids are in charge of that. I tell them, if they get hit and knocked it’s your fault because you didn’t know where to set the protection. I can tell you, and of course we have Chris Chick as an offensive line coach who does a great job, and we have some really outstanding offense linemen who take pride in protecting their guys, for as much as we throw I don’t think we’ve had more than six or seven sacks per year. It works out really well. We obviously practice it with all the different things you can do with blitz sessions and blitz pickup in team sessions and stuff like that, so I give them that foundation, we study ourselves. My guys have reads from open field, we have reads going from an open field to a closed field and so they have a really nice foundation. Nobody talks about being a decision-maker as a quarterback, right? You have to be a great decision-maker. You can have the best arm, you can run a 4.3 in the 40[-yard dash], but if you’re a trigger guy and you don’t have great decision-making capabilities, you are going to die at the quarterback spot. Like I said, I’ve been really fortunate to have smart kids, really smart football kids, we work at that and we train that and that allows them when they go to Oregon State or ASU or UCLA, it allows them to have a foundation so when Brett’s thrown to the fire as a redshirt freshman, he succeeds. When Darell’s thrown into the fire as a true freshman at Utah State, he succeeds and Bryce will do the same thing when he gets his opportunity over at ASU. All those guys are competitive, too. You’ve got to be a competitor, you’ve got to be a leader and all those other aspects, because there’s no leadership school when you go to a quarterback coach. We can develop [physical skill], but [leadership] is a thing where you either have it or you don’t. It’s the ability to see a guy downfield with a bullet coming at you either you have that or you don’t. I’ve been lucky that my guys have all been those type of guys that are able to hang in pockets or are able to extend and get their eyes downfield and get them the ball. It’s nice throwing to guys like N’Keal [Harry] and Chase [Lucas] and [Gunner] Romney and [Johnny] Johnson, Javon Williams, Paul Perkins. You go down the list, and those are a lot of fun guys to throw to. Ultimately, it’s having fun. We have fun. If we don’t have fun, what’s the sense of being out there in 180-degree temperature at four o’clock in the afternoon every day? I’ve been blessed. I’ve had my share of Division I quarterbacks at Servite. In fact, one of those kids wound up at Texas and was at the [Corona] Centennial game and he was just in awe of what we do, how well we do it. Obviously, it was a shock last week with the Mountain Pointe thing but you’ve seen what we can do. I couldn’t ask to be in a better spot, though. From the Chandler school district, [Camile] Casteel, Larry Rother, Shaun Aguano, it’s all like everybody works together and ultimately we care about the kids. I don’t think anyone does it better than Shaun Aguano. Really creative, really awesome head coach and I’ve been around a lot of them. He’s one of the best.

FA: What were some of your first impressions of being in the environment of a Chandler-Hamilton game?

RG: At Servite, it’s Servite-Mater Dei and we didn’t beat Mater Dei for something like 16 years or something and it was kind of the same type of gig. Coming from the outside in, there was a lot of similarities with the exception that with Mater Dei-Servite the kids kind of know each other, but out here they know each other. When you’re talking about a down the street rivalry, some of those kids went to junior high together, they played youth ball together and so it was pretty cool. I know in 2006 they had the game, and I didn’t go to it but my buddy went to the game and said, ‘Oh my god, I’ve never seen a high school environment like that night at Chandler.’ You’ve got great players on both sides. You’ve got kids that are accustomed to winning. You have coaches who have the skill level to make nice adjustments and adapt and move things in a general direction. As time’s went along, Chandler had their heartbreak at certain times. I know the one year that Brett [Hundley] was a junior there was the game that they got beat but should have won. There was Darell [Garretson]’s junior year when they were in position to win that game, too, so they couldn’t get over the hump. Really I think, and Shaun [Aguano] would agree with me, the game that [changed things], when we went and played St. John Bosco and we’re basically going toe to toe with them. I think it showed us in the program and that this is what you can do. Then when you come back and play somebody like Hamilton, you’re looking at that and going, ‘OK, this prepared us for that’ and it allowed us that night with a minute and whatever left and Bryce moved us and Dionte caught the touchdown with about 10 seconds to win that thing. It was a changing point in our program. Of course, as time’s gone along we lost that tough one to them in the state semifinals that year and then beat them twice the following year and beat them last year in a really good game. It’s just a great rivalry. It’s not a hate rivalry, though some people think of it as one. But it’s not. Coach [Steve] Belles and Shaun [Aguano], they are not enemies by any means. It’s just a high-octane, high school environment. Last year, they were what, №20 in the country and we were whatever we were? It was two of the top teams in the country just a couple miles down the road from each other in the same city. You just don’t find that too often in the country, and it’s unique. They play at a high level this year and every year, and so does Chandler. It’s just a pretty cool thing, and we’ve been fortunate enough to win a few the last couple years. We’ll see what happens this year and ultimately when it all comes down to it, you’re probably going to have to play each other a second time down the road in a playoff game, whether it be a semifinal, a final or maybe even sometimes a quarterfinal. When it really counts, so to speak. When it’s a one-and-done type of thing.

FA: How much do you think the streak was a factor in the psyche of the players within the program?

RG: It was obviously a very exciting game [when we beat them]. Eventually, coaches, kids, and everyone get tired being asked when you’re going to get it done, so you finally do get it done and then the series has kind of changed course a little bit. But it’s still games that, while they’re obviously of high importance, I think in preparation we prepare the same for Hamilton that we prepare for a Sandra Day O’Connor. I know Steve {Belles] and them do the same darn thing. Obviously from a confidence factor, you’ve finally got that monkey, so to speak, off your back and then now you just go ahead and play ball. Obviously we met them in the finals a couple years ago and you got two really nice crowds that drove an hour to go watch the game in Glendale. That was a really good football game. I respect the heck out of those kids, and so do our kids and we just play hard and prepare the best we can and let the chips fall where they may. It’s always exciting. It’s exciting whether you play at Hamilton High School or whether you play at Chandler, it’s just a great high school environment that kids are fortunate enough to be involved with their two or three years of varsity life.

FA: The year after you beat them the first time, you went to Hamilton and blew them out pretty badly to snap their home win streak and then you beat them for a state title. How steep do you think that climb was for Chandler, and what do you think led to the change?

RG: Obviously that year, nobody expected to have a score like that over at their place in 2014. I think sometimes things just kind of happen. It’s almost the same thing with us the other night at Mountain Pointe. Things just kind of happened, and you knew things weren’t going to be like that in the second game. There was no way, because it’s too good of staff, too good of players and it’s going to be limited possessions, which is was that night. You’re going to have to make things stick. I know from a confidence perspective, it’s like you think you’ve got things pretty much well in line to make things happen, but you always know guys are going to make adjustments. They adjusted in our second game that year. Last year’s game was a barn burner. I mean, we’ve got Taj DeCarriere who makes a play with four minutes left in the game that you wouldn’t expect. It’s not like we were going yard on that thing or anything. That was a snag route that he caught and he took it 90-some odd yards. Then you’ve got Kyeler [Burke] open on a really nice call by Steve [Belles] and we got Parker Henley to track it and he knocks it down. Next thing you know, you wind up winning the game and it’s all over. That’s a really hard-fought battle and hard-fought game. That night, with the [blowout], that was just something that doesn’t really come along too often. Ultimately, you know year in and year out that you’re going to have to beat them in order to get to where you want to get to in regards to winning a state title. Generally, that’s going to come in the playoffs. It’s the same thing when we played Mountain Pointe two years ago. They beat us 45–42, and we got a second opportunity in the playoffs when it’s one and done and we end up getting the win that night and go on and win the thing. It’s just preparation. When you’ve got an environment like that, it’s like a championship environment. Same thing when we played [Corona] Centennial. I’m very good friends with Matt Logan at Centennial, known him for a long time, and he was just talking about that was like a CIF final playoff game. You try to get yourself in games like that, so ultimately when you get a game like Hamilton you’ve already been there and been in that. You get to a semifinal, final game in the state championship series, you’ve already kind of been there and your kids, that’s not something that’s going to be them in over their heads. The moment’s never too big for them since they’ve already done those things before. It’s very cool, I will say that. Having kids like [Rivals] who cover things and promote Chandler athletics and Chandler Unified School District and just everything that develops with that. It’s a very unique part of the country, and a very unique situation. I can tell you this, when you go out in the country people know who Chandler High School is. They know who Chandler football is. Whether it’s in southern California, or whether I’m in the east coast at my dad’s hall of fame thing over the weekend or going to the U.S. Army game and watching Bryce Holland. People know who Chandler High School is, and that’s been Shaun [Aguano]. He’s had on us to become a national program that we’ve developed the last five years.

FA: Now that the streak’s over and now that you’ve played each other for a state championship, where does this rivalry go from here?

RG: Any time two schools get together like that, and especially in football, it’s always going to be the thing of the week or the month or the year. If you meet in the semifinals or the state finals, those are always going to be big moments and big times that kids are going to remember and an exciting time in their lives. Can the rivalry get better? I think always it can get better. It’s very different in the sense that you’ve got kids that grow up together. You’ve got kids that go to school together. You’ve got kids like Avery Carrington, who’s at Hamilton right now and is a sophomore. I’ve known that guy since he’s been like two years old. Knowing his mom and his dad, and his dad played at Hamilton for a few years, those are all things to me that are really cool because it lets me know that I’m getting older. I see all these kids growing up. I saw Avery year, and I hadn’t seen him in I don’t know, maybe seven years? Oh my god, he’s like a young man now. You have all that uniqueness in the series and the rivalry, and of course Steve and his staff know how to prepare. Shaun [Aguano] and our staff, we know how to prepare. Maybe they’ll do something different, maybe not. Steve [Belles] always said better than everybody, it comes down to three or four plays in a game. If somebody makes it, somebody doesn’t and obviously that leads to somebody having a [win] and someone not. I don’t think it’s ever really been perceived as a hate thing, like in a comfortable type of thing. I know our kids respect them, their kids respect us and the same thing with the staffs. I think that falls on [Camile] Casteel’s shoulders, too. Everything is in proportion of where it should be. Things aren’t blown out of proportion. They’re in line, and we go out, play each other, have a great time and a great night and when it’s all over we all move on and all move forward. I can’t say it’s going to get better, because it’s really kind of at a peak where it’s at right now. I think it’ll just stay there because you have two programs that are just going to have success year in and year out.