RENEE BRACAMONTE/Tucson Citizen

Sunnyside's Manny Aguilar cheers during his team's Oct. 31 win over Ironwood Ridge.

HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL

Grammer: Coach's words got Sunnyside's Aguilar on track

November 20, 2008, 12:25 a.m.
GEOFF GRAMMER
Tucson Citizen

During his freshman year at Sunnyside High School, Manny Aguilar was not unlike any typical teenage boy.

The priorities in his life consisted of friends and fun. School was viewed primarily as a necessary evil.

And while he wasn't a problem child - Aguilar wasn't into gangs or anything of that sort - he lacked focus and his grades reflected it.

Three years later, Aguilar, now a star running back preparing to lead No. 5 seed Sunnyside into Friday's Class 5A Division II quarterfinal game against No. 4 Ironwood Ridge, remembers the day that changed his high school life.

After playing a season on the Sunnyside freshman team, Aguilar and his mother, Marina, were called into a meeting with varsity football coach Richard Sanchez.

"He wasn't doing as good as he needed to be doing in class and I told him if he doesn't get the grades, he wasn't allowed in our weight room anymore," Sanchez said. "He wasn't going to be a part of Sunnyside football."

The ultimatum wasn't only from Sanchez.

"Oh yeah, I remember that meeting, too," said Marina Aguilar. "I remember telling him he was going to start getting better grades or I was going to go sit in his classes with him."

Marina, a single mom, says she knew the best opportunity for her teenage son to mature and successfully navigate his way through his high school years was to play football.

"It wasn't that it was just football, it was that it was the Sunnyside football program," said Marina, a 1993 Sunnyside graduate who recalls the guidance the boys she graduated with received from Sanchez. At that time, Sanchez was the school's wrestling coach. "I know I'm a good role model and we would have found a way, but I also know he needed some strong male role models in his life. With the Sunnyside football team, they care for the kids. It's a big family and he needed that."

The meeting was the "kick in the butt" Manny Aguilar needed, according to his mom. Not only did his grades improve - he now has a 3.6 grade point average - but he developed into the Blue Devils' best player, and the team's leader.

"She basically told me I better do what my coaches told me to do," Manny said. "We put our trust in them and I've loved being a part of this team. This is my family."

Three years later, despite being hampered with nagging injuries as a sophomore and junior while learning behind former Blue Devils running back Jovan Stevenson, Manny has emerged as one of Tucson's best players.

His 1,087 rushing yards this season, along with 17 touchdowns, marks the ninth time a Sunnyside running back has broken the 1,000-yard barrier since 2000. More importantly, Manny Aguilar is on track to graduate in the spring and will likely play collegiate football.

"He'll be a good Division II running back for someone," Sanchez said. "Or, if he goes the junior college route, that's good, too. He's one of those guys that talks to other players - he picks them up when we've (coaches) gotten on them too much or he helps them stay focused. He just knows things. It makes it a little bit easier on us when you have a leader as a player who is on the same page as the coaches."

For Manny, the prospect that a loss in any of the next three rounds of the playoffs will be his last high school football game, is one he isn't ready to accept.

"It's gone too fast since that freshman year," he said. "But I'll remember the summers, the practices with my teammates. All the fighting, all the running on the track, the tears we cried together, the blood we shed together.

"The hard work. That's what I'm going to look back on and miss the most."