College football is a madhouse environment 12 months a year, both for those inside the game and those who follow it with an almost religious devotion as fans.
You read about the issues constantly, from speculation that the Alabama dynasty has hit the end of the road, to the trendy point that Dabo Swinney’s rah-rah approach has supplanted Nick Saban’s business-like structure and whether the whole playoff idea is the best way to go, after all.
Mix in the growing momentum to pay players for their time, the injury concerns, the advent of coaches making $5 million a year in a quasi-amateur system, and there’s no lack of conversation for college fans.
But you know what we haven’t heard about for years?
Georgia Tech. Positioned in the heart of Atlanta, one of the five major markets in the country with a rabid statewide college football fan base, the Yellow Jackets have managed to become almost invisible. If you didn’t know any better, you might think the Ramblin’ Wreck has been in an NCAA witness protection program somewhere in an Arizona desert.
So you take all that, with the memory that the school shared a national championship with Colorado in 1990, and you wonder what happened.
And here’s Shaun Kagawa, the former Kamehameha defender who made it through his four years at the school with a less than optimal experience on the field — he played safety, was injured, sat out, played some more — and emerged with nothing but favorable recollections of the school.
It’s a funny thing, sometimes, the relentless image pushed by the NCAA of student-athletes and the concentration on learning that gets lost in the reality of big time college football, marinated in millions that goes to schools and coaches, while the players are essentially tools for the industry.
“It was strange,” said Kagawa, today a business administration major who has a fulfilling job that sends him around the country four or five days a week working on building material installations with the 130 contracts his company oversees. “I remember thinking, ‘How is this going to work out? I’m in college, I’m undersized and we’re playing triple option.’ It was different.”
Kagawa had a crash course in triple option football when he entered a West Point prep school out of high school that was part of former Hawaii coach Rich Ellerson’s program. He transferred to Georgia Tech to play for Paul Johnson, a dour, old school wishbone coach who firmly believed his triple option offense would bring back the pride to Jackets football.
They had their moments. They reached a conference championship, but the longer the ACC saw the 1970s offense, the better prepared it was to defend it. As an example, last year was an insightful look at Johnson’s tenure. The team had a four-game win streak, and it had back-to-back games in which it scored more than 60 points, against Bowling Green and at Louisville. After those two games that generated 129 points? Georgia Tech last at home to Duke, 28-14.
Nobody in the ACC was surprised anymore and at the end of the season, Johnson resigned, even though he had a contract that ran through 2020.
“We were all surprised, shocked, really,” Kagawa said. “We knew about the extension he signed and there was no indication that anything was any different. (Johnson) was very old school, and our entire coaching staff was on the older side.
“At some point we all realized we did better against SEC schools than ACC schools because (the SEC schools) weren’t used to defending the triple option. I think, over the years, Duke might have been our most difficult opponent, (Duke coach David) Cutcliffe is a very smart guy and for whatever reason, they had us figured out.”
Along the way, Kagawa figured something out, too. He was in college, with a chance to create a fulfilling career.
“Being a varsity athlete in college is a full time thing,” he said. “Most of us were up at 4 a.m., we had early stuff to do, then classes and practice and meetings and it was always 6 or 7 at night before I got back to my apartment, and then it was time for homework — that’s why we’re in school, right?”
Kagawa felt what it was like, on one hand, to be restricted in ways that other students are not held back, as in securing a part time job.
“You essentially have your room and board paid, so it was comfortable enough,” he said. “But playing there, we were, by far, the second attraction, the whole state is involved with UGA football. I thought we always tried a little harder against them but there’s no question they always had more athletes.”
Now, at the end, Kagawa is like the vast majority of high schoolers recruited to play college football — it’s over. He will probably never suit up again, never have to meet a running back in the A gap, never take another hit from a bigger, faster, stronger player. He’s a civilian, like all the rest of us, but for him, there is no regret, no angst, and for that, he thanks high school coach Dan Lyons.
Kagawa was a basketball player until he turned out for Lyons’ team at KSH. As a player new to football, he had big ideas and always thought he saw a path to victory regardless of who they played.
“I remember losing to Konawaena,” he said, “and after the game I was just distraught, trying to deal with it. Coach Dan came by, sat down and listened to me a bit, then he said, ‘Hey man, it’s not your life, it’s only a game.’
“I dismissed it,” Kagawa said. “I dismissed it the second time he said that, but he mentioned I should think of football as a vehicle to get me to college, to pay some of the finances.”
It wasn’t until he was playing at Georgia Tech that Lyons’ words came back to him.
“I saw guys who got hurt and busted their tails to get back for more playing time, and they would sometimes get hurt again,” Kagawa said. “It was a vicious cycle, but then I remember what Coach Dan said and it all made sense.
“I realized you have your football goals, your school goals and your life after college goals, so at some point it made sense that, okay, it was a bad game, you lost, whatever might have happened, but what sense did it make to have that affect your other goals? I never wanted to lose my identity and my purpose as a student.
“When you lose that,” he said, “then what happens to the rest of your life? I did everything I could in football, but at some point I didn’t allow it to take over my life.”
And now, he has a great job, his body isn’t broken down, but he knows, intimately, what it takes to be a college football player, and more, he understands it wasn’t all about him.
There’s more to life than that, which was a lesson he took with him to college, thanks to his high school coach.
Know and athlete or a team in need of recognition? Contact Bart at barttribuneherald@gmail.com
