It was 2015 when everything fell into place for the Española Valley High School football team.
The season when Miguel Medina had officially turned around the program in a year that brought several firsts — the first time the Sundevils reached nine victories (the most in school history), the first district championship and the first home playoff game.
Quarterback Marcos Flores earned the Male Athlete of the Year Award by local media outlets. That was Medina’s third year as the head coach — and it looked like the beginning of a long, successful tenure.
Then, Medina shocked the Española community by resigning after the 2015 season in what he said was due to leadership issues within the Española Public School District and the absence of “pushing academics.”
Fast forward to 2018 and Medina has returned and once again, the office adjacent to the Sundevil weight room has his name on it, hypothetically.
He said the return of a familiar face at the superintendent position allowed him to put his mind at ease about the leadership within the District, ultimately allowing him to come back.
“I always told people, “Why would I walk away from the best season in school history?’” Medina said. “I won coach of the year and all this stuff, but I got fed up with the constant rotation of leadership and I felt I had to make a stand. They brought in this lady to clean the District up, Bobbie Gutierrez. Apparently, she’s a whiz and that’s what she does. She came in and started attacking (the issues).”
During his time away from Española, Medina spent eight months working on a ranch, then spent 2016 as an assistant at Pojoaque Valley before serving as the offensive coordinator at Santa Fe High School last season.
Since his return, he has already filled in as the head track coach this past spring and has been pushing the envelope this offseason in preparations for the 2018 football season.
“It’s the most important part of it all,” Medina said. “Anybody that says that it’s not hasn’t been coaching football. So we’re back at it and picking up where we left off.”
Reunited
Besides the whirlwind that Medina has been through, it’s been as much of a tornado for senior quarterback Makaio Frazier.
The senior spent two years at La Cueva High School before transferring to traditional Colorado high school powerhouse, Cherry Creek, where he was injured and in a walking boot for a majority of that season.
A family-illness forced his move back to New Mexico and Frazier was home-schooled during 2017. When his father found out Medina was returning as the coach, it was an easy decision to play again.
“It was super exciting to hear,” Frazier said about the hiring. “I had heard what he had done his first tenure, so when I heard he was coming back, I said, ‘You know what, let’s just do this.’ I’ve known him for like 10, 11 years.”
Medina knew Frazier’s father from his time at Northern New Mexico College where the two worked on film projects together.
“I’ve known the kid since he was 7 or 8 years old,” he said. “He’s just polished. You can tell this kid’s been around some good football.”
Although he’s new in town, Frazier did attend elementary school in Española as a child.
“I wasn’t sure (about) bringing in somebody from the outside, but he knew the kids from elementary,” Medina said. “A lot of them, they said things like, ‘Oh ya, I remember you, you’re the guy with the turtle.’ So, the football gods finally blessed me with something; the first time I’ve had a quarterback that’s over 6 feet in my coaching career.”
Junior class
One of Frazier’s weapons on the outside is junior receiver/tight end/defensive end Tanner Law, who’s one of the Sundevils’ bigger players.
“He’s a really great kid and great quarterback,” he said about Frazier. “He knows the game and has a good IQ and makes the team better. All in all, he brings us closer as a team.”
Law is a part of the Española junior class that is extremely close because of their success together as seventh and eighth-graders playing in the YAFL (Young American Football League).
Other players from the class who will be large factors this season are running back/linebacker Jose Perez, receiver/linebacker/safety Arlen Garcia, running back/linebacker Gabe Quintana and receiver/defensive back Kebin Marquez, among others.
Perez and Quintana will give Medina a one-two punch in the backfield, with Perez being the lighter and faster back, while the bigger Quintana brings more power to the table.
Law, Garcia and Marquez will be joined by Saul Salgado to round out the receiving corps. The group has had to adjust with the new quarterback.
“We did good at most of our 7-on-7s this summer,” Medina said. “You got kids running corner routes and they’re not used to it because it just wasn’t there (before). Now, he’s throwing buckets in a hat, so we had to clean up the route running.”
Medina’s offense will primarily run the double wing-T formation.
“The difference is, we run it out of the pistol” he said. “Most teams nowadays are in the spread. It’s a great offense, I mean, I used to coach the spread but everybody runs it and everybody knows how to defend it. Now we’re going back to some old school stuff.”
Defensively, the Sundevils will keep things simple.
“Not too complex because if you give them too much they start thinking too much,” Medina said. “We try to keep it down to base formations and we don’t get too blitz happy.”
The primary defensive scheme will be a 4-4 against run-oriented teams — and a 4-2-5 against spread systems.
“We’re strong in numbers when it comes to our skill positions,” Medina said. “We have some decent linebackers, corners and stuff, but we’re thin at the line right now.”
Medina said he’s confident in the interior play on both sides of the ball, but admitted if any injuries occur, then it will more than likely be a freshman or young sophomore that will have to fill the void.
2018 Schedule
Aug. 24 – at Los Alamos, 7 p.m.
Aug. 31 – Hope Christian, 7 p.m.
Sept. 7 – Santa Fe, 7 p.m.
Sept. 14 – at Gallup, 7 p.m.
Sept. 21 – at Navajo Prep, 7 p.m.
Oct. 5 – Bernalillo, 7 p.m.
Oct. 12 – at Taos, 7 p.m.
Oct. 19 – at Grants, 7 p.m.
Oct. 26 – St. Pius X, 7 p.m.
Nov. 2 – at Pojoaque Valley, 7 p.m.