Padecky: Casa Grande’s Johnny Fragakis a powerful role model

What you are about to read, you probably won’t believe. Least in the beginning. I understand. I was there once myself. It takes a little time. There are a lot of moving parts.

For the first seven years of his life, Johnny Fragakis heard gurgling in his ears, like water swishing. The result of a pesky ear infection. Didn’t hear much else. Like words. Heard muffled sounds. Maybe. Speech was a slur of sounds. By 5, Fragakis was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. By six, Fragakis was diagnosed as a dyslexic. A lab mouse in a laboratory isn’t as examined as much. Fragakis would get so frustrated at times he’d bang his head on his desk. His body movements, like is mind, were all over the place. He began Special Day Class, another way of saying Special Education.

“Most kids in this situation,” said Christie Johnson, his tutor who has worked in the education developmental field for 33 years, “the parents hope that one day their kid can be something like a janitor. This is not mentioned as a slight. It just reflects the obstacles these kids face.”

That was then. This is now.

Fragakis is 17, a senior at Casa Grande High School. He entered mainstream classes after his freshman year. He has a 3.5 grade-point average. As a junior he was named the school’s Humanitarian of the Year for that grade. With three other Casa students in December, he went to a remote village in the Dominican Republic highlands as his senior project, helping build a structure that would serve as a kitchen. An offensive lineman for the Gauchos last season, Johnny was named to second team All-League honors in the Vine Valley Athletic League. He is 6-foot-7, 325 pounds, size 18 shoe. He will be playing college football this fall, school yet to be determined.

“I’ve had only three kids make the transition from SDC to mainstream,” said Johnson, who has tutored Fragakis every week for the last three and half years. “None of them have done what Johnny has. There’s only one Johnny.”

Determination, as defined by the folks at Oxford Dictionary, is “Firmness of purpose. Resoluteness.” Those are the words. Fragakis is the face. Of course, one’s gaze might never get that high. His body is man-sized, NFL-sized, the size that might cause an oncoming walker to seek another sidewalk.

At 7 years old, Fragakis was 5-foot-2, 100 pounds. At 12, he was 5-foot-11, 280 pounds. As a Casa freshman, he was 6-foot-1, 370 pounds. Who is ADHD and dyslexic. Who had poor motor control and little awareness of the damage he could cause.

“Johnny could get playful and knock a kid across the room just by moving his arm sideways,” said his mother, Jan Fragakis, a first-grade teacher at Corona Creek Elementary School. “I’d have to keep reminding Johnny to be careful. Don’t hit people.”

Imagine, therefore, man-boy Johnny Fragakis, playing football at Casa. It was his first football experience. He was too big for Pop Warner. He spent the first 14 years of his life told not to hit people. Now it was time to hit people. For a kid with learning disabilities, it was a bewildering time. He would just stand there, get thumped and then shrug. It wasn’t like it hurt. More like mosquitoes bothering King Kong.

“I was a gentle giant,” Fragakis said.

Who had to unlearn what he learned. It wasn’t the first time he had to pay attention. This would be the appropriate moment to introduce The Village, the group of people, his mother guesses, that numbers around 40. Forty people who have been with Johnny through the years. Yes, a true village, not a meaningless cliche reflecting a group of people who meet once a week at a bar, for example.

So when it came time for Fragakis to be the hammer, not the nail on the football field, everything The Village had taught him would come into play. The speech therapists, the occupational therapists, the research specialists, the tutors, the counselors, the SDC teachers, the doctors, the coaches, the personal trainer and most of all mom Jan and dad George - all these people were pulling the same wagon in the same direction with the same desire.

All had one common variable.

“I wish I had the drive that this kid has,” said John Antonio, Casa’s head football coach and Petaluma policeman.

“In all my years of coaching,” said Frank Giammona, Casa’s offensive line coach, “I’ve never seen a kid work this hard.”

On Dec. 16, Johnny played in the Blue-Gray All-American Game at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium. It was invitation only. Ninety percent of the players there had already committed to college.

That’s last December. Now dial it back to January 2017, when Tre Fitzgerald starting working with Fragakis.

“He couldn’t even look at me in the eye,” said Fitzgerald, Casa’s strength and conditioning coach. He is a Marine, served a tour overseas in an anti-terrorist unit. He is as button-down as they come. He’s been a trainer since 1993. When Fitzgerald first met Johnny three-and-half years ago, it was clear to him what he saw.

“He was a big piece of Play-Doh,” Fitzgerald said. “He was a sponge (soft).”

So why did Fitzgerald work with him the way he has - at 5:30 a.m. at least three days a week at the Fragakis’ garage? The weights. The wind sprints up Martha Street in Petaluma. The walks around the neighborhood, talking, exploring. The kid who had left SDC after his freshman year to go mainstream. The kid who people mocked. Called a big dummy. Why?

“I saw something in him,” Fitzgerald said. It was and is that thing to define with words. Like seeing actress Jennifer Anniston and immediately realizing the camera likes her. Seeing this man-boy is to see the fire, the refusal to submit, the refusal to limit.

Fragakis’ schedule should not come as a surprise. He keeps a year-round commitment to both academics and athletics. Non-football-season it’s 5:30-7 a.m. with Fitzgerald. He skips rope to warm up while listening to audio tapes for inspiration. Muhammad Ali, Kobe Bryant, Connor McGregor, Bruce Lee, among others, have quickened his step.

Then it’s off to Casa, followed after school by Johnson the tutor for a couple hours, followed by a workout at “Chalk It Up Strength” in Cotati, followed by a sign-language course at Santa Rosa Junior College. Then sleep somewhere around 10 p.m. In the summer Johnny replaces Casa instruction with more tutoring including audio books.

“How many 15-, 16-, 17-year old kids have that kind of schedule?” Fitzgerald said. “I’ve worked with kids who work that hard because they’re going to play Division I football. But Johnny works the academics as hard as he works out as an athlete. Remarkable. Really remarkable.”

Consider how remarkable: Fragakis played Little League baseball but felt isolated. So alone was he, Fragakis would stand in right field and pretend he was a Jedi warrior in “Star Wars”. He’d wave an imaginary light saber at imaginary 10-headed drooling monster. While the game was going on.

“Thank God nobody hit the ball to right field,” his mom said.

Fragakis played Little League for three years. He got one hit. He never swung. He said, “I was afraid of the ball.” Should have been the other way around. He was a Jedi because he was safe. With himself and no others. No one could laugh at him. He stayed inside until Mike Lantier was the first to bring him out.

Lantier was his lacrosse coach. As the team did laps, Fragakis lumbered behind the pack. Lantier, who is also ADHD, knew this wouldn’t do. He told his players to stay with Fragakis, to run together. It was the first time, the man-child recalled, that he felt he really belonged to something.

This last Casa football season Fragakis led the laps. If someone was dragging he told his mates to slow down and wait. As the team would run onto the field before the game, it was Fragakis leading the charge, waving the American flag. It was Fragakis his teammates now approached for encouragement. Fragakis now walks across Casa’s campus and hears “Hey, Johnny!”

It was Fragakis who sat there last Friday night at his house in front of The Village. He knew all of them had kept opening the doors for him, even when he didn’t see the doors. He took them on faith. He rewarded them with uncommon inner strength. He knows he’s never been alone, even when he felt he was.

I asked: “How can you pay back all these people?”

Fragakis looked up, a bit startled, and put his head in his hands. He cried softly.

“He already has,” Fitzgerald interjected.

The moment needed a sparkle.

“Hey, Johnny,” I said, “big offensive linemen aren’t supposed to cry.”

Without missing a beat, Fragakis responded perfectly.

“Yeah, except if the buffet runs out.”

To comment write bobpadecky@gmail.com.