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.
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