Gorman assistants follow Sanchez from California for championship run

By Ray Brewer (contact)

Saturday, Dec. 5, 2009 | 7:36 p.m.

The excitement in Tony Sanchez’s voice was all it took to sell Garrett Johnson on the idea of moving to Southern Nevada to coach high school football.

It was a leap of faith of sorts, considering Johnson would have to move his family from their native Northern California and didn’t have a job lined up in Las Vegas.

But coaching alongside Sanchez was too good of an opportunity to pass on.

Sanchez became Bishop Gorman's coach last spring and didn’t have to look far in assembling his coaching staff.

Running backs coach Craig Canfield, defensive tackles coach Scott Cooley and Johnson, the Gaels’ wide receiver coach, were all part of Sanchez’s staff at Cal High in San Ramon, Calif. Sanchez’s younger brother, Kenny Sanchez, left a college job at Ellsworth Junior College in Iowa to become the Gaels' defensive coordinator.

The coaches are also close friends, which played heavily in the decision to relocated to Las Vegas. Kenny Sanchez, who also previously coached at Cal High, was the best man at Johnson’s wedding and the two were teammates in youth football as children.

“The best part of the whole deal is that I’m out here with a bunch of guys I grew up with,” Johnson said. “We are all like brothers. You always want someone to enjoy (winning) with someone.

“I can’t imagine coaching with another head coach or in another program.”

The risk was rewarded Saturday with the ultimate prize. Gorman capped its undefeated season with a 62-21 victory against overmatched Del Sol in the large-school state title game at Sam Boyd Stadium.

From the initial workouts last spring to designing a game plan for the title game, Tony Sanchez said he couldn’t have had as much success without the others.

“We all believed that Gorman would be a special place to be,” Tony Sanchez said. “I didn’t have to do much convincing because they knew this was a good football deal. Gorman is a place you can hang your hat on and call it a career.”

Johnson and Canfield each are married with children. Still, there was very little resistance in joining Sanchez.

“I’m 100-percent behind them. This is best move we could have ever made,” said Nicole Canfield, coach Canfield’s wife, following the victory against Del Sol.

“We absolutely love it here. Tony cares. He’s a genuine person who isn’t fake. If he makes a promise, with the kids or coaches, he sticks to it.”

Tony Sanchez’s biggest selling job came with luring his younger brother to Gorman. Kenny Sanchez had aspirations of climbing the ladder in the college-coaching ranks, but realized that being on his brother’s staff was too good of an opportunity to pass on.

“He just had to sell our mom. My mom wears the pants in the family,” Kenny Sanchez said. “I didn’t know if I wanted to go back to high school, but he convinced me to come down and take a look at (Gorman). It ended up being a great situation.”

Gorman has 17 coaches in its program, including a few holdovers from past seasons, and the foursome was able to hit the ground running because of their familiarity with how Tony Sanchez runs a program.

“They believe in me and what we are going,” Tony Sanchez said. “All of the guys are excited to be here.”