On Feb. 1, the Elks Lodge San Mateo was the home of the ninth annual Aragon Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Over 150 Aragon community members were in attendance to see the inductees receive their distinguished recognition from their alma-mater.
The six inductees, representing four different decades of Aragon athletic history, along with the 2010 Girls Varsity Soccer Team, were among those who had their name forever etched in Aragon history for their contribution to the Aragon athletic department.
Event organizer and athletic director Steve Sell noted the massive measure of research and consideration required to select the inductees, saying, “First, you do the research to select a class, and after you get a class, to put all that information onto a plaque takes more research and communication.”
Beginning in 2008, the first class of inductees were the coaches that laid the foundation for Aragon sports – a group Sell refers to as the “founding fathers.”
Since then the inductees have been selected by “a committee that ranges from people from the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, and from every era. [The committee is comprised of] past inductees, coaches, players”, but that the main criteria is that athletes must have “made a really huge difference in the school”.
Among the inductees was 1985 graduate Marlin Brown.
As stated by his plaque, “”Marlin helped lead Aragon to its first CCS playoff appearance as a junior, and a year later, their first PAL championship”.
Brown was the first Don to ever win a full scholarship. He went on to represent the red and black as a defensive end at Washington State, then later took his talents to the Arena Football League.
However, despite his immense success as an athlete, Brown is quick to remember where he came from, and how his journey started.
“There are just a lot of great teachers and coaches who helped mold me, helped me change, and I love Aragon dearly”.
It is arguable that Brown has been the most influential Don of all time.
Says Sell on Brown, “He made the difference. That’s when the team went from good to great”.
Along with Brown was 1981 graduate Kurt Devlin, dubbed by Sell as “the best goalie we’ve ever had”.
After graduating from Aragon, Devlin received the first soccer scholarship for a Don, playing at Skyline College, and later, the University of Tampa. Devlin later played for the San José Earthquakes before training in England.
In spite of all the matches he’s been apart of, the former Don will always remember one particular showdown against Saint Ignatius, in the CCS Playoff Semi-Finals, which lasted eight overtimes, before the referees were forced to call the match due to darkness. The game was resumed the following day, which, of course, went to overtime as well.
Another inductee was Aragon’s 1998 Athlete of the Year, Karina Chin.
Before becoming a French and AVID teacher at Sequoia, Chin was nearly an Olympian, representing the United States in wrestling.
Says the star wrestler, “I was third on the World Team Trials, so an alternate, so if someone had withdrawn, I would’ve been able to go [to the Olympics]”.
A graduate of 1971 and a member of Aragon’s All-Time Baseball Team, John Goulding was the most senior inductee. A winner of over 400 games at Logan High School, Goulding has coached the likes of Gregg Jefferies, a two-time All-Star for the St. Louis Cardinals, and Barry Bonds, the home run king of the MLB (Major League Baseball).
One of two three-sport athletes at the ceremony, Sabrina Lau-Guillebeaux, the 1993 Aragon Athlete of the Year, recollects how, “As I look back, I guess when I was at Aragon…you don’t realize how impactful and important the experiences [you] went through at the time were. But now, as I reflect, it really provided a core foundation for a lot of the lessons learned, a lot of the things that I’ve built upon as I was going through college, going through life”.
Since graduating from Aragon, Lau-Guillebeaux has been ranked #1 in the country, paired with her mother, after winning the USTA (United States Tennis Association) National Senior Mother Daughter Indoor Doubles Championship in 2009.
The last of the individual inductees, Miriam Chirko was inducted into the coveted Aragon Athletic Hall of Fame. An instrumental financial sponsor for Aragon, Chirko has played a major role in providing the school with scoreboards for the baseball and softball fields, as well as in the gymnasium.
Only six years after removed from playing for a CCS Championship, the 2010 Girls Varsity Soccer Team was the only team inducted in the 2016 Class.
Winning Aragon its first CCS Soccer Championship after a grueling double-overtime championship game against Presentation High School, the majority of the team came back for a nostalgic night of recollecting their top memories from their improbable championship run.
Head coach of the team and current Aragon teacher, Will Colglazier couldn’t help but smiling throughout his acceptance speech.
Says the coach on his team, “They had a chip on their shoulders…they knew they were smart soccer players, but they also played extremely tough…they deserved [to win the CCS Championship]”.
As for the ceremony next year, which would mark a the tenth year of the event, Sell will have to start working as soon as over the summer to plan the monumental induction.
No matter the amount of work that he has to put in in order to put the ceremony on, in the end, it is unanimously agreed upon that it will be worth it.
When asked why he continues to put on such an event year in and year out, Sell simply smiled, pointed to the crowd of 150 people happily recollecting their memories from their high school years, and said, “this”.
