Written by Claire Mason and Zack Cherkas
Summer Lee
Softball player and 1993 Aragon graduate Summer Lee dominated the Peninsula Athletic League during her time at Aragon. Lee was named All-PAL all four years and All-County three times.
However, Lee notes that her coach did not play much of a role in the team’s success.
“It was a different time … back then in the ‘90s. Our coach was known for, during practice, smoking and drinking out of a flask … he actually had a heart attack and passed away between our junior and senior year,” Lee said in her speech. “We actually kind of coached ourselves for three years.”
Despite having an absent coach, Lee led her team to a 20-win season every year, highlighted by a 27-win season and PAL championship her senior year. That same year, Lee batted .439, leading the PAL in hits and runs batted in. Recognized as one of the best catchers in SMUHSD softball history.
Lee’s athleticism was highlighted in that she was also a leadoff hitter — a rarity for catchers.
However, Lee is quick to give credit to her team.
“We had an era of a lot of really talented players that were grown out of the community softball leagues,” Lee said. “Because there were a lot of good players, I think we pushed each other to be really good. Every single one of us played outside of high school.”
After graduating from Aragon, Lee continued her softball career at Stanford University, where she was selected team MVP twice and won multiple Pac-10 titles. Lee was placed on the Pac- 10 honor roll, was named All-Pac-10 and was selected as Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year.
“It was a very intense, rigorous experience to play at Stanford,” Lee said. “While I had a lot of fun, it was a job. My tuition was tied to it … between training, weight lifting and traveling, often times more than 40 hours a week … But the friendships I formed doing that are lifelong.”
Miguel Altamirano
For four years, Miguel Altamirano was a force to be reckoned with on the wrestling mat. After finishing in third place as a freshman, he won three consecutive PAL championships between his sophomore and senior years. But with his brother Carlo Altamirano, the current wrestling coach, two years ahead of him, Miguel Altamirano garnered interest from the Aragon program before he even stepped foot on campus.
“I didn’t know anything about wrestling other than [that] Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan beat each other up,” Altamirano said. “But after [one of my brother’s matches], Coach [Carl] Pastore, he talks to my parents, talks to my folks, then he comes up to me and is like, ‘Oh hey, what year did you graduate?’ I was like, ‘What? I’m in middle school.’ Right away, he just got that look, like, ‘What? You need to wrestle.’ So that’s where it started.”
However, Altamirano’s entire athletic career was thrown in jeopardy in 1999. Four games into his senior football season, Altamirano, out of frustration, lowered his head to make a tackle and was paralyzed for 10 minutes. Injuring his spinal cord on the play, Altamirano, a first team All-League, All-County and All-CCS football player as a junior, didn’t return to the field until CCS semifinals.
“God, that was torture,” he said. “I had three good years leading up to my senior year, it was awesome. I was really looking forward to my senior year, it was supposed to be the best ever.”
With his football career ending after he re-aggravated his spinal cord injury on the College of San Mateo team, Altamirano shifted his focus to Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which he was well prepared for after his successful career as an Aragon wrestler.
“I started doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu probably about 10 years ago, and the skills they taught me through wrestling after my injury put me over the top with jiu-jitsu, they put my game out of this world. So it helped me a lot.”
Altamirano reached the No. 1 ranking in the world for his brown belt age group, and earned his black belt in 2014.
Tonieh Chenoweth
Named to the 1998 All-State football team, Toneih Chenoweth dominated on the field. He set Aragon single-season records with 1,193 receiving yards, 55 receptions and 17 touchdowns and was named 1998 Peninsula Athletic League Player of the Year.
“You talk about the Jerry Rice effect,” said athletic director Steve Sell in his speech. “When your best player is one of your most high character kids and hardest worker, it makes coaching the team that much easier. And I can truly say that Tonieh fit that description.”
During his junior season, Chenoweth completed one of the longest plays in Aragon football history.
“I had a punt return for 99 yards,” he said. “Coach [Sell] was yelling at me not to pick up the ball, and I picked it up and took it to the house.”
The great relationship between coach and player also included some culture shock.
“Which one of you guys had the audacity to take a crap on the gym basketball floor?” he recalled Sell asking the team during a summer practice before his freshman year. “I’m sitting there — this is like my second or third week at Aragon as a freshman, and I was like, ‘Woah, is this what high school is about?’ You know, school hasn’t even started yet, I’ve never been in a classroom, we’re just on a field, so I’m like, ‘I wonder what’s gonna happen when the doors open for school.’’
In addition to football, Chenoweth was one of the top runners on the Peninsula. He was a two-time all-league sprinter and was part of a relay team that took fourth place in the CCS 4×100 relay competition. He was also a member of the basketball team for three years, and his contributions to all three sports he participated in at Aragon earned him 1999 Male Athlete of the Year.
After cementing his legacy as one of the school’s best football players, Chenoweth played on the San Diego State and University of Sioux Falls teams as a defensive back.
Heidi Bowman
The second of three generations in her family to graduate from Aragon, Heidi Bowman was inducted to the Athletic Hall of Fame for her impact on Aragon’s athletic program and philanthropic efforts. Though Bowman graduated in 1984, she continues to contribute to Aragon’s athletic structures and programs.
Bowman chaired Measure M in 2006 and Measure O in 2010.
Measure M allocated $298 million for construction and modernization throughout the San Mateo Union High School District. At Aragon, Measure M improved efficiency of Aragon facilities and funded the construction of many buildings, including the new theater and remodeling the North and South gym.
Measure O was a smaller bond passed four years after Measure M.
“What had happened was they realized that [Measure M] wasn’t enough to get everything done that they wanted to get done, so they needed another bond to really get everything done,” Bowman said.
However, Bowman is best known for her leadership of the Aragon Dons Foundation, serving as president of the foundation in 2005.
“[Bowman’s] relentless and persistent work was the single largest factor in the campaign for helping the community succeed and providing Aragon with the facility that has benefited countless students and members of the community,” Sell said in his speech.
As president of the foundation, Bowman led an effort to install Aragon’s all-weather track and all-weather field.
“In the rain, [the track and field] used to be like a mud pit — it was awful,” Bowman said. “It look[ed] the same as it did when my mother went [to Aragon], so it needed a face lift, big time.”
Though best known for her philanthropic efforts, during her time at Aragon, Bowman was also a four-year member of the spirit squad and served as squad head her senior year.
“It was some of the best four years of my life,” Bowman said. “I loved it.”
