Seven years after his 1981 graduation from Concordia, Robert Garrett got his first shot at being a varsity head football coach. Administrators at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles had struggled to find anyone willing to lead a program with a deteriorating reputation caused by underwhelming on-field results. There were also problematic dynamics in surrounding neighborhoods that may have scared off potential candidates.
At the time, Garrett was coaching the Crenshaw ‘B’ team, similar to a junior varsity. Out of college, Garrett had taught and coached at his high school alma mater in LA, Thomas Jefferson, and nearby Locke High School. The Crenshaw opening hardly appeared as a dream job in 1988, but Garrett agreed to take it on.
“They couldn’t find anyone to give this job to,” Garrett said. “They opened it up and I didn’t even apply for it. Crenshaw was oh-for its last varsity season. They were in the cellar of the city. The principal at the time felt like I was too young. A week before school ended, the players went as a committee to the principal and said, ‘Allow Coach Garrett to do it. He’s been coaching the ‘B’ team.’ They called me in and asked if I would mind taking over the program until they find a coach. Of course I said yes.”
Thirty-one years after being tagged as the interim football coach, Garrett has become a mainstay at Crenshaw. The former three-year letter winner at Concordia jokes that he still has yet to be told that he’s the permanent coach. However, no longer does anyone doubt his ability to lead the program. Garrett has been the head coach for all six Crenshaw state football championships and was named the 2017 Don Shula NFL High School Head Coach of the Year.
Even before earning the prestigious award from the NFL in 2017, Garrett had been the subject of newspaper articles, such as an extended feature that appeared in the Los Angeles Times in 2010. The story detailed some of the ways in which Garrett turned around the Crenshaw football program, but also painted him as a somewhat controversial figure. Garrett admits that he’s tough on his players. However, many of his former players, some currently in the NFL, have deeply appreciated Garrett’s guidance.
Through the success, the accolades and his outgoing style, Garrett has become well-known in Los Angeles, a place that he has called home for most of his life. At a young age, Garrett moved with his mother and siblings to LA. The area where Crenshaw is located was referred to by The Wall Street Journal as the “gritty, gang-infested Los Angeles district best known as South Central.”
What few probably realize is why exactly Garrett wound up in Seward, Nebraska. Recalls Garrett, “I really wasn’t trying to go to Nebraska. I didn’t know much about Nebraska.”
But no school persisted in its recruitment of Garrett quite like Concordia did. An assistant coach under Larry Oetting at the time, Roger Meyer played the lead role in convincing Garrett, a 5-foot-9 pulling offensive guard, to become a Bulldog. Meyer had ties to southern California.
“I played decent ball over at my high school,” Garrett said. “Notes kept coming from Concordia, Concordia, Concordia. I didn’t give it too much thought. I had called and spoke with Coach Roger and Coach Oetting and told them I was looking for a place to play. I wasn’t that big of a kid so I didn’t get recruited by a D-I school or anything of that nature. They kept writing and I kept responding.”
As much as Roger called and wrote, Garrett was trying to “put off” going to Concordia. But that little school in Seward kept making it difficult for Garrett to say no. Finally, he agreed to make his way to Nebraska after a ride was arranged through another Concordia student headed back to Seward from Orange County. The family had one seat available in the car. Garrett simply had to pay $35 in gas money and be willing to take turns driving. Says Garrett, “Why not? That’s the story of how I got to Concordia.”
Garrett had missed the fall semester of 1977, but he arrived in time to enroll for the spring. The start of the ‘spring’ semester rarely feels like spring in this part of the country. Garrett realized he was in for an entirely new experience. The weather, the people, the culture, the environment – it was a 180-degree turn from what he knew as a child.
“Let’s be real frank about it, it was a true culture shock,” Garrett said. “Because I grew up in inner city Los Angeles. The only white people I knew were teachers, police and people like that. I was familiar with white people, but I wasn’t familiar with their culture or living with them or hanging out with them. All the stereotypes I heard about people I came to find out they are not so. You have to live and learn for yourself before you jump to conclusions. It helped me with my growth and development.”
Garrett says he felt a sense of belonging in his freshman dorm, Philip Hall. He then moved from Timothy to Ruth to Jesse during his years at Concordia. Everyone at that time wanted to be in Jesse Hall, which provided the most spacious rooms on campus. In addition to playing football for three years, Garrett had a work study job that allowed him to keep “$5 or $10” in his pocket at a time.
Sure there were moments when Garrett returned to Los Angeles for school breaks and thought of never coming back to Concordia. Then he would see things that made him refocus on his goal of becoming a football coach. In order to do that, he needed to be able to teach. In order to teach, he needed a degree.
“Every break that I got I was always saying, ‘I’m not coming back here,’” recalls Garrett. “‘I’m going somewhere else. I’m not coming back here.’ When I got back home, reality hit me in the face. The reality was you meet the same old people standing on the same corner doing the same old negative things, whether it’s drinking or smoking or whatever they would do. You really had nothing if you didn’t get a degree. It was imperative that I got a degree because I didn’t want to be the same old person in the same old neighborhood doing the same old thing.”
Playing football and going to class at Concordia broke up such monotony and steered Garrett away from a life of trouble on the streets. While forming bonds with fellow Bulldogs, Garrett typically avoided talking about his upbringing. Nonetheless, he felt accepted, saying, “The players were all a close-knit group regardless of color.”
In most LA-based stories written about Garrett, his days in Seward have become a footnote, overshadowed by the state titles, coaching awards and unmistakable charisma. But Concordia provided a foundation for growth. It was a place where he developed an appreciation for the changing of the seasons, even if he hated the cold weather. No one could have imagined that many years later, players Garrett coached would reach the NFL and then give credit back to their high school coach. (A handful of Crenshaw players have even ended up at Concordia).
Said former Kansas City Chiefs draft pick De’Anthony Thomas, “Coach Garrett is like a father figure to me. He let me know how to be a man and how to be accountable.”
In a celebration of Garrett winning the Don Shula award from the NFL, Los Angeles Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn chimed in. Wrote Lynn, “Yes, he’s turned Crenshaw High into a powerhouse over the 30 or so years he’s been there, but more than the wins and the losses, it’s the number of lives he’s touched and the young men he’s mentored that matters most. That’s why he’s so deserving of this honor.”
Crenshaw Principal Lenalda Corley has been impressed by Garrett’s ability to instill the importance of academics within his athletes. Said Corley, “Many of these students are not only the top athletes in their school but are the top in academics as well. This is a testament to the leadership of Coach Garrett, who doesn’t get enough recognition for the hundreds of lives he has changed over the years.”
Garrett has never wavered in his philosophy on how to approach the players he coaches. He can be hard on them. Some in the community have even questioned his tactics at times (what coach hasn’t been questioned by parents or community members??). At the end of the day, Garrett cares about his players beyond football.
“The players were always here,” Garrett says of Crenshaw’s previously untapped football potential. “What the kids were missing was someone who really gave a hoot. I think the kids starved for guidance. I don’t think the kids mind hard work. There needed to be a notion that we could win. If the kids have a sense that you care for them, they will run through a brick wall – even today at the highest level. I was grateful I could give them that.”
It shocked Garrett himself when he learned that he had won the Don Shula Coach of the Year award in early 2018. Says Garrett, “I’m just your average guy trying to do God’s will.” That type of servant mind grew, at least in part, out of three-and-a-half years spent studying physical education and playing football at 800 North Columbia Avenue.
“I owe a great deal of gratitude to Concordia,” Garrett says. “It really helped me with my growth and development as a man as I am now. I knew the Lord prior to going there, but my faith became stronger as I continued to grow there.”