CITY PREVIEW : At 16, Locke High’s Darian Hagan Can Do It All : This Season, He’s Only Playing Quarterback, but Last Season He Was Virtually the Team

Describing Darian Hagan as multi-talented doesn’t do him justice. But how else do you describe someone with that much ability? For starters, Hagan ran for more than 1,300 yards and scored 13 touchdowns last season for Locke High in Watts. He also played receiver, started one game at quarterback, kicked field goals and extra points, kicked off and punted, returned kickoffs and punts, and started on defense at free safety.

He scored as a runner and as a receiver, and threw for scores as a quarterback. Against Harbor City Narbonne, for instance, he threw five touchdown passes. On defense, he had a 95-yard fumble return for a touchdown. He kicked extra points and field goals. In practice, Hagan says he has kicked field goals from 50 yards.

Hagan also played basketball, baseball and competed in track. He was clocked at 10.8 seconds in the 100-meter dash.

On top of everything else, Hagan is ambidextrous.

“To step in as a 10th grader and do the things he’s done is unbelievable,” Locke Coach E.C. Robinson said. “His attitude on and off the field is so great. He’s the best athlete I’ve seen at Locke.”

Is there anything he hasn’t done? Maybe towel boy? No, Hagan has done that, too. In junior high, Hagan served as Locke’s towel boy in the 1984 City 3-A championship game loss to Manual Arts.

He did so simply so he could see his idol, Banning quarterback Jamelle Holieway, who was playing for the 4-A title that night in the second game of the doubleheader. Holieway is now the starting quarterback for top-ranked Oklahoma.

Had things gone as he originally planned, Hagan might have ended up following Holieway to Banning.

“I was going to go to another school, like Banning or Carson,” Hagan said. “But my mother talked me out of it, and I like (Locke) now.”

But as far as Robinson was concerned, Hagan was one player he was not going to let slip away.

“I’ve been following Hagan a long time, because (the Hagans) live only a couple of blocks from the school,” Robinson said. “A lot of our kids end up at Carson and Banning, but this was one kid that wasn’t getting away.”

Last year, despite Hagan’s heroics, Locke couldn’t quite make it back to the championship game, losing, 33-0, to eventual champion Fairfax in the semifinals.

There is no dominant team like Fairfax in the 3-A this season, which is why Hagan has such high hopes for a return to the City championship game. This time, instead of being a towel boy, he hopes to be the quarterback in Locke’s option offense, the job that he inherited after the graduation of two-year starter Leon Otis.

“Hagan, to me, is a better running back (than quarterback),” Robinson said. “But no one knows the offense as well as him because he’s so smart.”

With the move to starting quarterback, Hagan will not play defense or receiver, but he will still have all the other duties he had last season. He will even line up as a running back at times.

Is Hagan prepared to settle down and be primarily a quarterback?

“I’m ready for it because I like running the option,” Hagan said. “We execute the option better than last year’s team because last year’s team was selfish. This year, we play together.”

Hagan, who has grown two inches from last season to 5-10--he weighs 181--will play quarterback until Robinson can find someone else. Robinson, though, thinks that Hagan will be back at running back before the season is over because that’s his best position.

Hagan doesn’t mind, because being the quarterback in an option offense allows him to play the same position as Holieway.

Still, Robinson may be forced to use Hagen at other positions, especially if the defense struggles.

“If it comes down to that, he could play outside linebacker,” Robinson said. “Every day in practice, I have to push him away because he wants to play linebacker.”

As for Hagan’s goals, the junior says about all he wants now is the City 3-A championship. After he graduates in two years, he wants to play in college. This time, he may get his chance to follow Holieway, who led Oklahoma to the national title last year.

“He wants to go to Oklahoma,” Robinson said. “He’s very fond of Jamelle Holieway.”

So the legend of Darian Hagan, 16, a veteran of all of 11 high school football games, continues to grow.