DIVISION VII : Tough Catches Easy for Trabuco Hills Receiver

Any Trabuco Hills High School game film will prove that Cordell Graham understands the first rule for wide receivers running patterns across the middle: You’re gonna get hit anyway, so you might as well catch the ball.

At 5 feet 8 and 160 pounds, Graham could be excused if his concentration occasionally lapsed when he heard the footsteps of a free safety, strong safety, left cornerback, right cornerback or any combination thereof homing in on him between the hash marks.

But when there’s a tough catch to be made in the presence of several roving defenders, Graham makes it.

Even though it’s not particularly beneficial to his personal well-being.

“Oh yeah, it usually hurts,” said Graham, a junior who leads the Mustangs with 52 receptions, including nine touchdowns. “I remember one play against Costa Mesa (in a Pacific Coast League game) where I got hit by about four guys while I was in the air.”

Graham had the final word, however. He made the catch.

“That’s the only way I get revenge,” Graham said. “After those kinds of hits, I’ll get a little dizzy sometimes, but you can shake it off a little faster when you know you’ve held on. But then I’ll tell the coaches that I don’t want to run another pattern over the middle for a little while.”

Coaches like to reward a receiver who gets pummeled and still holds onto the ball with a few quick out patterns. This allows the receiver to break to the sideline well in front of the defensive back, make the easy catch and then show off his moves while turning upfield. It seems simple enough, but Receiving Rule 1-A must be applied to those pass routes: You can’t run with the ball until you catch it.

It doesn’t quite make sense, but Graham sometimes has problems following Receiving Rule 1-A.

“Cordell will catch anything over the middle, because he’s a tough kid who can take a big hit,” said Trabuco Hills Coach Jim Barnett. “But he’s such a good runner after he gets the ball, sometimes when he’s wide open outside he’ll just want to take off and go, and he’ll forget to catch the ball first.”

Graham was a running back for Trabuco Hills’ freshman team before moving to receiver on the junior varsity as a sophomore. Barnett likes to have quarterback Pat Barnes get the ball to Graham in an open area as often as possible to take advantage of Graham’s ball-carrying experience and elusiveness.

“We want the ball in Cordell’s hands a lot, but it doesn’t always stay there when Barnes puts it there,” Barnett said. “Cordell’s young and doesn’t always concentrate like he should, so I’m always reminding him that you don’t have to tell your feet what to do, but you do have to tell your hands what to do.”

Graham’s concentration has improved during the Southern Section Division VII playoffs. In Trabuco Hills’ march to Friday’s championship game against Pacific Coast League rival Laguna Hills at Mission Viejo High School, Graham has a team-high 14 receptions and three touchdowns in three Mustang victories.

When Graham does focus on making the catch before making the move, he is dangerous. In Trabuco Hills’ first-round playoff victory over St. Francis, Graham caught a pass on a short hitch pattern and then left several defenders grasping at air as he turned what could have been a short gain into a 22-yard touchdown.

“I try to tell myself, ‘Look it in, look it in,’ when Pat throws it to me,” Graham said. “It helps me concentrate on catching the ball. When I look it in, like I always do when I’m over the middle, I catch it, but when I don’t I usually drop it.”

Graham had six receptions in Trabuco Hills’ semifinal victory over La Mirada last week, and received support from Barnes when he dropped an easy pass early in the game.

“I was really nervous, but Pat’s a good quarterback and he didn’t get on me about it. He just gave me encouragement,” Graham said. “That’s the way it’s been all season, and I want to catch everything he throws to me to pay him back for all his faith in me.”