Snaring Records as Valley Receiver Should Catch Comer Division I Ride

For as long as he can remember, Brian Comer has been goal-oriented.

Whatever the task, even the seemingly unsurmountable, Comer charts a plan and faithfully sticks to it until hitting pay dirt.

If encouraged and motivated by others, it’s a done deal. If rattled by skeptics, there’s really no stopping him.

Only three years ago, when he was a 5-foot-11 quarterback at Chatsworth High with dreams of playing at a Division I school, Comer heard the put-downs. Get serious, they said. Guzzle some reality, they suggested.

But his dream would not be doused.

“I heard all the negatives about how I wasn’t going to get there,” Comer said. “I wasn’t going to let anyone stop me. No matter what the obstacles, I was going to do it.”

And by George--and all those other fools who underestimated him--Comer is practically there. Granted, it will be as a receiver instead of a quarterback, but let’s not get technical.

The guy is going D-1.

This season, Comer became the career leader at Valley College with 129 receptions, 2,452 yards receiving and 24 touchdowns.

He will run a few more routes today and surely increase those numbers when the Monarchs (9-1) meet Rancho Santiago (9-1) in the Orange County Bowl at 1:30 p.m. at Orange Coast College.

It will be the last game with the run-and-shoot Monarchs for Comer, who was converted to receiver last season and quickly adapted. Soon after, he will take recruiting trips to Cal, Purdue, UNLV and Wyoming. By next fall, a major goal will be in the bag.

But that bag was bottomless not long ago.

“I found out after I graduated from high school that they are not really recruiting 5-11 quarterbacks,” Comer said. “I had zero offers. . . . It kind of shattered my hopes. But I just sucked it up. I tried harder than ever.”

After leading area City Section quarterbacks by passing for 1,125 yards during his senior season in 1991, Comer redshirted at Valley the following season because of an injury.

He tried out for quarterback last year but realized that he might have a better future catching the ball. Besides, the Monarchs had just landed former Agoura High rifle-arm quarterback Sean Fitzgerald as a transfer from Idaho State and nobody short of Dan Marino was going to take the position away from him.

Fitzgerald, now at Pittsburgh, passed for a then-school single-season record 3,134 yards and 27 touchdowns. Comer became his favorite target.

“We gave (Comer) the opportunity to try out at quarterback,” said Jim Fenwick, Valley coach. “We let him work at it but we also let him work at wide receiver and then he saw he could make the transition.”

Last season, Comer made 58 receptions for 904 yards and 11 touchdowns. He helped the Monarchs to a 9-2 record and turned hero with a phenomenal performance in a 21-19 victory over Moorpark in the Western State Bowl.

In that game, Comer caught three touchdown passes from Fitzgerald in the fourth quarter to rally the Monarchs from a 16-0 deficit.

The clincher came on a 16-yard pass play with three seconds left. Fitzgerald threw a sideline pass and Comer grabbed it at the three-yard line over the outstretched hands of a Moorpark defensive back and stepped into the end zone.

Comer finished the game with nine receptions for 182 yards and validated, once and for all, the wisdom of taking up a new position.

“That kind of got me into the spotlight,” Comer said. “I knew I could play receiver. I knew I had the ability and when you believe in yourself, you can do it.”

He apparently believed a whole lot this season.

Working with new quarterback Jim Arellanes, a transfer from Northern Arizona who has eclipsed Fitzgerald’s single-season passing record with 3,483 yards, Comer led the Western State Conference and was third in the state with 71 receptions and first in California in yards receiving with 1,548.

He had 200 or more yards in four games--including eight receptions for 260 yards against L.A. Southwest--and scored 13 times to tie Valley’s single-season touchdown record for receptions set by James Reaves in 1987.

All plentiful enough for a spot on the J.C. Grid-Wire All-American first team and the WSC South Division first team.

Arellanes, for one, knows the honors are well deserved.

“He is definitely the best receiver I’ve played with,” Arellanes said. “He has a nose for the ball. Play after play, week after week, I know exactly where he is going to be. I see something and I give him a little look. He sees something and he gives me a little look. There’s that kind of communication.”

Some of that sense, Comer said, comes from his experience as a quarterback.

He knows what they look for on certain plays, how to dissect defensive schemes, and he tries to think along with them. And, although not gifted with blazing speed, he has sure hands and is extremely elusive.

“Playing quarterback helped me tremendously,” said Comer, who was the emergency backup to Fitzgerald last season.

“Our offense is based on reading the defenses. I worked well with Sean and with Jim because we (have been) on the same page.”

Fenwick, who said he wasn’t sure how swiftly Comer would make the switch to receiver, has been impressed by Comer’s growth at the position.

“Given the opportunity to make the (routine) plays, he has made them,” Fenwick said. “But he has also made great plays with defensive backs hanging all over him. He has done a tremendous job.”

Comer wouldn’t have settled for less.

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