Athlete of the Week: Blake Griffin

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - One of the most productive rushers in all of Colorado this last football season, was running the ball for the Montrose High Red Hawks.

Montrose High Junior Running Back Blake Griffin pounded the rock for Montrose all season long and wound up second in the entire state for total rushing yards according to MaxPreps.com.

“We’d been watching through the games, and kind of counting yards. So, we kind of had an idea. Then once it kind of started getting above 1500, we kind of got really excited and then we knew that after the Golden game, having a good game there with the yards we were setting up to get 2000. I was really excited about that,” Griffin said.

Griffin was put in an interesting situation late in the season. On one hand he was in pursuit of the top of the state leaderboard, but on the other hand the Red Hawks were in the middle of a playoff run.

“For me, it’s always been the team first you know? Scoring touchdowns and getting other people scoring touchdowns and just winning,” Griffin.

Montrose’s season came to an abrupt end, after a loss in the state quarterfinals. Despite that, Griffin says he still looks back fondly on his time with his teammates.

“One practice we had, it was in the playoffs, and we came out and it just started hailing and snowing. There was a half an inch just ice and hail on the field. We just started playing and having a great time, you know, sliding all around because it was so slick, but it was so much fun, and I can’t get that back with any of those boys that left,” Griffin said.

Something interesting about Griffin, he doesn’t just fly around the football field, but also the skies.

“Well, there’s a guy who’s actually my neighbor who builds planes in his garage and flies them. One day we were flying our RC’s, you know, a little RC airplane down in the field. He stopped by and said, you know, you want to go see a real airplane?” Griffin said, “And then he took us to his garage, and he was just building it in his garage and then we went and flew with him and that really started it, then I met my instructor, and you know from there just took off.”

Despite the stark differences between running the football and flying a plane Griffin says he sees similarities between the two.

“There’s craft to everything and being a pilot takes a lot of finesse and a lot of skill and, and being a good running back takes a lot of skill and just being able to have vision and see-through stuff and,” Griffin said, “Up in the air, you have to be able to see, you know, past what the plane is exactly telling you and just expect stuff. So, you know, there’s a lot of stuff that parallels there.”

Griffin says he plans to make time to get in the air but is also focused on his Senior season with the Red Hawks.

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