Film crew featuring Mesa’s history
Project helmed by former students
Everywhere you go at Mesa High, you can’t escape it.
It’s on the scoreboard.
It’s on jerseys.
It’s on the locker-room door.
It’s in the gym.
It’s in the fight song.
It’s often said in the hallways, when a coach passes a student, and the last remark is, “Carry on.”
“It’s huge,” said Mesa High special teams coach Scott Baker, a 1989 Mesa grad who was the 34th on the Baker side and second generation to come out of one of the state’s oldest high schools that began playing football in 1920.
“On the football field, off the football field, it’s great to see. I see alumni with people that my dad graduated with and their parting words are, ‘Carry on.’ ”
“Carry on,” were the last words spoken by Zedo Ishikawa on Sept. 22, 1932, as he lay on his death bed after accidentally shooting himself while trying to break up a dog fight with the butt of his rifle. The Mesa High football player told his family to tell the coach to play the next day’s game and to “tell the boys to carry on.”
“Carry on” also is the name of a documentary that is being filmed this season by two former Mesa High students and a former Mesa Mountain View student.
Darren Lovin, who graduated from Mesa in 1993 – the last school year the Jackrabbits won the state football championship – is producing the film through his company Ramplight Media, along with Epic Light Media.
Since the summer, Lovin and director James Adams (Mountain View, 1997) and director of photography Thomas Manning (Mesa, 2008) have been following Mesa coach Kapi Sikahema (Mesa, class of 1985), his mostly Mesa alumni staff and players, capturing them during the ups and downs, getting a behind-thescenes look as Sikahema hopes to rebuild the program back to its glory days, despite an aging neighborhood and the urban sprawl that is making it tougher to compete against the Chandler district giants.
“It has nothing to do with football,” Sikahema said. “This is life. Life lessons in a little two-hour span of ups and downs each day. I tell the kids, ‘The things you learn in football will transcend to everything you do in life. That’s what it’s all about. I don’t care about the score. I care about you guys keep fighting and working hard. That’s when you guys feel good about yourselves.”’
Lovin got the idea for the film last year when he was building Sikahema’s Mesa football web site and hearing the passion pour out of him. He discovered a school that had played more than 1,000 games, won more than 600 games, 11 state championships (starting in 1928) with 16 state runner-up finishes.
Lovin describes the documentary as, “think ‘The Undefeated’ meets historical film.”
“It’s like an indoctrination through high school,” Lovin said of the ‘Carry on’ motto that he adapted for the title of his film. “They hear it over and over, what ‘Carry on’ means. It’s something they take to heart and apply it to life after they graduate.”
It’s a monumental task for Sikahema and his staff to bring a program that has struggled back to prominence. Sikahema hired alums such as Deuce Lutui (an offensive lineman who played at USC and in the Super Bowl with the Arizona Cardinals), Gerald Green and Junior Taylor. Taylor, who played with Lutui in high school before moving onto a football career at UCLA, is the offensive coordinator.
“We’re here to help these kids in all phases,” Lutui said. “It’s not just football. We wouldn’t be here. To go as far as we did in our football careers, it’s good to come home and share the experiences with these kids.”
Taylor sometimes forgets there is a camera following him.
“It’s different having a camera around, but we’re used to it,” Taylor said. “It’s real life. Some of the players are going through some tough things. The coaches. It’s what we’re doing.
“They have captured some really emotional, intense moments. It’s the true essence of what goes on in a football program, what it takes to build a football program.”
The last time a Mesa district school won the state football championship was Mountain View in 2002. From 1993 to 2002, a Mesa school (Mountain View five times, Red Mountain twice) won seven state titles.
In 2009, under coach Kelley Moore (now leading Buckeye’s team), Mesa made a magical run to the state final, despite losing four regular-season games.
Since then, Mesa has had only one winning season (2015, 8-4 under Scott Hare). This is Sikahema’s second season at Mesa. The Jackrabbits are 2-4 but are coming off their biggest win, riding senior running back Kris Jackson’s schoolrecord 341 rushing yards on their way to a 31-29 homecoming win over Chandler Basha. Some of the school’s greatest football alums – Orlando McKay, Robert Holcombe, Vai Sikahema (Kapi’s older brother) – were on hand to watch.
Jackson could have gone anywhere in the Southeast Valley to play football. But he’s drawn to tradition, to his friends. And when he loses?
“I hurts so much inside,” Jackson said. “I hate losing. I hate letting them down. I hate letting the fans down, the school down. But you just have to bounce back the next week.”
Jackson has taken the “Carry on” song that the players sing to the student section after game and on the ride home from games on the bus to heart.
“It’s everything,” he said. “We use it for school, for home. It brings us all together.”
To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert at richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602316-8827. Follow him at twitter.com/ azc_obert. Watch the azcentral sports high school football show on the azcentral sports Facebook page, with a new episode live every Wednesday at 7 p.m.