Garland uses NFL hiatus to ‘pay back’ former coach
Just because the NFL has gone remote doesn’t mean Ben Garland needs to be away from football.
A three-team veteran on the offensive line now with the San Francisco 49ers, Garland has, like the rest of the league, been sidelined from being with his team in-person recently. Thanks to COVID-19, the NFL offseason has been and will remain entirely virtual through at least June 26, the league announced on Thursday.
Not long after Garland was starting in Super Bowl LIV with the 49ers in February, Apache Junction hired his old high school coach. Bruce Binkley, a former player at Tempe Marcos de Niza who coached Garland at Grand Junction (Colorado) Central, took the offer to lead the Prospectors after a stint coaching preps in New Mexico.
With the professional football world slowed and the Arizona prep football world recently, if cautiously, restarted, it seemed right for Binkley to give a call to his former star and see if he wanted to give his new players some pointers.
After all, as Garland put it: “Whenever you talk as an NFL player, the kids listen.”
“We’ve just been talking, and (Ben’s) like, ‘Yeah, I’m down here working out all the time,” Binkley said. “And we started practice a week ago, so I thought, ‘What a great opportunity. Let’s get you on a plane and let’s get you down here. Let’s work out with the kids for a couple of days.”
And so that’s exactly what Garland did during Apache Junction football practices Wednesday and Thursday. The 10-year NFL stalwart, who is from a military family, graduated from the Air Force Academy and now serves in the Colorado Air National Guard, showcased some of the tips and tricks he’s learned during his time in the league.
The training was slightly modified to comply with the AIA’s social distancing guidelines, with the drills non-contact and the practice groups smaller and spaced out. But Garland worked around those restrictions and spent time at every practice session he could both days. Talking to him about the experience made it seem like he enjoyed giving it just as much as the players did receiving it.
“Coach Binkley ... he’s one of those guys that just went above and beyond and took a genuine interest in us,” Garland said. “We don’t have enough people
who take that genuine interest to kids, so I’m hoping to pay back. I think giving back is one of the things that made me grow most as a human being ... you see them enjoying it, and you’re just like, ‘Man, I really am making difference.’ Through that, it makes you want to do more.”
Apache Junction players were thrilled at the sight of an active NFL player on their football fields, and welcomed Garland’s advice with open arms. Senior offensive/defensive lineman Roman Yashchuk spent the 9 to 10 a.m. session Thursday working with Garland and teammates on footwork, positioning and other fundamentals in the trenches.
“It’s crazy, unbelievable experience,” Yashchuk said. “I would not trade this for anything else. He taught us (to) just start off on the basics, doing anything from pass protection to inside blocking, outside blocking, outside zone, inside zone, all that good stuff.
It makes me more motivated to actually try and go to college.”
As the Prospectors await the first season of the Binkley era after three straight winning seasons under now-Arcadia coach Vance Miller, there’s sure to be kinks to sort out as one coaching regime is replaced by another.
But Garland assured that Apache Junction will be in good hands under Binkley’s tutelage. As someone who was propelled to the highest level of the sport under his wing, Garland had little doubt in his former coach and now friend’s ability to lead.
“He was one of the best coaches I ever had,” said Garland, who won the NFL’s 2018 Salute to Service Award while with the Atlanta Falcons. “Whenever he was my coach, he was an assistant, he wasn’t really getting paid. He would show up every day at 4:45 (a.m.) to run a gym session for us. As an adult now, I can see that without getting paid, this man was putting genuine interest in his kids, waking up early for no reason just to show interest in our lives and make us better as young men. He will instill the same in these kids, they’re lucky to have him.”