In his final day as a high school student, Zach Harrison leaned against the walls of “The Cave” for perhaps the last time. As he spoke, his eyes focused on a trophy case brimming with signed footballs and team photos spanning decades of Mingus Union gridiron history. To his back, dozens of names lined the walls recognizing the Marauders who made an impact on the football field with All-Region honors.
“Growing up, Mingus was always built on tradition,” the quarterback and baseball star said. “It’s cool … being able to be part of Mingus history and something that people can go back and see in the record books for years to come.”
When the Marauders exit the locker room on Friday nights into that hallway in “The Cave,” it’s tradition for players to touch those names on the wall. Directly above them, the city of Cottonwood cheers the team on, with young boys on the bleachers dreaming of the day when they’re the ones taking the field.
“It was always a goal to get on that wall,” Harrison said.
Harrison’s name will be there soon, after his 4A Grand Canyon All-Region 2nd Team senior season. Now, Zach Harrison is the 2022 Cottonwood Journal Extra MUHS Male Athlete of the Year.
“It was always my dream growing up to play for Mingus,” he said.
Harrison grew up in Cottonwood, where he’s lived his entire life. He came to Mingus football and baseball games often. He started playing baseball at 4-years old and basketball shortly after. Football didn’t enter Harrison’s life until he was in fifth grade.
He dropped basketball when he got to Mingus to focus on football and baseball.
It didn’t take long for him to shine in either sport. As a three-year starting quarterback,
Harrison earned All-Region 2nd Team honors as a sophomore and senior, and an honorable mention his junior season. In baseball, he was on the 2nd Team as a junior and the 1st Team as a senior.
“Playing for Mingus is playing for Cottonwood. Just doing that alone was enough.”
Zach Harrison
On the football field, Harrison can be described as a play-extender. He could always sense the defensive pressure making its way toward him, and he was impressive with his legs. He could always get out of a bad situation and get the ball to his receivers. Harrison threw for 1,313 yards and 10 touchdowns in his senior season while rushing for 334 yards and six TDs.
On the diamond, he had a powerful bat. He led the Marauders with five home runs as a senior and hit .364. He led Mingus to an impressive playoff run in which the Marauders upset No. 10 Vista Grande, before falling short against No. 1 Poston Butte in a 8-7 loss.
Harrison has love for both sports. He acknowledges that “there’s nothing like a Friday night” on the Mingus football field, but some of his greatest memories come from the baseball team.
One home game as a junior, the left-handed batting Harrison took the plate against Winslow. In a wild game, the Marauders trailed 16-13 in extra innings. The Marauders managed to load the bases for Harrison with one out. Down three, Mingus had a lot of work to do to claw out of the deficit. Harrison made it look easy.
“It was a perfect situation. Something you dream of as a kid,” he said.
He went down in the count early — a foul ball for strike one and a ball way off incorrectly
called for strike two. With two strikes, Harrison had to protect the plate. On a 1-2 pitch, Harrison took a swing and made solid contact.
“It just connected and I saw it fly into the gap, and I was like ‘ah [the outfielder] is going to catch it,’” he said.
He didn’t catch it. The ball sailed over the Winslow outfielder’s head, and Harrison ran full steam ahead. He barely beat out the throw at home plate for an inside-the-park walk-off grand slam.
“The craziest thing for me, I could rank it at the top [of my high school memories]
but it’s more special to me because I have buddies that always talk about it,” Harrison said. “That’s what makes me happy. That I could be part of someone’s journey.”
That’s Harrison in a nutshell. Even in the most glorious, dream achieving moment of his sports career, he thought of the impact it had on others first. Even when asked about his other favorite Mingus sports memories, it’s not the touchdowns and big wins that come to mind. It’s the massive hide-and-seek game he played in a Tucson hotel during a baseball tournament, or the time his teammates flipped a golf cart on the 11th hole at Verde Santa Fe.
His memories are about the people around him rather than personal achievement. Perhaps that goes back to his upbringing.
As Harrison leaned against the walls of “The Cave,” he grabbed his left wrist. On that wrist was a tattoo, reading “August 31, 2005” in Roman numerals. That was the date he was officially adopted by his parents at the age of 2.
Harrison says he didn’t learn he was adopted until his early teenage years. There were feelings of betrayal when he found out, but they quickly dissipated.
“I don’t think they understand how much I appreciate them. I hope they read this,” he said with his trademark smile. “If I’ve believed it this long, why is me finding out that they’re not my blood parents going to make any difference?”
After 18 years in Cottonwood, Harrison is ready to experience the “real world” at last. He’ll attend Grand Canyon University in the fall where he’ll major in entrepreneurial studies. His goal after college is to open a half-coffee shop, half live-music venue, inspired by The Den in Prescott.
Harrison is a passionate young man. That much is obvious from spending an afternoon with him, as he discusses his coffee shop plans, his parents and the travesty that is the GCU baseball team’s unranked status in the NCAA. But there’s nothing he’s more passionate about than his home and his school.
Cottonwood is his roots, and it’ll always be that way.
“Playing for Mingus is playing for Cottonwood,” Harrison said. “Just doing that alone was enough.”
