Daily Journal Girls’ Athlete of the Year: Aragon’s Megan Grant

“I have kids that did their best,” Christine Grant said. “I’m just so proud of them.”

2022 Daily Journal Girls’ Athlete of the Year Megan Grant is Christine’s final progeny to make her mark at Aragon, and what a legacy she leaves. Not only was Grant a three-sport varsity standout in volleyball, basketball and softball, the highlight of her senior year was winning two international gold medals with the USA Softball U-18 Women’s National Team, earning All-World honors in December for her breakout performance at the Women’s Softball World Cup in Lima, Peru.

Megan Grant’s greatness was on display at Aragon long before she arrived on campus as a freshman for the 2018-19 school year. It wasn’t enough for her to tag along with her parents to Devin’s games back in the day. For Grant, her oldest brother’s athletic career was chance to get on the field herself. And that she did.

Grant’s family moved to San Mateo just prior to Devin’s freshman year. When she was 9 years old, Grant worked at a ball girl for the Dons football team. And during basketball season, she would hit the court every chance she got, oftentimes shooting around at halftimes of games.

“Today, people are like: ‘I remember you were that little redhead girl that was there shooting from halftime.’”

Grant has always been recognizable from her red hair, something while growing up some kids used to fuel her fire. Before she became an international standout — who verbally committed to play softball at UCLA in the summer prior to her freshman year — Grant’s first passion was playing youth baseball in her native town of South San Francisco.

It was near impossible to tease Grant about most elements of her game. She could hit and defend with the best of them, as she would prove on the softball diamond at Aragon as a career .535 batting average and 28 home runs. The one point of contention, however, was she wasn’t very fast.

“I was big and slow,” Grant said. “They would call me ‘Meg Monster,’ ‘Red Truck.’ I was strong but I just couldn’t run for baseball. But then apparently when I got to softball, I wasn’t like fast … but I guess I developed into being faster than I was stronger.”

That’s where Grant’s extraordinary work ethic was born. It wasn’t enough she played a sport a season every season she was at Aragon. She grew into an impact player in each sport. While she was always a softball natural, she approached volleyball and basketball like a woman on a mission.

“It was mostly I just really wanted to do it,” Grant said. “I just love playing multiple sports. It just gives me a good escape from softball sometimes. I need it to avoid a softball burnout. … I just love all of them and that’s what made it so fun and so great.”

Perhaps her growth was most apparent with the volleyball program, as it was the sport she was least familiar with at the start of her high school career. Her progression was a natural one. She played with the freshman team as a freshman, with the junior-varsity team as a sophomore, and was forced to skip volleyball and basketball as a junior due to the COVID pandemic in 2020-21.

As a senior, though, Grant moved to the varsity volleyball team as was a regular rotation player as a middle blocker for a Lady Dons team that advances to the Central Coast Section Division II semifinals, ultimately falling to No. 1 Valley Christian in a five-set battle, decided by a 19-17 extra-points thriller in the closing set.

That CCS semifinal match was played Nov. 4, 2021. Three weeks later, prior to reporting for her girls’ basketball season, Grant was on an airplane bound for the Pan American Games in Barranquilla, Colombia, with the USA Softball U-18s. The following week came her All-World performance in the World Cup, where she batted .438 (7 for 16) through eight games. Then she returned to hit the ground running for head coach Sam Manu and the Aragon girls’ basketball season, already in progress.

“When I first came back, Sam would always pull me aside because I hadn’t played basketball since my sophomore year,” Grant said. “But Sam knew how strong I was. So, he used to always pull me aside and say: ‘We’re going to need your physicality.’”

Grant used that physicality to lead the Dons in rebounding, averaging 7.0 boards per game while ranking third on the squad with 9.5 points per game. And the season wound down on a high note, with the Lady Dons capturing the CCS Division II championship in a classic rivalry matchup in the finals, with Aragon topping neighboring Hillsdale 52-47.

But while Grant made her chameleon athletic ways look easy, it wasn’t always. And in reloading for the Aragon softball season, it started to hit Grant she is, in fact, human.

“I think basketball, it definitely hit me a little bit because I just wanted to do so much,” Grant said, “like basketball, work out, hit … and lot of people started to notice how burned out I was starting to get. … It was a little hard but then I just adjusted.”

That’s where the commitment to her craft began paying off. Grant has long been revered as a gym rat. And even through the COVID quarantines of 2020, she was diligent in bettering herself through regular workouts at home, until she could finally get back to lifting weights at school.

“I don’t know how it got started, I just liked it,” Grant said. “I just love to lift. Obviously, it’s uncomfortable but you can’t get better at anything unless you’re uncomfortable. … I just formed habits in everything I do. It didn’t come to be a choice.”

A portable outdoor weight room is what got Grant back on campus after the strictest of pandemic quarantines. Aragon decidedly stored its weight room equipment in a portable shed in the football stadium. Aragon athletes, football players mostly, would haul the equipment onto the field every day, and store it safely again at night.

Grant took full advantage of the opportunity to lift during these outdoor sessions. Not that she was above taking it easy when it came to moving the equipment on and off the field.

“The Aragon football team would have to,” Grant said. “I didn’t have to lift a finger.”

The left-handed hitting shortstop paid it forward come softball season. Grant hit .511 with six home runs as a senior and paired with her longtime softball counterpart Olivia DiNardo to lead the team to its third PAL Bay Division championship in their three season there, qualifying for the CCS Open Division tournament for the second straight year.

It was in 2019, when Grant and DiNardo were freshmen, the Aragon softball team enjoyed its only CCS championship to date. That was in the Division I tournament. The Open Division is another beast entirely, and the Dons were eliminated in the semifinals, falling to St. Francis for the second straight year.

It wasn’t the fairy-tale finish that Grant probably deserved. But even as she wound down her Aragon softball days mired in the longest home run drought of her career — she didn’t homer in her last seven games, and went hitless through all three postseason games — would it have mattered? St. Francis was the No. 1 ranked team in Northern California, and in the CIF Nor Cal Division II tournament, the Dons fell to a Central Catholic-Modesto team that featured the fifth-best strikeout pitcher in the nation in Randi Roelling.

“It kind of felt forced this season,” Grant said. “I was just so ready to just play summer ball and just really compete at a high level. And sometimes when it’s not at that high level, I can’t just flip that switch. ... I don’t think I have the same competitiveness level. I was just so ready to play with my travel ball team.”

Grant and DiNardo pushed back the start of their summer season with the Warrior Academy travel club to help Aragon make history though. With the Dons qualifying for the Nor Cal tournament in the first year it has ever been held for softball, Grant and DiNardo took the lead by agreeing to play in the tournament, even after the seniors — two of just four seniors on the Aragon roster — after the 2022 graduation ceremony.

But the greatest softball duo in program history certainly left its mark on the up-and-coming generation — a generation that will feature the first Aragon athletics landscape since the 2012-13 school year without a Grant amongst them.

“Megan is a sweetheart,” said Brooklyn Blake, Aragon softball’s junior second baseman and Grant’s double play partner. “She comes across as this very strong, very focused, dedicated — the most dedicated athlete I’ve ever encountered. I guess you could say it’s an honor to play with her. It’s really challenging. It keeps you in check, really.”

But the cornerstone of Grant’s legacy — unless the Aragon brass should decide to get together and rename the concourse beyond the right-field wall “Megan Grant Cove” — is the spirit of generosity and kindness she exemplifies.

“She’s an amazing person,” Blake said. “Every aspect about her, the jokes on the infield, it’s what makes the game fun to come out to.”