Ask anyone at Valor Christian High School about Christian McCaffrey — coaches, teachers, board members — and the response is a chorus of what a “humble,” “polite” and “classy” kid he is.
He’s not a kid anymore, but the San Francisco 49ers’ star running back used the work ethic and values he exhibited in high school to propel him to his first Super Bowl. The 49ers face the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday in an attempt to tie the franchise record for the most Super Bowl wins in NFL history.
Rex Rolf was McCaffrey’s running backs coach during his time at Valor, a private school in Highlands Ranch, Colorado just south of Denver.
“I just said, ‘My job is don’t screw him up,’” he laughed during an interview with USA TODAY Sports.
“He had all this natural ability and the worst thing you can do is overcoach somebody. … By the time you get to the junior and senior year, you go, ‘What do you think of this, Christian? Oh yeah, let’s go with that.’”
The 49ers made the same decision: let’s go with that. Let’s go with McCaffrey right, left, everywhere on the field. It may seem obvious now that McCaffrey was going to be a star with the 49ers when the franchise traded for him in 2022, but that wasn’t the case then.
Many NFL front offices don’t believe in spending big money on running backs, particularly ones like McCaffrey with an injury history. But McCaffrey has thrived with the 49ers and helped unlock additional dimensions to the offense.
And it all started on those high school fields in Colorado.
McCaffrey won back-to-back Gatorade Player of the Year titles while playing for the Eagles and broke multiple state records during his high school career, including career points (848), career touchdowns (141), career all-purpose yards (8,845) and single season all-purpose yards (3,032).
Valor administrator Jim Kirchner recalled the first time he was struck by McCaffrey’s talent.
Valor football’s current head coach, Bret McGatlin, took the reins of the team in 2022. He is the son of local legend Don McGatlin, who racked up 205 career wins and won two state championships as the head coach of Green Mountain High School. Bret won his first state championship with Chatfield High School in 2021.
He said he hasn’t met McCaffrey, but knows his impact on the school and the state.
“Being in Colorado football my entire life, my dad being a longtime coach, I’ve always looked up to the high school athletes even when I was a kid,” McGatlin said. “They looked like NFL stars to me. I didn’t know any different. Christian might be the only kid that I would watch play just because I wanted to see one athlete play live.”
He said he went to Valor’s 2013 state championship game against Fairview High School, where the Eagles won their fifth consecutive title. McCaffrey had 221 total yards and four touchdowns for an MVP performance, which was his high school finale.
“It was like watching a superstar on the field,” McGatlin said. “Everyone in the stadium knows he’s getting the ball and they still can’t stop him.”
That year, McCaffrey also won the Denver Post’s Gold Helmet award, given to the best football player in Colorado. He got a scholarship to play football at Stanford, where his parents went, and then the Carolina Panthers picked him up with the No. 8 overall pick in the 2017 NFL draft. He played five seasons with the team, including two 1,000-yard campaigns, before being traded to the 49ers last season. This year, he led the league with 1,459 rushing yards despite not playing in the season finale.
Since joining Valor, which golf sensation Wyndham Clark also attended, McGatlin said everything he’s heard about McCaffrey, including from the running back’s longtime trainer Brian Kula, has been positive. His work ethic is something that stands out and is something he hopes to instill in the current Eagles team.
