Mica Mountain's Nugent, Darling chase title for the kids, not themselves

Mica Mountain football is a new program, but its coaches have a wealth of playoff experience, especially head coach Pat Nugent.

As a head coach, Nugent has reached the Arizona state quarterfinals at least nine times, the semifinals six times and the state championship game twice.

In 2007, Nugent led Canyon del Oro to the Class 4A Division II state championship game, and then it reached the semifinals in 2008 before he left to coach Pima College. Then in 2009 after Dusty Peace took over, he and future Chicago Bear Ka’Deem Carey won the 4A-I state title over Sabino 40-0.

“Obviously that was a heck of a football team, I ended up growing to Pima and left that team and Dusty Peace had a great run,” Nugent said. “He’s a great coach, a lot of my coaches stayed, a lot of the kids were all the same kids, so you never know, but I think coach Peace earned that win and it was great to be a part of it.

“I felt being a part of that family when they did win.”

Nugent and No. 4 Mica Mountain (13-0) face No. 2 Chandler AZ College Prep (12-1) for the 4A championship at ASU on Friday afternoon.

After his stint at Pima, Nugent moved to Cienega, where he led the Bobcats to a couple semifinals appearances and two quarterfinals, but his best Cienega squad may have been in 2020 when it got to play only two games and thus missed the playoffs.

“That was a special team, we’ll never find out how good that team was, that was kind of the same way when they were freshmen, we always thought that was the team that was gonna give Cienega a state title,” Nugent said. “We were so well equipped to be a great football team and then COVID hit and it just kind of took the sail out and it was sad because we’ll never know if that team would have been the best.”

As Nugent was dealing with COVID-19 at Cienega, former Bobcats defensive coordinator Brett Darling was starting up Mica Mountain’s football program. Mica, which opened in 2020, only had a JV team that first season.

Nugent said he “can’t thank” Darling enough for making the move from the expected powerful Cienega team.

Darling said the Bobcats weren’t just talking about another run at the 5A title, but at the Open title.

“It was a really tough decision, I agonized over it, truth is I’m a D coordinator and I coach football, but teaching pays the bills,” the social studies teacher said. “Nemer Hassey is a phenomenal principal and when he wanted to start the school here and he asked me to come along, I wanted to go with him and knowing that Nugent was going to kind of eventually come over, I knew I’d be in that really good spot to kind of keep working with the coach Nugent under a great administration.”

Hassey had been Cienega’s principal before launching Mica Mountain. Hassey was also Cienega’s head football coach before Nugent.

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Mica Mountain went from mostly freshman practicing or training in 2020 to playing a hybrid varsity/JV schedule the next year, going 3-3 in varsity games.

Then in 2022, it won the 4A Kino championship and in 2023 it reached the state semifinals in its first playoff appearance.

Since 2022, the Thunderbolts have won 29 of their last 31 games.

Darling said Mica Mountain’s growth since 2020 has been incredible.

“It’s a long way from taking the temperatures of kids as they came onto the field (during COVID), separating them in groups of 10 to getting ready for a state championship at ASU stadium,” Darling said. “It’s really neat; it’s been just an incredible transformation.

“It all starts with Nugent and his culture and what he builds and what he puts into the program and when he came and we moved to the varsity program it just took us to places that I could never dream of.”

Nugent said Darling is a “fiery guy” who works his tail off and has done an “amazing job this year.”

Darling said Nugent is above all a good man.

“He’s the best, I’ve been very fortunate,” Darling said. “I coached under (Pima County Sports Hall of Fame) Vern Friedli when I first started coaching down here in Tucson. I coached with Matt Johnson, you know, who won a state championship with Ironwood Ridge. I’ve been around a lot of great coaches, but for the last 10, 11 years, I’ve been able to work with a guy who who does it for — not that those guys didn’t — but I’ve had 10, 11 years of watching a guy who does it for the right reasons, who does it for the kids, who does it so that the kids can get recognition.

“He wants none for himself, he doesn’t want anybody to get credit more than the kids and to see him build the culture, to see him build these kids up, to see how he instills discipline, how he instills work ethic.”

Mica Mountain junior utility player Riley Carson said “absolutely” when asked if the team wanted to win the title for Nugent after he came close so many times.

“We thought last year we were gonna have it and then we ran into CDO and this year we were determined to have it because we knew what it tasted like to get to the semifinals,” Carson said. “We got there again this year and we got through the round and now we’re playing at ASU on Friday.”