Coach Garin Justice: Beating the Odds and Leading the Charge

Coach Garin Justice with his family, all decked out in Concord colors. 
Photo courtesy of cumountainlions.com

“I love what I do. I wake up every morning looking forward to work!” says Garin Justice, the head coach of the Concord University Mountain Lions football team. Many people know who Justice is and that he was a solid contributing member of the WVU football team for several years in the mid 2000’s, but they don’t know the story of the small town man who didn’t realize what he could really do until his junior year or that his future would be in the sport he least expected. 

Growing up, Coach Justice initially thought he would be a basketball player because of his height (he’s listed at 6’8) but as other kids around him grew into their frames he realized he wasn’t quite cut out for basketball. Throughout most of high school, Justice thought his future would be in baseball; in fact, he received numerous regional awards and even had his jersey retired by the now defunct Gilbert High School. 

Eventually, after playing well in football, Justice started to receive attention from colleges, and the summer heading into his senior year he received a scholarship to play for West Viginia University.

Soon after receiving an offer to play at WVU, the coach who extended that offer, Don Nehlen, retired and Coach Rich Rodriguez took over. When Rodriguez took over, what he told Justice was discouraging. “He basically said he didn’t think I could play, so I had to work twice as hard,” Justice explained. 

Over the next few years Justice would have multiple opportunities to show what he could do and capitalized on each one. During his sophomore season, Justice took over the starting right tackle spot after an injury late in the week and early in the season sidelined the starter at the time for the rest of the season. For the rest of that year, Justice manned down the right tackle position and, as he said, “I held my own,” but it wasn’t good enough. Next spring Justice said he was back on the bench after a healthy return of the previous starter. 

It was also around this time that Justice started to realize what he wanted to do after college, “Growing up everybody thought I’d be a doctor because I was a good student, but I was sitting in those medical classes thinking hey, I don’t want to do this, so I decided to take the teaching route because my parents and brother were teachers and get my degree in physical education.” 

After his sophomore year things started coming together for Justice, even with adversity. Justice suffered a knee injury in practice and was told to redshirt, but came out in practice the next day in full pads knowing if he redshirted he would probably lose any chance to play meaningful snaps, so he played through the injury knowing that it could lead to permanent knee damage down the road. 

From there on out, Justice was able to say he earned his spot as a starter. His senior year he was bestowed the honor of being the captain of the 2005 Mountaineer squad that beat the Georgia Bulldogs in the 2006 Sugar Bowl. 

After his time at WVU as a player, Justice served as a graduate assistant in the spring and one additional season before he left to get his Masters degree at Florida State University, where he would study under some of the best coaches in the business, Bobby Bowden and Jimbo Fisher. 

At FSU, Justice learned a lot about coaching from strategic and personal perspectives. From Coach Fisher he learned “How to run a program and how to be organized on offense” and from Coach Bowden he learned “How to deal with people” and “How to be comfortable in your own skin.” 

After FSU, Justice accepted a job at Concord University as an offensive line coach and soon after, in 2011, he was promoted to the position of head coach and led the Mountain Lions to a WVIAC championship in his first year. After an injury-plagued 7-4 season in 2012 and some growing pains with a young offensive nucleus during an 8-3 2013 season, the team was able to come full circle in 2014 and go farther than any team in the history of the program as they hosted two home playoff games and won both (both firsts in program history) and finally they were able to advance all the way to the National Semifinal behind the leadership of Justice, whose efforts were rewarded with the honor of being named Mountain East Conference Coach of the Year. Although the game ended in a loss, it was a huge statement from the Mountain Lions and Coach Justice, as he was able to turn a program that went winless in 2008 to a national title contender by applying all of the knowledge he had obtained over the past 15 years.

That’s the story of the man that leads the Mountain Lions, the man who makes the calls that bring the Concord football program many of the successes that they enjoy. Justice has helped not only bring recognition to the football team, but the university and southern West Virginia alike, proving that truly productive people can do truly great things if given the opportunity.