Judd Garrett: From Bushnell Cup Winner To Published Novelist

CLICK HERE FOR "NO WIND," by Judd Garrett

Bob Surace was in the same huddle with Judd Garrett for three years and only heard him speak once.

It was in 1989. Princeton trailed William & Mary by two touchdowns with five minutes to go. Then-head coach Steve Tosches pulled Garrett, his best running back, hoping to save him for the Ivy League season.

Instead, Garrett bolted off the bench and sent the backup running back off the field.

"He told the team we were going to come back," says Surace, then the team's center and now the Tiger head coach. "He told us he had this. He was our offense. He was our runner. He was our receiver. He was our decoy. We came back and tied the game 31-31. It was the only time I ever heard speak in a huddle in three years. I also think I never had more effort than in those two series, and it was because of Judd's inspiration."

If Judd didn't say much on the field, he's found another outlet to get his words – and his inspiration – across.

Garrett recently published his first novel, entitled "No Wind," a coming of age story that runs 125,000 words, each of them carefully crafted and placed to enhance the story and to touch on the important themes. As it says in the first sentence of the novel and on the back cover: "You can come back to your memorable places, but you can never go back to the time that made those places memorable."

The book is set on the Jersey Shore. It's not a sports book per se, but sports – especially baseball – are a big part of it. In some ways, that's how Judd Garrett is too. Sports are a big part of who he is, but there's way more to him than that.

"He's intelligent, creative and thoughtful, and sometimes that can be confused with being shy," Surace says. "He's witty, with a great imagination, and passionate."

His novel actually dates back to his days as a Princeton undergraduate. He is one of the legendary Garrett brothers, along with his older brothers John (now the Lafayette head coach) and Jason (the longtime NFL quarterback and then head coach of the Dallas Cowboys who is now the offensive coordinator of the New York Giants).

Their father Jim was a football coach himself, and the family bounced around for numerous stops when they were younger. The anchor for the family was their house at the Jersey Shore, an area for which they all have a great fondness.

All three Garrett brothers played together in the 1987 season, and then it was just Jason and Judd in 1988, when Jason won the Bushnell Cup as the Ivy League Player of the Year. The following year, as a senior, Judd won the Bushnell Cup himself as Princeton won its first Ivy League championship in 20 years.

Judd and Jason remain the only brothers ever to win the Ivy Player of the Year Award in football.

Judd ran for 3,109 yards in his career and 1,347 as a senior, numbers that have only ever been surpassed at Princeton by Keith Elias.

"Princeton was a great time for me," he says. "Obviously going to school there in general was a great experience. We also had some good years playing. My sophomore ad junior years we were so close to winning it. We were able to get it my senior year. And it was great to play with Jason and John. But we had so many great players then, just a lot of tough, hard-nosed football players. I'm glad we had the success we did."

Garrett, a first-team All-American as a senior, was a religion major whose senior thesis was entitled "Religion And Sports, A World Apart?" That 107-page thesis was not the only writing he did as an undergrad.

"I started writing it when I was in college," he says. "I'd started it and then put it down. I had my initial thoughts and stories in college."

Then his life got really busy. First he played in the NFL. Then he embarked on a long career of his own as a coach.

"I'd pick it back up here and there," he says. "It's hard to have time to work on something like that while you're coaching. There aren't that many hours in the day left."

While he was coaching, he found time to write here and there, often taking his kids to a skateboard park and then writing on his computer while he was there for an hour.

"I had an ultimate vision of what I wanted the book to be," Garrett says. "I had the basic themes in my mind. If I had it to do over again, I would have created an outline, but I didn't do it that way. Within the general constraints of my vision and the themes I wanted to touch on, I just started writing. Sort of put it together from there."

Eventually it grew well beyond the final length, but some major editing got it down to where it landed in its published state. The cover of the book is a photo of the ocean in Monmouth Beach, near the beach house, and it's a photo he took himself.

When Jason was let go by the Cowboys after last season, Judd finds himself on the sidelines this season for the first time in a long time. His goal is to return to an NFL team next year, but the one plus side of not being with a team for this year is that it gave him a chance to edit the book and get it published.

"Judd is one of those people where nothing he accomplished would surprise me," Surace says. "He is so smart, so hard working. He's disciplined. Accountable. He was a great teammate. He never raised his voice when he spoke, but his message always resonated."

And now his message is in published form, in the shape of his first novel.

Excerpt from "No Wind":
I wish it were that easy. I wish that God's bright, discerning eye fell on us discriminately, highlighting the best and veiling the worst. Then I could what He sees, now what He knows, and understand what is right and what is wrong. But His eye shines down on all of us, the good and the bad the same, offering light for everyone who needs it while the clouds arbitrarily decide who bathes in its warmth. And we are left to decipher beyond the dubious choices of the mist, my eyes forever blind to God's truth.

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