A crest drawn in high school, and two marks to remember teammates by
I played varsity soccer at Mater Dei and drew the program's crest while I was still a student. It was on the official kit for more than a decade and is still on the training gear. In 2021 the same coach, Sean Ganey, asked me for a mark in memory of Anthony Michael Barajas, number 9, and later for one for Christian Miranda, number 10. I said yes before he finished the question. The AMB badge is still sewn onto the uniforms and the gear, and the program still carries his hashtag, AMB9.
Drawn as a student. Worn since.
Coach Ganey asked me for a crest when I was on the team. I drew a shield quartered in red and white: the school's MD monogram and its five dated stars in one corner, stripes below, and the lion across the rest. It was on the official kit for more than a decade, until December 2025, when the match kit moved to a generic Mater Dei mark. It is still on the training gear, the alternate kits, the warmups, the summer camp and the merch table. It is still the same coach, and this past season he won the state championship in Sacramento. I was in the stands.
The program was always about brotherhood and servant leadership. The crest had to look like it belonged to a team, not to a designer. It still does.
One badge, then its pair.
Anthony Michael Barajas wore number 9. In 2021 Coach Ganey asked me for a mark the team could carry for him. The AMB badge is a tall oval with a double line, a cross above the initials, the initials in a Roman capital, two stars below. Nothing else. It has to sit on a sleeve at an inch tall, read from the stands, and look right on a shirt worn by someone who knew him.
Christian Miranda wore number 10. His mark was built from the same parts: the same oval, the same cross, the same capitals, one star. Side by side they read as a pair, which is the point. The team carries both.
Where it lives.
The badge sits on the sleeve beside the crest, and the back of the shirt carries the initials, the number and the cross. Before the final choice, the two finalists were mocked up on the same white kit so the program could decide in context, not on a slide.
It has been sewn onto the uniforms and the gear ever since. Embroidered, it holds at an inch. The crest changed on the match kit in 2025. The badge did not.
Thirty-six versions.
Three rounds. The first was wide: monograms from the initials, a star built from the A and the B, a portrait, the oval. The second put every direction on a poster and a shirt, because a mark like this is worn and hung far more than it is seen on a screen. The third brought two to the kit and numbered every variation, so the choice was between finished things.
The oval won. It is the quietest of them, and the one that will still look right in twenty years.
Over the years I have also drawn new crests and kits for the program. The pointed lion shield at the end of this page is one of them. They are concepts, and I think they are strong, but the crest the program still trains in is the one from high school, and I would not swap it.
