Dax and Zoie Griffin
Wagoner High School
While this story is centered on siblings Daxston “Dax” and Zoie Griffin from Wagoner High School, it’s really the story of a family that has overcome obstacles and made sacrifices and the love shared between the kids.
Our main players are Dax Griffin, senior starting center and nose guard on the Bulldog football team, Zoie Griffin, a sophomore and standout pitcher in softball, Amber Griffin the mom who played softball through high school and Chris Griffin the dad whoplayed football in high school and was a standout wrestler at UCO.
The Griffin’s story starts in Bixby. Chris worked with Dax on his football, baseball and wrestling and Amber worked with Zoie on her pitching.
“Zoie was just a natural athlete and good at everything she did, but Dax always had to work a little bit harder,” said Amber.
Then when he was about 10, they discovered that Dax was autistic.
“We learned that he had an auditory sensory disorder and so he wasn’t learning as much from hearing as he was by reading lips,” said Amber.
“We knew then that as much as we loved Bixby, it was just going to be too big a school for Dax to thrive in. We needed to find a school where we could coach the coaches, if you will, on how to teach Dax because he doesn’t learn as quickly or at the same pace as other kids. Coach Condict was open to us helping out and so we sold our house and our business in Bixby and transferred to Wagoner Dax’s freshman year,” said Chris.
Dax is a big kid (6-4, 285) with a big personality who plays football, baseball and wrestles. Zoie set a school record for strikeouts last year that she will likely break this year. The bond between the two is undeniable. Zoie helps Dax learn his football plays and schoolwork and Dax sits on a bucket and plays catcher for Zoie when she works on her pitching.
“I love Zoie,” said Dax as he carefully chose his words. “She’s a great athlete and she helps me with athletics and schoolworktoo.”
Zoie bought an autistic ball glove she uses in honor of her brother and as she talked about the bond between them, emotions took over.
“We’ve always been really close,” said Zoie. “We help each other with everything.” And then you could hear the tears as she tried to continue.
“Zoie sacrificed a lot when we moved here from Bixby,” said Amber. “She had a lot of friends there, but she understood why we moved, and she works crazy hard to be at the level where she is today.”
As the year progresses, the Griffins will see if the move to Wagoner pays off as Dax has moved to center and is catching the eye of college recruiters. But Chris knows there will still be challenges ahead.
“Academics is still a struggle, but Dax has adapted to his situation and has found work arounds through technology to help and if he does go on to play in college, we’ll find a way to help him academically.”
