How this highly successful East Bay coach found balance, clarity and his way back to Granada

LIVERMORE — Quaran Johnson Sr. didn’t lose his edge when he stepped away from coaching. 

He just traded dry-erase markers and scouting reports for diapers, burp cloths and the quiet, exhausting work of being present – the kind that doesn’t come with a scoreboard or a final horn. 

For the first winter in a decade, the Granada boys basketball coach wasn’t diagramming late-game sets or chasing section and state banners. 

He was chasing time. Time with his wife. Time with his kids.