Zach Buckey (center) graduated from Stanford last spring. His dad, Jeff, in the back, played in the NFL at 6-3, 300 pounds. Sons Grant (far left), Quinn and Pierce (far right) are all bigger than him and Pierce at the time hadn’t started high school yet. Mom Alissa is equally proud as dad of course. Photo: Courtesy family.
Former High School Football All-American Jeff Buckey and wife are raising four football standout sons. One is a college graduate still going strong at Stanford, another is at UCLA, another is a preseason all-state first team offensive lineman still in high school and the fourth is only a freshman in high school but clearly is a lot like his brothers.
By Trevor Horn
Special To Cal-Hi Sports
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After the dust settled from the historic 48-20 win for Liberty of Bakersfield over Pittsburg in the CIF State Division 1-A title in 2022, Jeff and Alissa Buckey, the parents of four, knew they had to feed their sons before hitting the road from Orange County back to Bakersfield.
The Buckeys just watched their second-oldest son, Grant, help lead the Patriots to the state title with three sacks for the UCLA-bound senior defensive lineman.
Unlike restaurants back home, this particular Chick-fil-A didn’t see them coming.
The Buckey family currently has two sons playing FBS college football with their oldest son, Zach, in his graduate year on the defensive line at Stanford, like his dad.
Grant is currently in his redshirt sophomore season on the defensive line at UCLA while Quinn, a senior offensive lineman at Liberty, has verbally committed to Michigan State, where he will enroll in January.
Those three already outmatch their dad in height and weight, led by Quinn, who stands a sturdy 6-foot-7 and more than 300 pounds.
Not to mention, their youngest son, Pierce, is one of the top baseball prospects in California, and is a 6-4, 230 pound 14-year old freshman at Liberty.
“It was over $130 dollars,” Jeff said of the drive-thru order that night.
“They all get multiple sandwiches,” Alissa said. “(Quinn) gets a 30-piece nuggets. Large fries, some milk shakes thrown in there.”
That’s just the tip of the iceberg of the commitment Jeff and Alissa have for the first-family of football in Bakersfield.
Grant Buckey walks off the field for Liberty after getting three sacks in CIF D1-A state championship game win over Pittsburg. Photo: Mark Tennis.
How It All Started
Jeff Buckey graduated from Bakersfield High as one of the most decorated prep athletes in Kern County history.
He was one of the top football recruits in the nation his senior year as one of the most dominating offensive lineman in the state and narrowed his decision to three schools in Notre Dame, UCLA and Stanford.
Stanford was eventually the choice, which was led by then-head coach Bill Walsh. Jeff was a standout for the Cardinal and was chosen in the seventh round of the 1996 NFL Draft with the 230th overall pick to the Miami Dolphins.
Buckey also had a track and field career at Bakersfield High where he put together one of the best discus-shot put combinations in state history. His mark of 210 feet, 1 inch in 1991 for the Drillers still stands as the top mark for a junior in state history, according to PrepCalTrack, and is the seventh-best mark overall in the state. Buckey also had a personal-best of 64-8 in the shot put. That combined distance in both events of 274-9 ranks in the top-10 in state history, as well.
Longtime editor Mark Tennis of Cal-Hi Sports saw Buckey play as a sophomore, junior and senior at Bakersfield and still views him as one of the best offensive linemen he’s ever seen.
“He would get out there and just use that same explosiveness from throwing the discus so far to just throwing guys around,” said Tennis, who chose Jeff to be on a cover of the old Student Sports Magazine and had Jeff’s parents bring him down for a cover shoot with Stanford offensive lineman Bob Whitfield. “But then off the field he was one of the nicest kids I’ve ever met.”
Football eventually won over Buckey, as it has for his three eldest boys.
However, his future wife had no clue a superstar was dominating at one of the rival schools in Bakersfield. Jeff graduated from Bakersfield High in 1992 and Alissa graduated from nearby Garces Memorial, the private catholic campus in the city, a year later.
“I was a cheerleader and I cheered on my team,” Alissa said. “We beat them (Jeff’s senior year).”
It wasn’t until mutual friends introduced the two to each other after college on a blind date in 1998 when Jeff was home during the offseason while playing for the Dolphins.
“They asked us to come to dinner with them,” Alissa said. “We went on a blind date.”
That was the weekend before the Super Bowl in 1998. They got engaged a year later and married in March 2000.
Three years later, their oldest son, Zach, was born in February of 2003. Little did those two know that they would eventually raise four boys, with two currently playing major college football, another signed to one of the premier programs in the nation and the youngest, just a freshman in high school, could end up playing football or baseball in college.
Paving Their Own Path
Growing up as the eldest of the four boys, Zach Buckey wanted nothing more to do what his dad did and play football at Stanford.
“I remember the first time he was out there (playing youth tackle football in middle school), and he was skinny,” Jeff said of Zach. “He was playing defensive back and started that way his freshman year in high school. I told Alissa, ‘I don’t know if football was for him.’ And he proved me wrong.”
Jeff Buckey works on offensive line drills with one of his sons on the beach a few years ago on a family vacation in Hawaii. Photo: Courtesy family.
A late bloomer, Zach put on roughly 70 pounds by his junior year where he starred on the defensive line for the Rams in the first season with Paul Golla as the head coach at Garces in 2019.
While building muscle and getting up to 6-5 and 270 pounds by his senior year in high school, Zach was garnering college football offers, but not Stanford, yet.
And that weighed on him. It wasn’t pressure from within the household, but by his own desire to be like dad to the point that he became infatuated with the idea.
“Zach was always obsessed with Stanford,” Alissa said. “He knew every kid on the roster growing up.”
It was the love-affair Zach had with Stanford from birth that fueled him on the field and in the classroom as one of the top students in his class in high school, it almost became “Stanford or bust.”
“I took it on as a motivation to honor my family legacy,” Zach said. “It was less of a domineering shadow and more of a catalyst than anything.”
When the offer came in from Stanford, Zach was upstairs at home and Quinn said he remembers hearing Zach scream in excitement from downstairs.
“He started jumping up and down,” Quinn recalls. “I thought it was an earthquake.”
Grant grew into his body much quicker than his older brother. Playing youth football in middle school, he stood nearly a foot taller than most of his teammates before becoming one of the top defensive lineman in the state his senior year at Liberty.
Grant’s recruiting garnered attention early in his varsity career at Liberty with offers from 18 college programs, including Michigan, USC, Oregon, Stanford and Cal. But it was UCLA for the second-born, and that was just fine for Jeff.
“UCLA was my second school of choice when I was deciding,” Jeff said.
For Grant, the idea of playing with his brother at Stanford and continue the Buckey legacy in Palo Alto wasn’t meant to be.
“I had a lot of love for (Stanford),” Grant said. “But I felt like I wanted to experience something new and just felt that going to UCLA would be a better fit for me.”
As Quinn is now embarking on the second-half of his senior year on the offensive line at Liberty, there is a sense of pride that despite going to Michigan State over nearly two dozen other offers from Stanford, UCLA, Arizona and Boise State, he is the first of the Buckey boys to get recruited at the same position as their dad.
“I played defense, but I really didn’t like it,” Quinn said. “He can help me with whatever I need.”
Then there is the youngest.
Pierce is playing junior varsity football for Liberty his freshman year after not playing tackle football before, but baseball has been his true passion leading up to this point as a first baseman and pitcher.
Former NFL lineman Bob Whitfield & Jeff Buckey (at the time an incoming senior at Bakersfield HS) are shown on Student Sports Magazine cover. Photo: Cal-Hi Sports archives.
Allowing The Passion
To Come From Within
Jeff and Alissa both wanted to raise their four boys as well-rounded young men. Sports, especially tackle football, was not the main objective. All four play musical instruments and are high-end students, led by Zach, who recently graduated from Stanford and is playing his graduate year this fall for the Cardinal.
“I want them to have all the success in the world and all the experiences,” Jeff said. “I think playing major college football is as fun as anything you can do. If they make it to the NFL, that’s great, but they have done something most people only dream about.”
Having lived the life as a high-end football player for nearly two decades, Jeff knows how difficult it can be, which meant pushing them into football would be a recipe for disaster if the fire wasn’t within all four of their sons.
And each took to the sport in their own way.
“I remember watching old films of dad and (the Dolphins) were playing Ray Lewis (and the Baltimore Ravens),” Quinn said. “I thought to myself, ‘That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’”
Zach took on the passion in his own way by doing all he could in high school to help improve his chances of playing football at Stanford.
“Growing up, I always wanted to be like my dad, and my dad was a great football player,” Zach said. “Ergo, I needed to be a great football player.”
Grant learned early on how big of a deal his dad was during his playing days.
“Ever since I started playing sports, I realized how much of an impact my dad had on the city of Bakersfield from athletics,” Grant said. “It inspired me to have goals to follow in his footsteps.”
The pride for a father to watch all four of his sons play the sport he excelled in is a special bond for this family.
“I love watching them all,” Jeff said. “They are all different.”
Raising Them The Right Way
For Alissa, success on the field is a wonderful feeling as a mom, but what brings her the most pride is who they are as people in the community and continuing to provide love and support for her sons regardless of outcomes on the field.
“That’s the most important thing,” Alissa said. “It’s hard because in sports, there is so much volatility. If your feelings are dependent on how the games go (win or lose), then it’s going to be a wild and terrible ride. So you have to take satisfaction in the fact that your kid played a great game. Obviously, we want to raise good humans.”
Through his injuries, especially during his four years in the NFL, Jeff knows full-well how quickly the sport can be ripped out from under you and having a plan for the future is paramount.
Alissa Buckey (far left), son Pierce and dad Jeff (far right) are shown with son Quinn on his visit to Michigan State. The current Liberty of Bakersfield senior has committed with the Spartans. Photo: Courtesy family.
“You can get injured and never play again,” Jeff said. “Football is great. It can take you places. Football season is the best time. You get to watch all of the kids on the weekends.”
But the goal was never football-or-bust for a family that most would assume is just that.
“I never forced them to play football,” Jeff said. “I never said, ‘You’ve got to do this.’ Alissa and I just told them you need to be busy. I just wanted them to be active.”
And it’s evident in their upbringing that in a community like Bakersfield where youth tackle football is so prevalent, the Buckey sons all played flag football until middle school, or high school, like with Pierce this fall.
“I think sports in general, teach you so much,” Jeff said. “But I retired from football because of concussions. I read all of the reports and data. It was a personal decision to delay. I didn’t play football until I was in high school.”
Jeff said that his own personal experience of never feeling like he was “behind the eight-ball” starting in high school helped them make the decision for their sons.
With medical studies showing the brain is more developed around the age of 13 and the risk of major concussions are drastically lower by that age, that made the decision of waiting until middle school to play tackle football more appealing for the Buckey family.
“Once you are 12 or 13, the reports don’t fear concussions as much,” Jeff said. “So that’s how we came with the decision. Play flag football all they want until middle school.”
For Quinn, that brought on some frustration initially, but that dwindled just as quickly.
“There were times of frustration of wanting to play because everyone else is,” Quinn said. “Flag was fun. I liked it. It wasn’t too much of a thing. I think it was worth it in the long run. I was never really mad about it.”
But the struggle came early with Zach. Wanting badly to play tackle football in grade school, Alissa asked if he should start early, but Jeff had a rational decision.
“If he wants it badly enough, he will get there,” Jeff said.
And all of the boys found their why within the sport of football.
“I just want to be better than everybody else,” Quinn said. “Being a competitor, you don’t want anyone to be above you. And not in this house, but in general. I want to work harder than everyone else.”
Time Management 101
With two sons playing in the ACC and the Big 10 has Saturdays busy with travel for Jeff and Alissa with Thursday and Friday nights taken up with high school football for Quinn and Pierce.
Time management is a must.
The travel has been manageable with Zach and Grant playing college football within a few hours drive north or south of Bakersfield.
Adding in Quinn heading to Michigan State next season will be a little more difficult, but giving their sons the ability to travel the country and forge their own path is the most important aspect Jeff and Alissa can give to their sons.
“I am super excited for him because I think the whole atmosphere there (at Michigan State) is so intoxicating,” Alissa said. “I think he is really looking forward to having the Midwest, college football experience.”
The airline miles might be racking up a tad more these days, but the busy schedule has always been there for Jeff and Alissa.
“When you have kids, you’re just raising them,” Alissa said. “You’re just getting them through the day. For seven years I was either pregnant or nursing. I was working full-time until (Quinn) was a year old. I look back and in the moment, you just, do it.”
Raising four success sons has been a blessing for the couple and having them excel in life has been the greatest pleasure they have received.
“I feel with a lot of parents that are surrounded by this feeling of getting them a scholarship,” Alissa said. “But Jeff and I are pretty grounded about that. We tell them, ‘If you want to play in college, you work your butt off and do it.’ I don’t think either of us ever said they had to do this.”
It’s always been about affording the chance for all four of their sons to experience and find their passion in life.
“They are all pretty self-motivated,” Jeff said. “That’s something I appreciate. They have to want it for themselves. It has to come from within. It’s all on them.”
Trevor Horn has been prep sports editor for the Bakersfield Californian and has had many other media roles as a journalist in Kern County. He previously did a feature for Cal-Hi Sports prior to the 2020 NFL Draft on Liberty of Bakersfield grad Jordan Love, now starring for the Green Bay Packers. Follow him on Twitter @trevhorn.
Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports
