Family, Friends Celebrate a Life

SYLMAR — On a hot August afternoon, Brian “Biff” McGahan jumped into his backyard pool to help his screaming 11-year-old niece, who had been shocked by a faulty underwater light fixture.

His niece, Dena, got out of the water safely, but McGahan, 31, sank to the bottom of the pool and was electrocuted. Four people, including his wife, managed to pull him out of the water, but he died on the way to the hospital.

Investigators surmise the electrical arc grounded at the pool’s bottom, and when McGahan touched it the electrical charge coursed through his body.

Any premature death is a tragedy, but McGahan’s seems to have hit hundreds of people especially hard--more than 700 attended his memorial service.

“The only thing, the only thing, that has given any kind of solace is knowing what he did,” Kimberley Joy Ferren, one of McGahan’s many friends, said this week.

So popular was the brown-haired sports enthusiast that his friends have organized a softball tournament in his honor that they hope to turn into an annual event.

The first Brian “Biff” McGahan Memorial Co-Ed Softball Tournament will be held Sunday at El Cariso Park in Sylmar. Twenty-six teams have signed up to play in the all-day tournament, which will raise money for children from low-income families to play Little League baseball.

Friends and family said McGahan lived life to the fullest and made hundreds of friends in the process.

“He was a little cocky,” said friend Corinne Ponce of Sherman Oaks, who had known McGahan since he was a 7-year-old “terror on a bike.”

“I’m beautiful. and everybody loves me,” McGahan, nearly 6-foot-2 and about 200 pounds, used to joke, Ponce said.

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Uncle Biffie, as his many nieces and nephews called him, was a family favorite, who would listen patiently to their grade-school complaints and threaten to kick the butts of their preteen enemies.

McGahan was the eldest of three children of Mary Helen and Frank McGahan, who smile when they talk about him.

Asked what he liked to do, his mother answered, “Eat! Every Thanksgiving and Christmas I had to have a turkey and a ham, and I make a broccoli-cheese casserole that he loved, and dressing and gravy.”

McGahan was a first-rate baseball player, friends said, who usually played shortstop and was an occasional pitcher. Talented enough to win a baseball scholarship to San Jose State (he ultimately passed on it), he later switched to softball. At Sylmar High School, he also played football and basketball.

When he wasn’t playing sports, Biff loved to watch them on TV. He would jump up and yell at the screen when his teams were in trouble or doing especially well. He loved the Lakers, Dodgers and Green Bay Packers.

Sometimes he and his friends, male and female, would go to bars to cheer on their favorite teams. Ron Hommel of Mission Hills remembers going with him to a West Covina sports bar to root for Green Bay.

Hommel went to get a drink and when he returned, “Biff’s high-fiving, bumping bellies and hugging and dancing with all these people he’s just met. You would have thought he had known these people his whole life.”

McGahan’s other great love was Eva Valdez, his 28-year-old bride. He met her five years ago when both worked at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. Ponce, Biff’s friend, had always warned him that eventually he would meet a girl who would not immediately fall for him, and Valdez proved her right. McGahan thought Valdez was beautiful. She thought of him as a friend.

Accounts vary at this point. Ponce said McGahan spent months wooing Valdez. She said it was only a matter of weeks.

They had become close friends by the time they had their first real date on Valentine’s Day in 1995. They went to Benihana in Encino. Soon after, the red roses started to arrive at her home and office.

He was so smitten that he learned to dance to impress her. His father taught him the basics, and he eventually mastered some Latin dances as well.

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He and Eva were married June 18 at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City. It was a big wedding, with about 250 guests. She only recently got all their wedding pictures from the photographer.

Biff’s death has brought his family and Eva’s even closer together.

“Her father communicated to us: ‘We’re a family united forever,’ ” McGahan’s mother said.

At the time of his death, McGahan and Eva were living with her sister, Lorena, because they were saving to buy a house, perhaps in Valencia, where Biff worked as a forklift operator in a pharmaceutical warehouse. Besides a home of their own, they wanted children.

None of the family can bear the thought of living again in the house where the accident occurred. It is for sale. Eva has moved back in with her parents in Sylmar.

Friend Belinda Robinson, who helped pull McGahan out of the pool and administered CPR, said the only thing that really disturbed him was ignorance and prejudice. And he loved her collard greens and smothered pork chops, she added.

Robinson said she dreams about the accident every night, only to wake and remember it really happened.

“I think I’ll be OK once I stop dreaming,” she said. “We all feel that, being the type of person he was, wherever he is, he’s making somebody very happy.”

The tournament starts at 8 a.m. at El Cariso Park, 1300 Hubbard St. There’s a $10 fee to play. Most positions are filled, but women players are still needed, organizers said. Food, beverages and T-shirts donated by friends and local businesses will be on sale, with all proceeds going to the memorial fund. Donations may be sent to the Brian McGahan Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 921911, Sylmar 91342-1911.