Chris McGaha said he’s reminded of it at least once a week.

The junior wide receiver does not get asked about his team-leading 61 catches of 830 yards last season.

But he does get tons of questions and comments about the highlight reel catch he made against UA over nine months ago.

“I hear [about] it pretty often, but I don’t mind talking about it,” McGaha said. “[During the play] I was just thinking, ‘I have to catch this thing no matter what.’ ”

While that spectacular, body-twisting, backward-diving, fingertip grab may have etched McGaha’s name in ASU football history, it doesn’t even rank as his top moment of the past 12 months.

McGaha’s fiancée, Aubrey McCloe, gave birth to the couple’s first son, Carson Hurley, June 20.

“It’s changed my life dramatically,” McGaha said. “It’s probably the best thing that’s happened to me since I’ve been alive.”

Now in addition to the demands of being a student and marquee football player, McGaha has added being a father to his life.

He deals with the same things that any dad does: extreme lack of sleep, changing dirty diapers — though he said he leaves the “dirty, dirty” diapers to “momma” — and the pressure that he now has to support a family.

But McGaha said that it’s all worth it when he walks in the door after a long day at school and practice.

“Even though I’m getting home around 11 p.m., I’m still happy to see [Carson], even if he’s sleeping,” McGaha said. “It’s just great to have him [in my life].”

As far as wide receivers in college football go, it would be tough to find one with better hands than McGaha.

His ability to snag any ball that comes his way has become such a trademark that Sporting News named him the player with the “Best Hands in the Pac-10 Conference” going into this season.

McGaha dropped just two balls all of last season, and 72 percent of his catches were for first downs.

And while his catch against UA gets the most attention, McGaha seems to make one leaping or diving reception every game that is worthy of a “wow.”

“I think most of it is God-given talent,” McGaha said. “It’s also just repetition [at] practice, after practice [and] during the summer.”

Because of that consistency and ability as a receiver, ASU coach Dennis Erickson has called McGaha “one of the better ones that [he’s] had in college football.”

“It’s a combination of hands and just making plays,” Erickson said. “The guy has made plays.”

But despite all those catches and receiving yards, McGaha had to wait until the Holiday Bowl against Texas to make his only touchdown reception of the entire 2007 season.

Granted, he basically grabbed the ball with one palm in traffic at the goal line, but catching just one touchdown in a season is not a statistic McGaha is happy about.

He said that one of his goals this season is to erase the assumption that he’s not a threat to find the end zone.

“I don’t like being labeled as a possession wide receiver,” he said. “I’ll have to do some things to change that little stamp I’ve got on my back.”

While he has not scored a touchdown yet through two games this season, he already has seven catches for 122 yards.

And if he gets into the end zone anytime during ASU’s home schedule, his loved ones will be there to celebrate.

McGaha is a local product out of Moon Valley High School in Phoenix. He won the Glendale City High School Slam Dunk contest in basketball and was a member of the track team, in addition to being named the 2004 Big School Player of the Year for football by The Arizona Republic.

“I have a bunch of family support,” McGaha said. “They don’t have to spend a bunch of money to come watch me play, and it’s just great to have my family with me here.”

Of course, part of that family is McCloe and Carson, who are often spotted at football practice. McGaha said he loves having them at his workouts because it gives them another chance to spend some time together as a family.

And with that family life just beginning, the college football season in full swing, a wedding on the horizon and a likely future in the NFL, McGaha has a lot to look forward to.

But instead of thinking about how much his life is going to continue to change throughout the coming months, he said he is just allowing each moment to come to him.

“I’m just taking it one day at a time,” he said. “If I look toward the future, I’m going to wear myself out.”

Reach the reporter at gina.mizell@asu.edu.