I had a great opportunity this past fall to coach Kevin's high school football team, SUgar Salem High school. They were underdogs going into the season because they only had nine seniors on their team but they were very committed to a good year. We played an eight game schedule, starting out with two wins against West Side and Filer. Kevin was playing strong safety on defense and was our leading tackler both those games. Against West Side he turned the game around by recovering a muffed punt inside our five yard line which turned into six quick points, putting us ahead to stay in the fourth quarter. It was fun to watch him step up and be the defensive team leader with his hustle and effort on every play in practice, and it carried over to his game performance.
He was playing with some of his best friends, which made it more fun for him and them: Sean Pope (injured early-foot- but played later in the season), T Clark, Hadley Wright, Fletcher Rydalch, Wilson Rydalch, Ian Checketts and Justin Garner to name a few. Kevin inspired them all by being the "little guy" who made all the plays and wasn't afraid to come up and hit anybody.
The third and fourth games of the season we ran into some problems, losing to Aberdeen and Marsh Valley. We were soundly beaten by Aberdeen but should have won the Marsh game. Kevin again recovered a muffed put inside our ten, this time in the first quarter, but the official blew the call (he later admitted such) and instead of us going up by 14 points, they drove down and scored and took the wind out of our sails. It ended up being a close game and that play turned out to be a key deciding factor. I will write more later...
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