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Lone Star Coaching from the Heart
On Friday nights, schoolboy football players
carry their hopes, desires, and dreams onto
every gridiron across Texas. Living and dying with
each pass, run and tackle are the townspeople in
those communities. The center of all this focus
stands one man —staunch, determined, immu
table: the coach. His influence reaches not only
his players but also deep into the communities
themselves, where high school football rules.
Bulletproof
Months after a bullet from the gun of a
crazed parent nearly took the life of Canton
High coach Gary Joe Kinne, his 16-year-old
son, G.J., Canton High's quarterback, sat in the
locker room during halftime of a game, wonder
ing if his father’s courageous fight was in vain.
The wound from April 2005 had escalated into
a serious infection; so serious that Coach Kinne
was forced back into the hospital on the worst
possible day: game day."We were down 34-6
at halftime,” G.J. says of that night’s game.“l
came out of the tunnel crying; I couldn’t get into
the game." During halftime Canton's assistant
coaches gambled. Playing the emotional card,
they called the hospital and put the weakened
coach on speakerphone.“He said,‘Win this one
for me,”’ G.J. recalls.“We rallied ‘round my dad,
and we won the game.” In fact the entire com
munity of Canton rallied, showing their support
of the popular coach and his son by regularly
mowing the family’s lawn and bringing food to
the Kinne’s residence. As Kinne recovered, the
father-son tandem rode the wave of community
support to guide Canton to its best-ever finish.
Once given a 1 5-percent chance of surviving,
Gary Joe went on to take a position at Baylor
University, where G.J.,a top recruit at quarter
back, will follow. After nearly losing his father,
G.J. can’t get close enough.“lt’s still in the back
of my mind,” he notes. “That was one of the
reasons I committed to Baylor. You never know
how long you’re going to have someone.”
Coaching the Town of Frenship
“The thing about football inWest Texas,”
says Brad Davis Frenship H.S. Football Coach
“is that if you get your school off to a good start
with success on the football field, everything
else runs smoothly. The impact it has on the
school —with the teachers, the administration,
and everybody else —just makes the community
come closer together, and everybody wants to
be at the game on Friday night.” This season
marks the first time in 25 years that Bobby
Davis (Brad’s dad) isn’t roaming the Frenship
sidelines as head football coach. Brad has spent
20 years coaching at his dad’s side.“ He’s one
of the most respected head coaches in Texas
high school football,” Davis says of his retired
dad. “It never crossed my mind that I would
replace him someday. I'd be crazy to try to fill
his shoes.” Solidly embedded in the elder Davis'
shoes are numerous awards venerating his il
lustrious coaching career, from the Tom Landry
Award, given by the Texas High School Coaches
Association, to the 2005 Wolfforth Community’s
Man of the Year award. Davis’s effect registered
far beyond meritorious honors.“ When a high
school football coach does what he did for this
area, the impact is felt by everybody that’s got
anything to do with high school football in this
part of Texas,” says Brad Davis. “He’s coached
kids whose fathers he coached here in this
community. They [former players] wanted their
sons to be coached by Bobby Davis. They had
so much respect for him that they wanted their
sons to be a part of his program. That speaks
volumes in itself: a respect for the program, for
the man who headed up the program, and the
football success that he was able to bring to
both generations at Frenship.”
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS
PBEMIEIES ICTIItI 3 TIESDAYSI/76 NIC