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YSU’s Watts seeking gains after major loss
Photo
Youngstown State’s Kevin Watts, right, makes a catch after bobbling the ball during a recent scrimmage. Linebacker Teven Williams (3) pursues.
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
On March 6 at 8 a.m., just after Youngstown State junior Kevin Watts finished a morning workout with the Penguins football team, he received a phone call from his mother.
“I thought, ‘Huh, my mom never calls me this early,’” he said.
It was about his father, she said. He’s in surgery at the hospital. You need to come home now.
Watts’ father, Kevin, had high blood pressure, which caused a tear in his aorta. The surgery went fine and doctors told the family he was stable.
But, four days later, something went wrong.
“They came in and told us there was a chance he might not make it,” Watts said. “I was like, ‘You said he was OK. What went wrong?’ ”
Over the next week, things kept going wrong. Every day brought something different as his condition worsened.
Then, on March 17, Watts’ father died. He was 45.
Two weeks later, Watts caught two passes in YSU’s first spring scrimmage. Afterward, he picked up his phone to call his dad to tell him about it.
“That’s when I had to realize he’s not here anymore,” Watts said. “That hit me the hardest.”
Watts grew up in Middletown, a steeltown located halfway between Dayton and Cincinnati. Like a lot of kids, Watts viewed sports as a way up and out, and his parents emphasized academics and athletics, in that order.
“Where I’m from, there’s drug dealers on the corners and there’s just not much for the youth down there,” Watts said. “You’ve got your friends, your family and sports. My dad always told me, ‘Keep your head in the books.’ ”
Watts was a member of Eric Wolford’s first recruiting class two years ago, a group of 14 cobbled together in less than two months on the job. Watts wasn’t even a first-team all-conference player at Middletown High — Wolford said he recruited him because he wanted someone on the team with a larger head than his — but the coaches saw something in Watts despite a body that Wolford said is “a couple double cheeseburgers away from fullback.”
“I’m a wide body but I can move,” Watts (6-foot-0, 215 pounds) said. “When I first got here, a lot of [defensive backs] were like, ‘Oh, he can’t move. He’s fat.’ Then we lined up one-on-one together and my first move is so quick, they have to kind of respect me.”
Wide receivers coach Andre Coleman said Watts has great feet, comparing him to rabbit-quick freshman receiver Andre Stubbs.
“He and Stubbs probably have the best wiggle on the team,” Coleman said. “He’s very deceptive. And he’s very good running with the ball after the catch.”
Watts played all 11 games as a true freshman, starting nine, and caught two touchdown passes in the upset win over Southern Illinois. He started seven games last fall, catching 28 passes for 291 yards while leading the team in kick returns.
Decent numbers. Coleman wants better ones.
“I always get on Kevin because he’s so talented that sometimes he can get away with 75-80 percent and be successful,” Coleman said. “I’m trying to get him to the point where he’s 100 percent every play, which is really going to make him excel this year.”
In that sense, Coleman is like Watts’ father. After his best games in high school, Watts would see his father in the tunnel afterward and hear, “Man, you didn’t do nothin’.”
“And I’m like, ‘Dad, I just had 100 yards rushing. What do you mean?’ And he’d be like, ‘You didn’t do nothin’.
“He always pushed me to work harder and it’s rough for me right now, especially with the spring game approaching. It’s going to be rough to not see him.”
But here’s the thing. Watts lost one family member this year. He’s gained close to 100 over the past three. When his father was in the hospital, Wolford and Coleman called or texted every day. (“My dad developed a relationship with them, too,” Watts said.) Same with his teammates.
“The whole team was there when I needed it,” Watts said. “It’s great that I got all the love and the family I have around here.”
“Kevin’s come on some tough times and he’s been able to step through it and handle adversity and that’s all part of life,” Wolford said. “He’s been a pleasure to have around here.”
Watts still has his mother, Portia, and his sister. And football, of course, which he plans to use to help keep his father’s memory alive.
“He was like Superman, but the one time he gets hit with that kryptonite, he’s gone,” Watts said. “I guess my dad’s kryptonite was high blood pressure. The one time he got sick, we lost him.
“I will dedicate the rest of my life to my dad because of everything he’s helped me with. Everything I’ve ever been through, he was always there.”