sports passion for coaching

RIVER VALLEY and OZARK AREA — Central Baptist College in Conway has hired a Prophete to lead its brand-new wrestling program to the promised land.

And it only takes a few minutes of conversation with him to make one a devout believer - in him, and in his sport.

Ken Prophete, 26, was set to arrive in Conway in early May. In the weeks since he’s been hired, he’s been busily recruiting for a team that will begin competition in October and will join Ouachita Baptist University as the state’s only two collegiate wrestling programs.

His passion for his sport is evident in the way he speaks, with revival-meeting fervor.

“The excitement is absolutely still surreal for me because after I got injured and started working as a graduate assistant and helping the team, I knew I wanted to coach,” he said, shortly after being hired. “I not only wanted to coach; I wanted to be a head coach, and I wanted to be a head coach at a place that was starting a program.

“To get that opportunity is unbelievable. I’m excited to step in and achieve the goals I’ve set for myself. Words can’t express how I feel.”

Prophete was an undefeated state champion for Palm Beach Gardens (Fla.) High School, and from there went to Elsworth Community College in Iowa Falls, Iowa, in 2002. He earned All-America honors as a freshman there, finishing fourth in the national tournament. As asophomore, he was a national qualifier again, and he came up one point short of repeating as an All-American.

After earning an Associate of Arts degree, he transferred to the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Ky. During his junior season, he lost his final match by a takedown, one match short of another All-America season. He redshirted the following year and returned to compete as a redshirt senior in 2006-07.

“But the week of the first competition, I tore my knee apart,” he said. “That was pretty much the end of my career.”

But, as is often the case, a loss turned into a gain. He was able to go through rehab and help his teammate become a national champion that year. In May 2007, he was hired as a graduate assistant.

“In helping the team, I felt a passion for becoming a coach,” he said. “(Coaching) helped me to cope. It was hard to deal with the way I ended my career. Coaching helped me feel like I was still part of the competition, and that’s what helped me get through.”

During his three years as a graduate assistant, he finished his Bachelor of Sciencedegree in biology and public health and a Master of Arts degree in teaching public health.

Before his injury, he had planned to go to medical school.

“But (afterward), I wasn’t mentally prepared for it anymore, and I lost sight of it,” he said. “When you’re pursuing a medical degree, you have to put it all in, and I knew I wasn’t all in. Our head coach helped me out. I was stuck; I didn’t know what to do. I was no longer motivated to go to medical school, and he offered me the GA position and told me to go for my master’s in education, to give myself two years to regroup.”

Along the way, Prophete shifted his passion frommedicine to coaching - not surprisingly, with evangelistic fervor.

He recalled being nervous about making the transition from fellow competitor to coach of his former teammates, but they listened to him and respected him.

“After nationals in ’07-08, I knew I wanted to be a coach,” he said. “Even though I could not be a national champion like I had had goals to be, I could give back what I knew and apply it to somebody else. That’s what I really wanted to do.”

He remembered his wrestlers coming to him following nationals to thank him for his work with them.

“That really fulfilled me, and that’s when I knew I wanted to coach,” he said.

According to a Central Baptist College press release, while at Cumberlands, Prophete was involved in recruiting, coaching and training 10All-Americans and two NAIA national champions.

So what about CBC attracted him to this job?

“The simple fact that wrestling there is so new, not just at the college level but also at the high school level,” he said. “Wrestling has a lot of growing to do there. And the fact they’re so energetic about knowing more about wrestling. The whole state is looking to increase their knowledge of wrestling.”

Prophete also thinks he’s a good fit with the school, which has transitioned from a junior college to a four-year school in recent years.

“I know the junior college, the small campus environment, and I know they want to grow,” he said. “I’m a young coach; I’ve got a lot of learning and growing up to do. It’s going to be great because we’re going to grow together.”

Lyle Middleton, CB C’s athletic director, agreed.

“He’s young, a first-time head coach, and he’s eager toget an opportunity,” Middleton said. “His enthusiasm is strong; his desire to win is strong. He’s going to get it done.”

Prophete said he thinks CBC officials picked up on his passion for the sport.

It would be difficult not to.

“I believe this sport saved my life,” he said. “When I speak about wrestling, I’m speaking not just of the sport but of the struggles and difficulties you have to overcome in life. That’s how you develop as a person. That’s the connection we all need. With the way the president (Terry Kimbrow) and Lyle Middleton talked to me, we’re all on the same page about the growth of the sport and the growth of the school.”

So how did wrestling save Prophete’s life?

He remembered being one of those kids for whom school came easily, so he became the class clown and stumbled out into the streets with running buddies. He’d lost his parents when he was young, and an aunt raised him from the time he was 4.

“But she worked all the time, and I was always getting in trouble, just being mischievous, being out at night when I shouldn’t have been, getting in fights and trouble,” he said.

In middle school, though, he heard a school announcement about intramural wrestling. He had no idea what to expect, but he was intrigued enough to walk the 45 minutes from his hometown to the school early the next Tuesday morning to check it out.

“From day 1, I loved the sport,” he said. “I’ve played every sport - football, baseball, soccer - but with wrestling, everything you put into the sport comes out. Whatever you sacrifice, whatever you do, if you set a goal, it’s going to come out to your advantage if you do it right.

“I didn’t have to worr y about if I messed up a football play that a lineman next to me would pick up the slack. If I mess up on the wrestling mat, it’s on me.”

He said that after he started the sport, he was calmerin class. He found a mentor in that middle school coach, who also coached Prophete through high school.

“Once I started wrestling, instead of being out with my buddies late Friday and Saturday nights, I was in bed early Friday night to get up at 6 a.m. Saturday to go to a tournament, and we’d get back late, and I’d be too tired to go out, so I was in bed early Saturday night and in church Sunday morning,” Prophete said. “Wrestling kept me from being out there to find trouble, because no 14- or 15-year-old kid should be out there at 1 a.m. My weekends had a purpose. It gave me something to do.”

He also learned to set goals: first to keep his grades high enough to be able to compete, then to be able to wrestle in college, then to be able to earn a scholarship in order to go to medical school.

“My mind changed,” he said. “It matured, and wrestling did that for me.”

Spoken just like a Prophete.

River Valley Ozark, Pages 142 on 05/30/2010

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