I was hurrying off the field to file a story when a player with his jersey rolled up over his belly hollered at me.
"Hey, Fire Man," he said. "When you gonna put me in the paper?"
I told the player I would put his name in the paper when he did something and that I hadn't seen him do anything yet.
"OK," he smiled. "I got you. I'll show you."
That was my first interaction in 1985 with Cortez Kennedy, No. 79, defensive tackle, Rivercrest High School. From his humble beginnings in a delta town surrounded by cotton and soybean fields Kennedy showed us all, and emerged as one of the most famous and beloved sports figures to ever come out of Arkansas.
He was an All-American at Miami when the Hurricanes were dominant. Third overall selection by Seattle in the 1990 draft. Eight-time Pro Bowl selection. NFL defensive player of the year in 1992 and a member of the all-decade for the 1990s. NFL Hall of Fame selection in 2012.
Dead at 48.
"I was in shock when I heard," said Richard Brothers, a former Rivercrest and University of Arkansas football player who lives in Springdale. "We grew up about a mile apart in Wilson and were friends and workout buddies. It's unbelievable to hear about Cortez, especially with him being so young."
The news of Kennedy's death in Orlando. Fla., last week was stunning and tributes poured in from throughout the country. Kennedy never forgot where he came from and traveled often after his retirement from football to Wilson, a small town located a few miles from the Mississippi River.
He held football camps at Rivercrest and one of the few streets in Wilson was named after him in 1998. The area is very much the same as when I covered Rivercrest football for the Blytheville Courier News in 1985.
Expectations were high for Rivercrest that season and the Colts improved to 9-0 with a 69-14 victory over rival Osceola. Rivercrest continued to surge in the playoffs and finished 13-0 after a 15-6 victory over Pine Bluff Dollarway in the Class AAA state championship game at War Memorial Stadium.
The Colts were the only unbeaten team in Arkansas that year and the most dominant team I had covered until the Springdale High team that went 14-0 in 2005. Gan Nunnally and his Bentonville teammates got a closeup view of the Colts during a 17-0 loss to Rivercrest in the second round of the playoffs.
"Cortez was an animal and they had a linebacker who was really good, too," Nunnally said of Steven Marshall, who later played at Arkansas. "I remember our cheerleaders handing out food baskets to the (Rivercrest) players and some of them got sick after they made the trip through the mountains to Bentonville. I wish we'd play them on that Thursday instead of Friday. But they were really good. You could tell they had something special with Cortez."
Young people need to know the story of Kennedy because his lack of attention to his school work almost cost him an opportunity to play football. He missed his sophomore year at Rivercrest because of grades, when Brothers was a senior.
"Cortez's mother sent him a postcard that said 'Wish you where here' when we were in Little Rock to play Cabot for the state championship," Brothers remembers. "That got him fired up and I think he took his school more seriously after that."
Lacking the grades to play at a Division I football, Kennedy began his transformation as a true student-athlete at Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia, Miss. He did so well he attracted attention from all the top programs and signed with coach Jimmy Johnson and the Miami Hurricanes.
Arkansas took a stab at Kennedy with Brothers as bait.
"Cortez was coming up for a recruiting visit and coach (Ken) Hatfield asked me to show him around," Brothers said. "At some point Cortez said to me 'to tell you the truth, Richard, I only came up here to see you. I'm going to Miami.'"
The former Colts from Rivercrest met on the field again when Arkansas lost 18-16 to Miami in 1988. Kennedy played two seasons at Miami when the Hurricanes went 22-2 and won the national championship in 1989. Then came a stellar NFL career when he was selected to the Pro Bowl eight times in 11 years with the Seahawks.
Cortez Kennedy will come full circle later this week when he is buried in Osceola, the place he was born. Stories will be told and tears will flow. For me, the vision remains of the kid in the Rivercrest uniform who willed himself to greatness on a level that none of us could have imagined.
Rest in peace, big fella.
Sports on 05/28/2017