Time to shine.

Head football coach Keegan Kendrick has been recently promoted to head coach, therefore it’s his, “time to shine.”

Late December, it was announced that former Head Football Coach Ethan Atchley officially resigned, and nearly one month later, the new head coach was named. Kendrick is excited about taking on the position after athletics director Kenneth Hughes accepted his application. Receivers coach Tyler Faucett has high expectations for Kendrick, and the same goes for quarterback junior Travis Egan.

Following an 8-4 record this past season, the football team was showing even more promise than ever going into next season. The strong junior class has continued to improve and dominate the region and moving into their final year, expectations are high. Unexpectedly, Atchley resigned Dec. 17, leaving coaches and players confused and filled with question. 

While many reflected on the Atchley era, the administration looked ahead to their next step in the program. Tweeting out the job opening and allowing open applications were a few of the steps in the process. Almost exactly a month after the resignation, Kendrick was announced to have been promoted. 

The expectations that Kendrick has for himself is to become a role model and meet standards that are set for him. “For myself, I want to be the model that these kids need to have. The expectations I have for myself are to work hard every single day, communicate to my guys our standard and what our expectations for this program are to be, and to hold them and our coaches to that standard, and make sure everyone is going on the right course,” Kendrick said, “Our focus is on getting bigger, faster and stronger in the weight room and with our speed training. We’ve got a lot of really good kids, a lot of talent that’s returning and right now, we just need to continue to improve, continue to be detail-oriented and make sure we carry the momentum we built over the last few years.” The focus is to get better over the next season and continue to improve from the last season.

After Kendrick talked to multiple people in which he was able to trust, he knew that the job was right for him. “There wasn’t a quick decision when I saw that it was open. When I got into this profession, I wanted to be a head coach at some point and so when this opened up, it was a lot of prayer, it was a lot of conversation with my wife, a lot of talking to mentors and other people who I trust. Ultimately, we came to the decision that we really see a future here, we really like this community, that Mount Washington is a wonderful community with a lot of support, a lot of good culture, and ultimately, my wife and I decided that we would like to stay here and do what we can to improve the school and improve the football team,” Kendrick said.

Going from the position of being the offensive coach to his new position of being the head coach is going to be quite the transition for Kendrick. “That’s going to look a lot different. All the administration things and establishing the culture, the little things from scheduling to recruiting to all the little things that as assistants, you don’t have to worry about as much. Now that all falls in my lap and it directly is affected by decisions I’m making. So yeah, it’s a big change,” Kendrick said, “We’re just trying to get coaches in the building, see who we have on our staff and then we will put people in the best place for us as a program to be successful.” The person who will be filling Kendrick’s former position is to be determined.

Hughes definitely knew that it was the decision for Kendrick to become the head coach of the staff, after talking with the athletics committee. “Well, there were a lot of factors that went into that; mainly the fact that he was the offensive coordinator of an offense that was one of the top offenses in the state last season. That was a big selling point. The fact that he is already on the staff, the kids are familiar with him and it’s a pretty seamless transition from one coach to the next,” Hughes said.

The expectations that Hughes holds for Kendrick is for him to hold everybody accountable and bring up the football team as a staff. “My expectations for him is to hold the kids accountable, to make Bullitt East High School a very high level, the highest possible level that we can play at to develop athletes, but the biggest thing that I want him to do is use football as a platform to create outstanding men who are going to go out into the world and be great fathers, great husbands and just great members of their society,” Hughes said, “I think we’re pretty excited about it. We look forward to what the future holds, and we just want to keep the ball rolling on what we’ve got going at the moment and see where it takes us.” Hughes is excited about what the future holds for the football team with Kendrick as the head coach.

Faucett believes that Kendrick will do a great job taking on this position. “I think he’ll do a great job. He took on a more of a leadership role last year with coming off as a coordinator and calling the offense and obviously we did some great things offensively. I think he has a plan. He has a good plan as far as organization, and it will be exciting to see what he can do,” Faucett said, “I think he is a talented young coach, he’s got a lot of things going for him and he did a great job on their offense last year. Our players respect him, our staff, our coaching staff respects him, our staff in the school respects him. I think he’s got an opportunity to do some really special things.” Faucett fully believes that Hughes is the right man for the job.

Faucett believed that Kendrick was going to get the position as soon as the application opened. “I kind of thought from the start that that was a likely outcome. He, as a coordinator, it’s the next step to become a coach and I had a good idea that if they kept it in house, that he would be the logical next choice,” Faucett said.

Egan expects Kendrick to come in with a lot of passion for this position. “I expect him to come in with a lot of passion, and really have a great year coming out of his first year as the head coach,” Egan said, “I was very excited that he got the job, because I think he’s the right person for the job.” Egan is very excited that Kendrick got the job.

Egan does believe that it will be a learning curve, like it always would be, to have the coach be changed. “I think it will be a learning curve for all of us so we can learn every single thing we do. So yeah, I think it will be a learning curve for him, but I think he’s ready,” Egan said.

****Editor’s note: An earlier edition of this article said that Coach Atchley was fired. In fact, he submitted his resignation.