I remember when I first met Mr. Kennedy, he was teaching the in-school suspension class where I had been assigned for the next three days. He was a short man, who did not fit what a typical teacher profile appeared to be. He had a demeanor that never made you notice that he was ever even there. He sat at his desk like a gas attendant who just goes about doing his job, without you ever remembering what they looked like. He just looked so ordinary, but in the next few years of my life he would have a great effect on the person that I would become. I would later realize how extra ordinary he really was.
We didn't say much to each other over the next few days, I was still angry for being assigned to the class for fighting. DK (as everybody knew him) never really said much, unless he was talked to or asked a question. He was so approachable, but one would have never guessed it by his outside appearance. I guess that's why people say "Never Judge A Book by its cover". The following semester, I walked into the High School gym to find Mr. Kennedy taking attendance for the tenth grade gym class. This is where we would start interacting with each on a regular basis. A couple of weeks into the class he announced that he was the baseball coach and the Junior Varsity baseball team needed some more players. He wanted to know if anyone would be interested. I had never played organized baseball in my life; sure I had played around the neighborhood, but never any little league or elementary school baseball. I figured that at the time I was a little chubby and could use the extra exercise to lose some weight, so I signed up for the team. I soon realized that organized baseball and street baseball were completely different. Baseball as simple as it appeared, is filled with rules, traditions, decisions and just plain understanding that requires several years of playing and practicing to learn. Fortunately for me, I was a very good hitter, but the unfortunate part was with my lack of experience in the field of defense. I was just plain horrible.
DK also soon realized that I was a great hitter, and he also realized that I couldn't play defense to save my life. As everyone remembers, high school kids are very unforgiving when it comes to mistakes and not blending in. Just like DK and I, the rest of team realized my strengths and weaknesses, I soon got the reputation of being able to win the game with my bat but I could easily lose the game with my glove. This went on my whole sophomore year season until the third week of spring training in my junior year of high school.
We were playing a varsity versus junior varsity game in which I had three hits and two errors. Even though it didn't really cost us the game, which we lost handily, it made DK aware enough of mine and a couple of other players who seemed not really give a great deal of effort in the field. After the game he kept the whole junior varsity team at the field and conducted practice. He told me that the varsity coach wanted me to play with them but I would have to be better on defense. He said today was the day, he would show me that I was good enough to do it. I thought to myself, yeah right, we all know I couldn't play defense. He sent me to my position and started hitting the ball at me, playing out different scenarios, with base runners in scoring and non-scoring positions. At first I repeatedly made errors, but as the day got colder and darker, and DK repeatedly telling me, "You can do it! You can do it!" almost willing me to do it, I made over twenty plays without an error. It was probably four times longer than I had ever went without an error. At the end of the practice he made me run around to all the players to give them a High-Five. The next day I got ripped at school my all my junior varsity teammates with yells of, "You can do it!". I never played on the same team with them again. At the beginning of the season I was the starting left fielder for the varsity team.
didn't think that I would ever be able to play varsity because I just didn't care enough to concentrate. DK knew that I could do it when I didn't believe enough in myself to realize it. He coached the varsity team also but was not the head coach. We often talked and laughed about that first year of baseball, but I never got a chance to thank him until now, Thanks Mr. Kennedy, you were really cool.
-- Michael Jones, Florida Atlantic University