Sports editor Pat Dailey sat down with Nixa coach John Perry for a Q’s and A’s session covering the Eagles’ 8-3 season this year and their future:
Q: After your season-ending 24-13 District semifinal loss to Joplin, you tweeted the next day, ‘The sun came out this morning.’ How do handle the final game of a season?
Perry: The end is really hard when you pour as much as we pour into it. You go all the way back to last year after the last game. We’ve had 6 a.m. workouts before school, the leadership academies, all the extra meetings and all the summer practices. The end is tough on kids and adults, too. It’s such a big part of our lives.
The Saturday after the final game is a tough day. But when you’ve been in this profession as long as I have, you do realize the outcome of a game is not going to change the following day. We have a lot to be grateful for. But the human body cannot do grateful and sad at the same time. You only can feel one emotion at a time. Instead of dwelling on the things that could have been, I try to dwell on the things we have to be grateful for and they are many.
We had an outstanding year. It wasn’t perfect. But unless you win that last one, you’re disappointed.
Q: You changed your starting QB from Austin McCracken to Connor Knatcal early on. Knatcal finished 121-of-220 passing for 1,810 yards and 24 touchdowns (all school records). Changing QBs can be a delicate move, to say the least. How do you think it turned out?
Perry: Connor had done a great job learning the offense and being the type of person who put himself in that position. He was a backup, but he did exactly what he had to do to give himself a chance. He was Austin’s biggest fan. If Austin made a big play, Connor was cheering for him. Connor is a unique dude in that he could find joy in other people’s success. He kept working.
The biggest thing was when Kael (Combs) and Jordyn (Turner) came out, we felt like we had to push the ball down the field. As a coaching staff, we felt that was the best thing for us to give us a chance to be as successful as we can. Austin handled it like a champ. He wasn’t happy about it. But he did exactly what you should do. He showed up and went to work. He ended up having an outstanding year as a slot receiver. Both of them are a testament to good kids and good families. It worked out great.
We could not run the football (in Districts at Joplin). No. 68 (Donovahn Watkins), we could not block him if we would put all five offensive linemen on him. He’s a different dude. So, we had to start throwing the ball down the field. If we could not throw the ball down the field, that game is not as close as it was.
Q: It turned out to be a running back by committee. How do you think your running backs responded to the injuries they dealt with?
Perry: You lose one of the best running backs (Ramone Green) in the state to injury in Week Two. But our kids were awesome about it. You didn’t see any drop in effort the night it happened or in the weeks after that. They continued to fight. Then, Spencer Ward gets banged up and that put us in another pickle. Then, he got banged up again and we put in a ninth-grader (Dylan Rebora).
The good thing is all of those dudes are back. Offensive football at Nixa could be as good as any offense in the United States next year. It will be one of the best I’ve been around. We’ve got a slew of running backs and they are really good. That will be a tremendous problem to have next year.
Q: Wide receiver Kael Combs surely made himself a college prospect in his first high school season on the gridiron. He set school records with 44 catches for 842 yards and 11 touchdowns. What did you think of his immediate impact?
Perry: He is a champ. There were times teams weren’t going to let us throw for 250 yards to him. They doubled him on almost every snap. But he still had a lot of catches and fought for extra yards. I’m very proud of him. He could go far. He was tougher than I thought because he didn’t portray himself like that when I was getting to know him. He didn’t come across as a tough guy. But once he got out here, never one time did he back down from anybody or anything. He’s 6-foot-5 and 190 pounds. Why should he back down to anybody.
Q: How does your future look along the offensive line?
Perry: That’s an area we have to keep getting better. The line of scrimmage at Joplin, we probably did not win that. But they have come a long way. We are a whole lot better up front than my very first practice here two years ago.
Our center (Garrett Davidson) and left side (tackle Landon Carson and guard Ethan Choi) will come back and we think we have other guys who can jump in. Garrett has started 23 games for us and is awesome. When he’s done, he will have played as many games as anyone around here.
We lost TJ Eckhart, a 6-foot-6, 280-pounder, to a torn ACL right off the bat. We have high expectations for him. We think he’s going to be a big-time player. We’ve got some other strong, good-looking underclassmen. The offensive line is going to get better and better.
Q: More than likely, you have two all-staters on defense in Jaden Aven and John Gholson. Aven had 139 tackles and Gholson 94. What do you think of the legacies they have established?
Perry: Jaden has changed a great deal. When I first met him, I don’t know if team-first would have been something you said about him. That’s what he has become. He jumped on board leadership-wise. He did everything we asked him to do for the betterment of the team. He has worked hard to put himself in the position he is in.
John is special. I don’t know if I’ve ever been around a kid who has a passion for doing things as wide open like he does. There was not a day of practice he came out and had a bad day. That joker will be very hard to replace. His effort and desire will be tough to replace.
Q: What do you think of your returnees on defense?
Perry: A lot of our D-linemen, Jayden Antonelli, Corbin Speaks and Avry Rutherford, will be back. They were pretty good this year and that should be a strong suit for us next year. That’s a good group.
We have some young linebackers we think will step in and be really good. Ty Hartman will be the leader of the linebackers. Tanner Grant got to play a lot this year.
(Cornerbacks Jake Miller and Jordan Tyler) weren’t playing ofense when the season started. Jordan was playing wide receiver and Jacob had just moved here from Kickapoo. They got a lot better as the season went along. They’re talented guys. We will lose both our safeties, but we lost both safeties last year, too. We will be on the hunt for some more.
Q: What do you think of the experience you will have coming back?
Perry: We had a lot of underclassmen who played. We will have nine starters on offense coming back and five or six starters on defense, depending on what defense we are in. That’s going to bode really well for next year.
We’ve got some talented ninth-graders coming who are going to want to play, too. It should be a fun year.
Q: What are your feelings about your coaching staff and could some of your assistants be head coaches one day?
Perry: Those guys have done everything to give us a chance to be successful. They practically put their lives on hold for seven months of the year. They are transformational. They are in it for the right reason. They want to make a difference with kids. I’m proud to have the coaches we have. We have wisdom, compassion and empathy. They have a lot of positive traits.
They probably didn’t know what to think about me when I got here. But from the get-go we have hit it off great. One of the first things I told them was that if I can’t add value to their lives, I don’t have any business being here. Building relationships is what we do and I’ve built great relationships with the coaches we have. It’s year 28 for me and it won’t be the X’s and O’s I’ll miss one day, it will be the relationships with the kids and coaches.
There are several of our coaches that can be head coaches, several that will be and we have several that have been (Phil Wickwar, Aaron Wells and Dustin Baldwin). They may have ambitions of doing that again. If they do, I will support them 100 percent.
Q: No coach since former Missouri State men’s basketball coach Barry Hinson in the 1990s has hit it off with the local media as well as you have. Why do you think you have such a good relationship with reporters?
Perry: I’ve worked around coaches who really stressed about (reporters) coming around. They didn’t want to talk to them or were afraid they might show something that might hurt them. I never understood that. I don’t care what somebody films for TV or writes in the newspaper, that’s not going to change the outcome of a game on Friday night.
The job you all do are tough jobs, How in the world could I not be on your side. You all do a job in which you give back to people. So anything I can do to ever help anybody in the media, I will.
I’ve gotten really close to some (reporters). Back in Pearl, (Mississippi), there was a guy named Mike Sands who worked for the local TV station (FOX WLBT). He died of cancer at (34) years old. I watched his battle through cancer while he still provided news.
I have the utmost respect for people in the media. There are probably some bad ones out there. But nine out of 10 them are great and all they want to do is provide a service for other people by putting information out that people want to see. When (a reporter) interviews a kid, that is a highlight of their life. Kids are at home right now getting a DVR set up or cutting out articles. They’ll have that forever. That’s positive information going out about our school.
Q: How about your younger grades, what kind of seasons did they have?
Perry: The sophomores went 8-1 (on the jayvee). That is an awesome group and several of those guys got quality time on the varsity. The ninth-grade group also went 8-1. Our eighth-grade group did good and our seventh-grade group, I don’t think they lost a game. I got lucky falling into a place that has the chance to be successful.
Q: Finally, looking back on the program’s first win versus Webb City, what does it mean to you?
Perry: We had been trying to close that gap. It was bound to happen eventually. That night, things went our way. It was awesome. If you want to be in the conversation with Webb, Carthage and Joplin, you have to beat them at some point. Hopefully, we can figure out Carthage.
