Coach Kennedy
For these two men, though, that night was the culmination of years of hopes and dreams.
For Wayne Kennedy, who came here with his pregnant wife, Charlotte, when he was just out of college and thought for sure he’d never in a million years take the job, it turned out to be the highlight of a forty-year career. He is quick to point out, though, that “our girls’ basketball, baseball and softball teams have won numerous conference and district championships.” In fact, the girls’ basketball teams, led by Coach Keith Dickerson, have been to the state tournament three years running. Football coaches Scott Foster and Jeremy Jack have taken their teams to the playoffs seven consecutive years.”
But if there have been a lot of successes through the years, Wayne recalls an early one with particular fondness. In his second year as a basketball coach in 1968, the boys’ basketball team beat their rival, Washington & Lee from Montross, for the first time in seven years. “The players were so excited, they threw me in the showers with my clothes on. Police Chief John Anderson then led us on a spur-of-the-moment parade around the Point in celebration.” It was just a hint of the parade to come so many years later when they triumphed in the state championship.
But as Wayne talks of those successes, he also recalls how it all began. When he and Charlotte visited Colonial Beach after getting a job offer, he was so unimpressed with what he’d seen of the town, he left Charlotte waiting in the car while he was interviewing, anxious to get back to North Carolina. To her shock, he said yes. They stayed for five years, left for two, and then came back to stay for good.
While the basketball team had been strong for years, they were just getting started in football in 1967. “Initially we barely had fifteen kids,” he recalls. “They had to play offense, defense and special teams. Some schools had bands bigger than our teams. We called it Iron Man Football.”
The teams might not have been big in numbers or the size of their players, but they had a lot of pride. They were successful playing bigger schools in the region and eventually were able to draw other players to the school and add to their roster.
Steve points with particular pride to Torrey Smith, whose family lived in public housing, and whose mom worked two jobs to provide for Smith and his five siblings. “He was our greatest success story.” Smith went on to play in the NFL as a standout for the Baltimore Ravens and then moved on to the San Francisco 49ers. He’s now signed with the Philadelphia Eagles to be close to home again. He’s a local hero, who served as grand marshal of the Potomac River Festival parade a few years back. “He’s got a good heart. He stayed close to home so he could help raise his siblings.”
Steve can list a long line of players who went on to play for big teams, including Chris Johnson, who played for Louisiana State University, then signed with the Celtics, Timberwolves and Trail Blazers in the NBA.
There were state players of the year, records broken. One player, in fact, T. T. Carey of the 2009 state championship basketball team, set a record in the state for total points scored in a season—880—that was third behind those of Allen Iverson and Moses Malone, other Virginians who went on to become NBA superstars.
Others set baseball records, too, crushing it at bat and pitching with outstanding arms or chasing down anything hit to centerfield. Two Steffeys—Ralph and his grandson Brent—had incredible DNA when it came to baseball. Players would run out to the field by the water tower in the spring when Ralph was still in elementary school in the ’60s to watch him hit batting practice. Years later, Steve declares that Brent Steffey “was the best baseball player to ever play at Colonial Beach High School.”
Steve Swope with his family
Steve Swope’s grandparents
Steve Swope
There were outstanding athletes in track, too. Duck Watts—a four-sport star who was all-state in three of those sports—broke record after record. He was such a fierce competitor that, even though few spectators typically come to track meets, Wayne recalls one school in the region emptied just to watch him compete. “He was a great teammate in other sports, too. He was unselfish. He wanted everybody to be a part of it,” Wayne remembers.
“We were the smallest school, had the smallest teams, and we were the underdogs every day we woke up, but we embraced that role. It was fun to beat the bigger schools,” Steve says.
Wayne and Charlotte formed such bonds with their players that they often traveled to college games just to see them play.
That sort of mentorship was something Steve understood all too well.
He moved to Colonial Beach as a toddler with his grandmother, living in the area known as the Point. He recalls waking up every day and playing sandlot baseball with his friends. “Then we’d go to Denson’s for a bottle of pop for ten cents, play more baseball till dark, then go and play basketball at a friend’s house until his grandma would yell for us to go home.”
He remembers it as a simple way of living. “Sure,” he admits, “teenagers do some crazy things, but we were really good kids. Sometimes we stepped outside the box. I survived those
