“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.”
Alan Alexander Milne, Eeyore, Winnie-the-Pooh, 1926
Steven D. Kelley is among the finest football players to have ever played for a Hoptown program marching toward extinction. The Hopkinsville High School Tigers is a brand which has been around forever and has competed in football for more than a century. As two high schools in Hopkinsville merge, next year, to form the Christian County Tigers; those days seem gone forever. However, before the curtain finally drops, the Tigers have made the playoffs in its final season and are the first district’s second seed. The Tigers have a final game in the “Stadium of Champions,” a facility we choose to refer to as “Tiger Stadium” a final time. It is one more time…for all time. Hopkinsville’s favorite son, Steven Kelley, together with his beautiful wife of close to 30 years, Tracy (a former Colonel cheerleader), have generously paid for 500-students to attend Friday’s first round playoff game. We commend the loving gesture and the spirit in which it was offered. What a Kelley thing to do!
HB Lyon, Scouting Director, “KPGFootball”
Hopkinsville, KY: Nobody has to tell the Kelleys what it feels like to struggle. Nobody has to tell the Kelleys what it feels like to suffer, what it feels like to be hungry. Nobody has to tell the Kelleys what it feels like to be desperate. Sure, the middle Tennessee, southern Kentucky power couple are living pretty high on the hog these days; but, that doesn’t mean it has always been that way.
The Kelleys own and run multiple businesses successfully. An example of this would be the 11 Lasaters Coffee & Tea franchises, around Tennessee and Kentucky, they own and run. However, the Kelleys started at the bottom like most folks do.
Everybody in life, not born on third base, starts at the bottom. The winners seem capable of working their way toward the top. When dropped in a barrel of cream, some mice drown while others discover an ability to churn out butter. The Kelleys are winners. The Kelleys churn out butter.
No body gave the Kelleys a darn thing. I have been there from the beginning. I was there the night they first met. I was in their wedding.
I am godfather to their children. They are godparents to mine.
The Kelleys have fought and clawed their way to the top like lots of people throughout the history of this great nation. In a lot of ways, the Kelleys are the embodiment of the American Dream.
I have known Steven Kelley since the two of us were six-years old. We are both 57-years old now, Kelley having turned the same age as I just last month (October). Not that it matters, but I am a couple months older than he.
Kelley ran me over at the plate of a pee-wee baseball game when we were six. I was in the way, between the plate and him. I might have cried afterward. It wouldn’t be the last time, the crying that is. That isn’t important as I worked through that with my therapist years ago.
I kid. I haven’t known a better friend than Steven Kelley. There are tons of people in this area who could say similarly.
That is just Steven Kelley. Kelley is (and has always been) tough, ferocious, hard working, smart, shrewd, savvy, and the kind of guy into whose path you were considerably better off not stumbling.
In addition to all those other adjectives, Kelley is a man who lives his faith. Kelley is a man who walks with God. Both of the Kelleys have been incredibly generous with their time, talents, and money.
When I was the commissioner of the local junior pro football league I called on the Kelleys to front the money for new uniforms for every kid in the league. They fronted some $20,000 to the league and then paid for every kid unable to come up with the league’s participation fee.
When I heard my good friends, the Kelleys, had come to the rescue of HHS students who might struggle to pay the KHSAA requisite, $10 fee, to attend Friday night’s first-round, playoff game; I can’t profess much surprise. What an utterly Kelley, and Christian, thing to do.
Then again, that is pretty much what the Kelleys always do-the Christian thing. Whether it is support KPGFootball‘s efforts to promote and advance local kids to next-level, football experiences; buy uniforms for the junior pro football league; or buy $5000 worth of tickets to Friday night’s game with instruction these tickets should be handed out amongst the students; that is just inherently and instinctively the “Kelley-thing” to do.
Steven Kelley is as steadfast as an oak, as constant as a sunrise, and as kind hearted as a small child. That is true in spite of our colliding at home plate 51-years ago.
This is Friday Night Fletch, reporting for KPGFootball, reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
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