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Catching Up With KENNY KELLY

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By ADAM ADKINS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 28, 2008

Nearly a decade ago, Kenny Kelly walked away from the game of football. This spring, he found his way back to the gridiron.

Kelly, one of the best athletes in Hillsborough County history, spent this spring as an assistant with Plant City High's football team, coaching quarterbacks.

Kelly was a three-sport athlete (baseball, football and basketball) at Tampa Catholic in the mid-1990s. In football, he was a PARADE All-American honoree and finished as the county's career leader in passing yards and touchdown passes (records that have since been broken). In baseball, he was a two-time all-state honoree, rated one of the best prospects in the nation by Baseball America.

He signed a football scholarship with the University of Miami in February 1997 and, later that summer, was a second-round selection by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the MLB amateur draft. For three years he played both sports, spending the fall with the Hurricanes before shifting to Tampa Bay's farm system. However, Kelly left UM after the 1999 season to concentrate solely on his baseball career.

Kelly has 11 professional seasons to his credit and twice broke in to the majors (with Tampa Bay in 2000 and with Cincinnati and Washington in 2005), totaling 26 games in the big leagues. He spent the 2007 season with the International League's Charlotte Knights, the Chicago White Sox's Triple-A affiliate, and hit .256 with nine home runs and 28 RBIs in 78 games.

The Tribune caught up with Kelly following Plant City's 7-0 loss to Newsome in a spring jamboree last week at Newsome.

So are you done with baseball?

Right now, it's kind of tough to say. Basically I'm taking a year off right now. I had offseason surgery on my non-throwing left shoulder and I was still having a little bit of complications from it, so I just decided to take a year off. I was just sitting at home and not doing anything so I figured I'd come out here and help. So right now I'm going to be here unless something comes up that I can't turn down, pretty much.

When and how did you end up at Plant City?

I just started this spring, and they had just hired a new coach Jason Strunk and kind of needed some help coaching. They didn't have a lot of people step up, so I figured I'd step up and help out. Hopefully I can get more involved, and we'll see what happens.

Does it feel any different getting back into football, considering how long it's been since you've been out?

It's definitely different. I've been playing baseball basically for the last eight years, constantly, and I haven't touched a football since what, 1999. So, yeah, it's a little different, but it's still all the same. I've still got the knowledge, I still love the game and it's just another sport. So I'm just having fun out there.

Was coaching something you always envisioned for yourself?

Well, switching to coaching was something I thought, possibly, I'd get into once I was done playing. I just didn't know whether it would be baseball or football. I saw a great opportunity here in my hometown in Plant City, where, as long as I've been living, they've had talent coming out of here and I just wanted to be a part of it, just help get some guys out of here and on to college.

Does Plant City quarterback Clinton Stearns have any idea who you are?

Laughing Yeah, yeah, but the problem is we really haven't had a lot of time yet. Those three weeks in spring workouts go by quick. We were trying to put a lot in during those three weeks with a new coach. So he Stearns really hasn't had the Kenny Kelly schooling, the quarterback school, which he'll get over the summer.

Has coaching been what you envisioned?

Yeah, everything's going great, other than the jamboree loss. I would have loved to come out of here with a win. I know we're putting in a new offense, and I know it's going to take time, and we have the whole summer to handle that.

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