Published: August 01, 2009 11:43 am      

GHS coach uses football to deal with tragedy

By DARIN ALLRED

Register Sports Editor

In athletics, players and coaches face different degrees of adversity during a game or a season. But for Gainesville Leopards head football coach Ricky Lock, nothing that will happen during a game will compare to what he and his family have gone through this summer.

Lock’s wife, Kiana, passed away on June 21 of acute leukemia after falling ill just a few days earlier. For Coach Lock and his three children Lauren, Landon (a sophomore on this year’s Leopard team) and Laci (a freshman cheerleader at GHS), this has needless to say been a tough couple of months.

“You talk about adversity all the time with kids and this is just one of those things that we just have to get through,” Coach Lock said. “Everyone has been really supportive. The people of Gainesville, First Baptist Church, Gainesville ISD have all been very supportive with what happened with our family.”

As Gainesville and other area high school football teams start preseason practice on Monday, Lock will turn his attention to helping the Leopards improve on last year’s 2-8 record. Maybe football can, in a small way, help with the healing process.

“I think it will,” the coach said. “When you have been married to someone for 22 years you think about a lot of things. This (football) is probably a good outlet to get away from what that situation is.”

Lock is in his second year as head coach at Gainesville. The Leopards went 1-9 in both of the year’s prior to his arrival. They improved on that record a year ago, but failed to win a district game in the always tough District 9-3A.

Now that he is in his second season and the players are used to his way of doing things and his offensive and defensive schemes, the coach is hoping that will translate to more wins.

“I think it will be a little smoother,” he said. “We graduated 19 seniors and that’s a lot of seniors to lose. We have nine returning lettermen. We expect a lot from the kids that are coming up from our junior varsity because they were pretty good last year. All those questions we have will be answered in those first two weeks of practice.”

The Leopards, like many other teams, have gone away from the traditional two-a-day practices. Instead, they will practice from around 8 a.m. to noon each day.

The biggest area of concern for Lock and his staff will have to be on the offensive line.

“We graduated our whole offensive line, so we will have five new ones there,” the coach stated. “That’s an area of concern, as it was a year ago. All those guys coming in are pretty good, we just have to put them in the right place.”

Senior Scott Bransford, while not a starter a year ago, gained some valuable experience. Other players who will offer help on the offensive and defensive lines are Tyler McCowan, Tanner Kitchens, Jake Neal, Rene Mendez, Collin Nissen and Merlin Davis. Many of those players saw action on the JV last year, so this will be their first experience in varsity competition.

Many of those players took advantage of voluntary workouts at the GHS fieldhouse this summer.

“We’ve had a pretty good turnout this summer for strength and speed camp,” Coach Lock said. “We feel pretty good about the kids that are coming in.”

While the Leopards might be low on experience up front, they will return most of their skill-position players.

Junior Kielyn Lewis will return at quarterback, senior Deshawn Franklin returns at running back, junior Harold Wills and senior Justin Espinosa are back at receiver and Patrick Westbrook, who saw action last year, will get playing time at tight end.

On defense, Lewis was a corner in 2008, but coaches have moved him to free safety. Franklin was a linebacker last year but will also be a safety this season. Kenyon Morgan is an outside linebacker and is the only other returning starter on defense.

2009 will mark the final season for the Leopards to play their home games at Leeper Stadium. The school district is currently working on a new athletic facility just north of Gainesville High School.

The turf field and eight-lane track is expected to be completed before Sept. 1, while the rest of the stadium will not be finished until early 2010.

Lock says he sees the decision to build a new athletic complex as a big positive for the school.

“I just think it’s huge to make that commitment to build a new facility. Our kids are in a district with Argyle, Sanger, Celina and Prosper that all have relatively new facilities with turf. So that’s what we’re used to seeing,” he said. “I think to build it on campus is a very positive decision that was made. It will only enhance our athletic department. The three sports right off hand that will benefit are football, soccer and track. But you can use it for softball and baseball, if it’s raining to get on there and hit fungo, and the band can use it. There is just so much use you can get from a turf field. I’m excited our school board made that decision.”