CANTON For all the inherent advantages there are to being Cleveland St. Ignatius — that list is almost as long as the one ticking off the school’s 10 state titles — there is something patently fascinating about watching Chuck Kyle’s team play football.
Ignatius won its 10th Division I state high school football title Saturday night at Fawcett Stadium. The Wildcats won their first 20 years ago, and Kyle has been the beneficiary of both hard work and a system that is advantageous to private schools.
But that doesn’t take away from the way a Kyle-coached team plays. You never see a quarterback throw a pass to a receiver who’s zigging instead of zagging.
What you see is a receiver run a route to the exact distance, cut on a dime, and then the pass arrives chest-high and on the money. When Kyle talks about a passing game, he talks about precision.
Really, there is no more perfect a word. Many coaches talk about accuracy, which is like throwing darts in a bar. At Ignatius, it’s about precision.
“You train to have precision,” Kyle said. “Also, someone who has precision is skilled. It’s a combination of skill and practice of developing expertise in something.
“Whenever you use precision in sports it gains respect with people. A lot of hard work goes into precision.”
Kyle is an interesting man to get to know. A few years back, he hosted me for a day at Ignatius. He works every bit as hard in the classroom, probably more so, than on a football field.
He is a humble man who doesn’t gloat or act like he’s the smartest man in a stadium, even though he probably is.
Kyle doesn’t wear his state championship rings. He keeps them in a drawer at home. And here’s something you probably didn’t know.
Kyle will only have nine title rings after this win.
“I’ll admit this,” Kyle said. “The first one was like before Christmas and I have four kids to buy gifts for and the ring was like $200.
“With four kids, that $200 amounts to Christmas presents.”
He doesn’t wear the rings to games, either.
“They’d just get in the way,” Kyle said, “I tape ankles, too. I can’t wear rings.”
Elder head coach Doug Ramsey, clearly disappointed in losing a relatively close 28-20 state championship game, marveled at Kyle’s accomplishments, particularly his average of a state title every other year for the last two decades.
“It’s amazing,” Ramsey said. “It’s hard to do. Especially now with having to win five games in the playoffs. That’s half a season. You’ve got to win half a season against good opponents for five straight weeks. It’s not like you’ve got to win five straight against 4-6 teams.”
Ignatius benefits from a marketing campaign unmatched in Ohio. The school draws kids from far and away. North Canton Hoover, a small Division I public school, was outmatched in the Division I state semifinals.
“They get to draw kids from five counties,” Hoover head coach Don Hertler Jr. said before playing Ignatius. “We’re lucky if we get kids from five neighborhoods.”
That’s all true.
But many private schools have drawing power and the same advantages as Ignatius. Not all of them dominate a sport like Kyle’s program has.
Kyle has created a beast that feeds itself. On Thanksgiving morning, he had more than 300 former players show up to the team’s practice. It was a show of solidarity, and of tradition.
There are advantages to coaching at a place like Ignatius. But it wasn’t that way until Kyle started running the program.
Reach Repository sports writer Todd Porter at (330) 580-8340 or e-mail: todd.porter@cantonrep.com
Visit my blog at www.cantonrep.com/cornerseat for more takes, insight and observations in the local sports scene as well as Ohio State, and all of Cleveland’s pro teams.
