Sep 15 2010

Minutes for Lake Murray-Irmo Rotary Meeting - Wednesday September 15, 2010

This meeting of the Lake Murray/Irmo Rotary year began with the invocation by Dr. Ros Browning and Pledge of Allegiance.

Next the visitors and guests were recognized and announcements that the Board meeting scheduled for September 16^th has been postponed. Lyman Whitehead announced the news that Jeanette Coulter’s sister has passed away and other “Heath and Happiness” news. 

The meeting was presided over by Bill Danielson since several club members, including President Judy Johnson, were away in Charleston attending a Rotary training meeting. Bill introduced Kelly Payne who gave the introduction for our speaker Coach Tom Knotts with Dutch Fork High School.

Coach Knotts is in his first year as Head football coach and Athletic Director at Dutch Fork High School.  He comes to us from Independence High School in Charlotte, North Carolina where he has enjoyed a splendid career coaching and has a record of 296 wins and 60 losses and also a 109 game winning streak to be proud of while at Independence.  Coach Knotts has a wife, Keisha Knotts and a 2 year old son, Jackson. 

Prior to his coaching career, Knotts was an active and successful High school student and athlete and attended Duke University with a scholarship playing Quarterback for the Blue Devils. His experience in high school playing practically every sport, including football, basketball, tennis and baseball gives him a great base of experience with his new responsibilities as the Athletic Director at Dutch Fork in addition to being the head football coach. As A.D. he has been asked to reshape the athletic department and build it into a program that is as successful as renowned as the academic programs enjoyed at Dutch Fork.

Coach Knotts spoke to the group on how this talk gave him an opportunity to reflect back on his life and career to find what he wanted to tell us this morning. He feels that it’s the player he has had the pleasure and pain to coach over his career that is what gives him his sense of accomplishment.

After a very successful career in high school coaching, in 2004 he was afforded the opportunity to coach at the college level as the quarterback coach with his alma mater- Duke. His experience at Duke helped him realize that it is the relationship and bonds he built with the high school students as their coach that brings him the most pleasure. He was able to resign from Duke and return to Independence High as their head football coach again.

Coach Knotts shared some stories of past players that stand out for him. One player is Chris Leake that played quarterback for Independence from 1999 to 2002 and started the 109 winning game streak for Independence HS. After high school and some trials within the weight room and learning to play as a member of the united team, Leake went on to play for Florida and win a national title for them. Leake now plays professional football in the Canadian Football League.

Another player that stood out for Coach Knotts was Jeff Romanelli who came to the team as a young, inexperienced player and developed into a strong player as a middle linebacker. Through the years at school Romanelli’s life changed and he got into some trouble with the law and was arrested for selling drugs. This came as a shock to the coaching staff and forced coach Knotts to ban the player from the team.

Also standing out in his memory is Dewitt Dixon. Dixon’s mother came to coach Knotts asking him to take a look at her son and see what could be made out of the young player. Dixon was raised in a less than perfect environment with a single parent. By becoming involved with the football program, Dixon found his ability to become a model student and athlete, ultimately winning a scholarship to Elizabeth City State College and earning his degree.

There are several other stories of football and his players the coach could have shared, but time ran out on us and we had to end the meeting. Coach did field one question as to his opinion of the media’s treatment of high school football. The coach’s answer was that the media is playing a “not-so good” role in the recruitment of high school players. The recruitment has become more of a business for agents and less about the development of the sport and its players and the media is helping to promote this environment.

We all thank coach Knotts for coming to speak with us and wish him a great year for the football team at Dutch Fork and a successful job building an even better Athletic Department at Dutch Fork.

Darren Bouknight,

Reporter