Kay's legacy will live long at Cary-Grove

It matters little how many games you see, how many athletes you cover or how many coaches you get to know. There are those games, those athletes, those coaches and those moments that stick in your mind forever.

I won't try to remember the exact date but it was a Saturday. In November 1997. And it was cold.

The setting was the picturesque football stadium at Rock Island High School. A Class 6A semifinal between Cary-Grove and Rock Island.

And what a game it was. The Trojans and the Rocks battled all afternoon in one of the best displays of hard-hitting fundamental football I'd ever seen. In the end, Cary-Grove lost 14-13 in overtime. A heartbreaker that was set to go to a second OT save for a missed extra point kick.

Then it was down to the locker room to do the toughest part of the job that day talk to the coaches and kids from Cary-Grove who had rode that bus for 3 hours with great expectations of their next trip being to Champaign for the state championship game.

I'd first met Cary-Grove coach Bruce Kay over 10 years earlier when I worked for another local publication and the young coach had led the Trojans' girls basketball team downstate in 1987. I liked his style then and thought he'd be a really good coach as the years went on.

Well, that turned into a no-brainer.

After getting his feet wet and proving his mettle as a head girls basketball coach, Kay became the Trojans' head football coach in 1989. It was a job the Cary-Grove graduate and former football player coveted, but one he was passed over for once before finally landing the gig.

And now, 22 years, 168 wins, a state championship and a runner-up at state later Kay has decided to hang up the whistle. As first reported on dailyherald.com Tuesday evening, the personable Kay will retire as coach, teacher and athletic director at the end of the school year.

Things at Cary-Grove may never be the same.

“It's nowhere near the job I took 22 years ago,” Kay told me Wednesday afternoon. “It's four days a week of weightlifting, in season and out of season. It's constant films, it's summer camps. It's very extensive.”

High school sports were simpler when Kay began coaching. But he still had to prove himself before he could get the football job.

“I had to somehow show I could be a head coach and communicate with kids and get them to compete and perform,” he said. “The girls basketball situation was perfect timing. I was fortunate to get a bunch of girls who had older brothers or dads who were athletes and that environment led to the hard work that was the trademark of our team. We worked very hard. We played man-to-man defense when 95 percent of teams then just played a zone. We were able to establish a tradition because we had the right kids who were willing to work hard.”

Kay admits his basketball education wasn't the greatest, but in the 1980s there wasn't a lot of winning going on around Cary-Grove so he wasn't under the microscope near as much as he would be once he became football coach. There were no local summer camps or leagues to speak of and Kay recalled that to get some competition in the summer he had to take his team to Michigan.

“My overall basketball knowledge was limited and back then Cary-Grove wasn't winning much in any sport,” he said. “So when we won a sectional title (in 1985) and then ended up downstate two years later, that was very big at that time. It brought a lot of attention to the intensity we had.

“In 1985 we beat Freeport and Johnsburg and got to the Sweet 16. That was very memorable. The sectional was at Rockford East, which is all metal and brick and it was so loud you couldn't even talk to the kids. We got upset in 1986 but then we made it downstate in 1987 and that sequence of events seemed to change everything. Once someone sees it happen it becomes more of a belief than a dream. We broke the ice for the school.”

Kay took over the football program in the fall of 1989, mere months after Mike Buck had coached the Trojans to their second straight Class 4A playoff berth. Kay's first years were a bit lean the Trojans went 4-5 in Kay's first season then 5-4 the next two years.

But then in 1992, Kay made it to the playoffs for the first time and, in 1993, upset heavily favored Carmel in the opening round.

“Our quarterback broke his nose and Ryan Passaglia (currently an assistant coach at Cary-Grove) just had everyone jump on his back and that was a game we willed our way to win,” Kay said.

In 1993, the opening round of the playoffs was played on Wednesday and the second round on Saturday. The Trojans lost to Crystal Lake South in that second round game, but the foundation had been built and it was becoming more and more apparent Kay was going to have a program that won a lot more than it lost.

Since then, Kay took the Trojans to the postseason 11 times, including the last 7 years in a row. And he's had some fond memories along the way with the state championship of 2009, of course, being at the top of the list. There was the 1997 semifinal team, of course, but there was also the 1998 squad that lost in the quarterfinals to eventual champion Mount Carmel but won at East St. Louis the week before, something not a lot of teams are able to do.

“Then 2004 was the storybook year,” Kay said, recalling the program's first trip to the state finals, one that ended with a 13-3 loss to Libertyville.

Another heartbreak came in 2006 when the Trojans lost 15-14 to Batavia in the quarterfinals.

“That might have been our most talented team, we just didn't catch any luck,” Kay said of that season's 11-1 squad.

And the 2010 team his last as a head coach. With very limited varsity experience returning from the 2009 state championship team, the Trojans started out 0-2 before going on a 4-1 run to make the playoffs, then advancing to the quarterfinals before dropping a tough overtime decision to eventual state champ Rockford Boylan.

“This year's team played their hearts out,” Kay said. “They didn't have the size or the speed but they had the same mindset and heart that last year's team did.

“Belief is a big thing and we have it.”

Kay acknowledges there will be some emotion later this school year when he doesn't plan spring practices, and then when he cleans out his office at Cary-Grove, where he has also served as athletic director since 1991.

“I'm ready not to be a boss anymore,” he said, “but what gets me most emotional at this point is knowing I won't have that special relationship you have with kids when you coach them and the relationships you have with your assistant coaches. I've been with (Don) Sutherland for 33 years. I've got coaches who played for me. I've known these guys over half their lives. It will be different, that's for sure.”

Kay, who credits support from longtime coaches and friends Bill Mack and Bill Mitz as being a key to his own success, says he's also had tremendous support at home from his wife Barb and his now-grown children Amy and Sam.

“I've had great support at home,” he said. “It's not easy living the life of a coach. And it hasn't always been a bed of roses. There was a petition going around at one time to get me fired. I told Barb maybe she should sign it (laughs).”

Longevity is no longer part of coaching. For whatever reason coaches who start out today won't be found on the sidelines 22 years from now.

That's why losing Bruce Kay to retirement has a twinge of sadness to it. He's always been nothing but class. He's been a mentor whose ways should be emulated and followed by those who succeed him.

And we wish him nothing but the best in retirement. He certainly has earned the right to relax and enjoy life.