EVERETT – Pride isn’t the only thing at stake Saturday in the East-West All-Star Football Game.
Just ask Ben Kendo.
Kendo, a recent graduate of Cascade High School, is a lineman on the West team. Despite being picked for the All-Star game and receiving All-Wesco North first team honors on both offense and defense two straight years, he didn’t get a single scholarship offer to play college football.
If Kendo impresses the right people Saturday, that could change.
“It did surprise me because I’m a three-sport athlete (football, wrestling and track and field) and I’ve been to state in every sport I’ve been in, but there was no contact from colleges,” said the 6-foot-1, 240-pound Kendo. He will likely walk on in football or track and field at Eastern Washington University if he doesn’t get any late offers.
Kendo is undersized compared to most NCAA Division I linemen, but he is a special young man, Cascade head coach Jake Huizinga said. In addition to being a great football player, Kendo is “humble, a real gentleman,” Huizinga added.
The coach hopes someone notices the overlooked standout this weekend.
“It’s really too bad,” Huizinga said. “He’s just a little bit too short to be looked at as a Division-I recruit, but he’s just a fabulous football player.”
What’s up, doc? Over the past 27 years, Becky Parrish has frequently been a key part of the East-West game – not as a player or a coach but in a behind-the-scenes capacity.
In 1984-1985, back when the game was held in August, Parrish served as game secretary, completing paperwork and press releases to promote the game. In the late 1980s she was an athletic trainer who cared for players during the week of practices and at the game. Now a family practice doctor at Providence Physician Group Harbour Pointe Clinic in Mukilteo, she will be East-West team doctor for the third straight season Saturday.
Parrish, who did her student-teaching at Snohomish High, said the East-West game is always a great opportunity for participants.
“It’s nice to recognize many of these kids who had a good high school season,” she said, “but also to meet other (players) from opposing schools.”
Equal opportunity: As coaches evaluate players and determine who will play what position and for how long, they don’t let reputation affect their decisions. “No matter who you are, it doesn’t matter,” West linebacker/fullback Anthony Kubin said. “If someone comes out here and beats you out of your spot, you get beat out.”
That’s just fine with Kubin: “That’s how it should be.”
Hit-makers: West players knocked each other around Monday and Tuesday, West coach Dave Ward said. He likes to see aggressiveness but he asked them to tone it down so that they’re not too banged up for the game.
“They were really trying to set a tone and prove themselves, and when somebody hits ‘em they wanna hit back,” Ward said. “We like that, but now we gotta back that off.”
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