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Raider Coach Beefs Up His Staff

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By DAREK SHARP

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 31, 2008

PLANT CITY - The new Raider head football coach may be from out of the area, but he is surrounding himself with some of Plant City's finest in the sport.

A couple of legendary former Raiders are on Jason Strunk's new coaching staff, and they are joined by quite probably the greatest would-be Raider ever.

Kenny Kelly, who grew up in Plant City but attended high school at Tampa Catholic, is the new Raider quarterbacks coach. The still-forming staff was on the field together for last week's spring jamboree, where Plant City lost 7-0 at Newsome.

"The thing is, I love Tampa Catholic; it's my alma mater, and that school had done a lot for me ... but I'm from the Plant City community," Kelly said. "I've seen numerous teams go through their seasons here and, for some reason, the kids have just lost interest. This whole coaching staff is devoted to bringing the kids back."

Gerold Dickens, a Raider great from the 1970s, is also on the staff, and former all-star running back Wayne Ward was retained from last year.

Strunk, who coached the team for the jamboree and is moving from Pennsylvania, takes over for Kevin Kelley, who stepped down for personal reasons. Ward is the only coach to return, and he pretty much ran spring practices while Strunk was still out of state.

Kelly put up astronomical passing numbers at Tomlin Junior High before he starred at Tampa Catholic. There, Kelly set the still-standing Hillsborough County career records for passing yards and touchdowns; he was also a basketball standout and got the Crusaders into the final four.

As quarterback, Kelly started for one season at the University of Miami but transitioned into baseball, where he was a second-round pick of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Kelly played in the minors with several organizations for more than 10 years, but arm injuries have forced him out of playing.

He is keeping busy, though, with a Web site he co-owns, proathletesonly.com.

"It's been going great," he said. "We have a lot of big-name NFL players Edgerrin James, Santana Moss among them signed up. It's basically an advertising avenue which caters directly to athletes."

With those contacts, Kelly may be able to add some even heftier profiles to the Raider coaching staff.

"I'm going to try and get some former NFL players to help out. These kids are not getting the opportunity they should at Plant City. They don't have the motivation to come out and play Plant City High football, and I'm tired of seeing that," he said.

Reporter Darek Sharp can be reached at dsharp@tampa

trib.com.

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