Longhorns legend
Former Westwood star Evans helping turn his alma mater around
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While spending time in Memphis last Christmas, Kenton Evans decided to take a ride through the old neighborhood.
The Westwood football program had changed a lot in the days since Evans played quarterback for the most passhappy, free-wheeling offense Shelby County has probably ever seen. But the neighborhood around the school hadn’t changed.
Everywhere Evans went he saw a familiar face, an old friend or someone who remembered what Westwood used to represent on the football field.
“I had conversations with people that remembered what I did and that really pulled at me,” he said. “I was going back to Atlanta. I wasn’t coming back. But they all told me how much Westwood was struggling ... and that really tugged at my heart.”
Evans is back at the school where he rewrote the Shelby County record book in the mid-1990s. Along with firstyear head coach Dwayne Harris, offensive coordinator Evans is trying to breathe new life into a program that went a combined 2-19 over the last two seasons.
Early signs are promising; by all accounts the Longhorns played pretty well in an opening loss to Southwind on Aug. 20 before struggling against Hernando the next week. Last Friday, Westwood broke through to beat Oakhaven 28-8 in its Region 8-2A opener and has a good chance to get two in a row this Friday against a Hillcrest team that has been outscored 140-6 in three losses.
“It’s a process,” said Harris, who formerly coached at Carver. “We’re having good days and bad days. Against Southwind we could have been up three touchdowns but we turned it over seven times.
“Me and coach Evans were sort of a package deal. We talked about it and kind of got on the same page in terms of how we want to do things.
“I think it’s been a big shock for the kids, the discipline, the routine. We’re doing different things now like studying film. From what I see, they hadn’t done that before.”
Nobody had done it before — or since — quite like Evans’ Longhorns.
Operating out of a spread offense that was years ahead of its time, he led Shelby County in passing from 1993-1995. Evans still holds single-game records for attempts (71), completions (45), yards (597) and touchdowns (nine) along with career records in those categories.
His season record of 3,055 yards stood until last year, when Wooddale’s Jerry Craine threw for 3,306.
“We had the blueprint (for the spread offense),” Evans said. “Coach (John) Ware taught me how to maximize personnel and how to dissect a defense, how to find the weak spots. And I love that philosophy; use the pass to set up the run.”
After signing with the