6A • THEUNIVERSITYDAILYKANSAN
SPORTS
TUESDAY,NOV.27,2001
Killeen pipeline: Seven stars form a family
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go out there and make a turn before I threw the ball. It was the fear factor that made him develop the elusive capabilities. He was educated on fear."
The natural talent blossomed when David returned to Killeen. He starred on the varsity track team as a freshman, but was seen as too tiny to flourish at football. One of the skeptics was Marvin Rainwater, principal of Ellison High School.
"It was all about going somewhere where you are going to get the best for
"He was always a shy kid," Rainwater said. "But during his junior and senior year, he found another gear."
"But I think it was the opportunity to play and not be a number at another school was why he went to Kansas."
Winbush made guys miss because he was one step ahead of the defense. He saw things others could not. That sixth sense helped put him first in Killeen's career rushing yards in 1996 with 4,238.
Winbush said he spurned marquee programs like Texas A&M and Oklahoma because the Jayhawks gave him a chance to play as a true freshman, a chance to bring glory to a lesser program and a chance to get a good college education.
Dan Hull, the radio voice of Killeen high school football, said Winbush wasn't the biggest guy, the flashiest, or the fastest, but had the vision that could make a two-inch seam appear to be five feet wide. That made him one of the hottest prospects in Texas in 1997.
"David Winbush - what excitement. He had such great eyes and feet. Those were the things that separated him from other running backs," Hull said in a voice tired from just announcing an Ellison game.
JEFF DENTON/KANSAN
Luby's Cafeteria, in the middle of Killeen off Highway 190, still stands 10 years after a mass murder horrified the town. The restaurant has been closed since Oct. 16, 1991, when George Hennard killed 24 people including himself. "You'd think in a small town like Killeen, something like that wouldn't happen, but it did," said Kansas running back Reggie Duncan.
going to get the best for yourself. But I never meant to start a trend." David Winbush Kansas running back (1997-2000)
"It was all about going somewhere where you are going to get the best for yourself," he said, smiling. "But I never meant to start a trend"
Soon, Winbush's decision sparked a Kansas interest in Killeen.
Running back Reggie Duncan, who replaced Winbush after he graduated from Ellison, turned down offers from schools such as Miami, Louisiana State and Colorado because he had seen Winbush play early and often at Kansas.
Carl Ivey was close to Duncan — they had been friends for years and had dominated the Killeen Boys Club league when they were in middle school.Winbush was Ivey's player host when he came to visit two and a half years ago. He was sold.
Robert Sanders had a chance to become the third straight Ellison back to carry the ball in the Kansas backfield. It was an easy choice.
Six degrees of David Winbush had come full circle.
Johnny McCoy played Boys Club ball with Winbush. David McMillan and McCoy were friends.
Winbush was proud that his legacy lured so many of Killeen's prized players, but he was not about to give all the
credit to football and the Luby's masacre for catapulting Killeen into the public eye.
"Texas high school football in Killeen is something that is never going to die," Winbush said. "But Fort Hood put Killeen on the map."
Military and mama
When Rainwater steps outside his school some afternoons, he can hear the sounds of live artillery exploding three and a half miles away.
three and a half Fort Hood, America's largest military installation,' is in Killeen's backyard. It has 42,000 active-duty soldiers and occupies 335 square miles, about the same area as Dallas.
Housing is limited on base, so about 20,000 soldiers and their families live in
Killeen. Most of the Kansas-Killeen connection lived in Killeen and played high school football there because their fathers were stationed at Fort Hood.
Carl Ivey is the only Kansas Jayhawk whose father was not involved with the Army. The other players' fathers have either retired or are still on active duty. Three of them were sergeant E-75.
"The most powerful thing in the U.S. Army is an E-7 or an E-8." Rainwater said. "They are trained to kill people. That's the guy who knows the system and tells the lieutenants what to do."
But when their fathers had to leave home for foreign duty, their mothers shouldered both parental roles.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Clockwise from bottom left, Robert Sanders, (Ellison Class of '01), Reggie Duncan, (Ellison '99), David McMillan, (Killeen High' 00), Carl Ivey, (Ellison'99), Jason Stevenson, (Ellison'97), Johnny McCoy, (Killeen'00). These six Kansas football players followed the footsteps of Ellison's David Winbush to create a Killeen-Kansas connection. But success at the college level hasn't been as easy for these high school standouts. The five players from Ellison were on one of Texas' top teams. Kansas, despite their arrival, hasn't had a winning season since 1995.
When Winbush was a high school senior, his mother, Evelyn, was the President of the Quarterbacks Club at Ellison. She was also the key reason David chose Kansas, Rainwater said.
"Winbush's mom was sold on the tutoring program for athletes that Kansas had. She was convinced," he said. "You could bring in Miami, you could bring in Texas, you could bring in anybody, but Mrs. Winbush was going to listen quietly and then she's going to ask, 'When's David going to graduate and how are you going to help him with that?'
Winbush will graduate in December with a communications degree.
Center Jason Stevenson, who played in his last college game on Nov. 24, formed an unbreakable bond with his mother, Easter, when he was a high school football star at Ellison. Her constant reminders that going to Kansas was more about school than football stuck with the 295-pounder.
He is on track to graduate in December 2002 with a physical therapy degree.
Carl Ivey grew up in a rough section of Youngstown, Ohio. His mother knew her son could be steered in the wrong direction if she did not move him to a safer place. Her mother, Ivey's grandmother, had lived in Killeen and was familiar with the town. So she moved her family to the Central Texas town to begin fresh with her son. Ivey's father remained in Ohio, so his mother assumed more responsibility.
"My mom was like both my mom and my dad." Ivev said.
David McMillan calls his mother Sherry "my everything, my best friend."
And McCoy calls his mother "a big sports person."
"She was pretty into the games back in the day," he said.
It was easy to be mesmerized by the atmosphere inside Leo Buckley Stadium on Friday nights, especially when Killeen and Ellison squared off and an entire town came to watch their sons battle in Killeen maroon and Ellison green.
The rivalry
Two simple words make Reggie Duncan's widen - Robert Walker.
He was the coach who inspired players by slamming his own head into a metal locker before big games, the coach who believed football was an organized fight, the coach who would yank his own son by his face mask, the coach who would holler with vigor and explode in anger if things weren't done his way.
"He's a street fighter," Rainwater, the principal, said of his close friend, who is now an assistant coach at Stephen F. Austin University. "He was pretty rough, but Robert would say that it's a man's game. You are not going out there to lose."
But there were times when the abrasive side of the coach would soften and he would show his love for his players, his passion to teach and his desire to get the best out of his young athletes.
Said Rainwater, "I think that he loved the kids and there was a balance there. I think Robert did a lot of things that were pretty extreme, but at the same time did a lot of them in the context to motivate his kids."
Killeen against Ellison was the game the players and their coach aimed for every year.
One memorable moment in the
rivairy came in David Winbush's senior season, when a thunderstorm pounded Leo Buckley stadium with sheets of rain. The stands were full two hours before kickoff. A mere cloudburst would not stop the crowd from watching the big game.
mg the big game.
"It was so bad that you couldn't even see," Rainwater recalled. "But Robert told these guys, 'the more it rains, the more we are going to beat Killeen High."
"These guys are screaming and hollering, it's in the middle of a thunderstorm, and they're just kicking the hell out of everybody. It was truly an act of insanity."
What made the rivalry more special than the players, more intense than the bone-crushing hits and more memorable than the usual close score, were the rabid fans.
One side would be clad in maroon, the other decked out in green, facing each other across a rectangular field 100 yards long and 50 yards wide.
The reality
100 yards long and 50 yards wide.
"The whole town was there," Chris Winbush said. "Those were the days.
You had friends who played at Killeen and vice versa. It was just smash-mouth out there. To be the king of Killeen, you had to win that game."
The town today has no kings — at least in football. On a breezy night in October, Leo Buckley's lights shined brightly, but few fans were there to watch.
Killeen now has four high schools: Harker Heights and Shoemaker were built before the start of the 2000 school year.
No huddling around the chain-link fence. No scrunching body to body on the metal bleachers. No parking three miles away at the Jack 'n' the Box restaurant because the parking lots were full.
With the talent level spread among twice as many schools, the dynasty ended and the town had to re-adjust. But about 700 miles north of Killeen, seven old stars had already gotten used to losing in the crimson and blue of Kansas.
David Winbush never went to a bowl game during his four years as a Jayhawk. He played in six losing games his freshman season, more than he did in his entire high school career.
It took two full seasons in Lawrence for Jason Stevenson to accept losing. He still misses the wild Leo Buckley crowds on Friday nights.
Duncan said he despised losing more than anything — cards, video games and especially football. He finished his sophomore season with 15 losses in two years.
Carl Ivey missed peering through his facemask to see the fans standing on the roofs of their houses to watch the Killeen-Ellison games.
On Saturday, 6,500 fans turned out to watch Kansas defeat Wyoming in the last game of the season. Twice that used to attend the Killeen-Ellison games.
McCoy misses being a star.
McMillan misses his mother.
Though times changed, the seven athletes had one another. They brought Killeen with them to Kansas, and that they will not forget. They all are friends. They caravan on the 10-hour drive home. And despite the losses, they still like Kansas and enjoy being in Lawrence.
Most of all, they miss those Friday nights when they were the heroes of their town.
"Back then it's what kept the town in place. It's what drove the Killeen image because football lasted us all year long," Rainwater said. "Now it's just something to do on Friday nights."
And since the Killeen pipeline began, playing football for the Kansas Jayhawks has been just something to do on Saturdays.
— The Killeen Daily Herald contributed to this story
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