Kerr was a Legend and an Even Better Man

HOBART – Truth is eternal. If something was true 30 years ago, it will still be true today.
This is a true story from three decades ago. It says a lot about two great men my career in journalism allowed me to meet and get to know.
It was the mid-1990s, and the newspaper I was working for had just moved into Hobart, delivering the paper there for the first time. Consequently, our sports editor decided we would write one Hobart football story every day, Monday through Friday.
I was about No. 7 on the pecking order then, so I went out to the old Brickie Bowl during the second week of this blitz. I had seen a few Hobart football games as a fan, and two things were true in my mind.
The Brickies were very, very good.
And head coach Don Howell and defensive coordinator Tom Kerr scared the bejesus out of me.
I was shaking, waiting for practice to end. And these were the days before Depends had been invented.
I needed one.
There was a fence separating two walkways in front of the old locker room. Howell started walking toward me. I stepped to that side of the fence and started walking toward him.
He stopped.
Stared at me.
Then he went to the other side of the fence.
Ghost white, I went to Howell’s side of the fence but stood still this time. Howell stopped walking and glared at me again.
For about 30 seconds.
Then he exclaimed, “Why are you guys here every day bugging us?”
I can’t remember what I said, but I did mutter something.
Howell exited stage left into the building.
Kerr was walking up and had watched this entire chess match. He approached with a smile on his face and shook my hand.
We talked for 20 minutes.
I felt like he genuinely was interested in who I was, where I was from and what I was doing there.
Not long after that, Howell and I were able to make a great connection. So, in the rookie days of my storytelling career, I got to watch one of the greatest high school football programs ever as two legends finished out the fourth quarter of their remarkable careers.
Howell passed away in 1999.
Kerr died Sept. 1, sadly. After several years of failing health, it was time for him to start building his mansion right next to Howell’s.
The two were next-door neighbors all of their adult lives.
“He was very interesting,” Hobart senior Aiden Kasch said of Kerr. “He talked to me on the sidelines. His history, his story, his legacy was everything Hobart football is about. He would tell me to give ’em hell, to kick some ass. He always had encouraging words.
“Man, he lived a good life.”
Both Howell and Kerr were old school.
No, they were chiseled into the Mount Rushmore of “Old School.”
But that did not mean they weren’t friendly and kind.
Except on Friday nights.
Howell and Kerr coached together at Hobart for 32 years. The back of their proverbial ballcard is why both were inducted into the Indiana Football Hall of Fame.
The Brickies won four state championships – 1987, 1989, 1991 and 1993 – with Kerr calling the defense. They were state runners-up seven times. They won 19 straight sectional championships. They won 71 consecutive games at the Brickie Bowl.
They won 57 straight regular-season games and 55 consecutive Duneland Athletic Conference games.
Hobart still owns four defensive state championship records.
In preparing for the regional game against Griffith in 1995 – the game that became known as the Mud Bowl – Kerr told me about Hobart’s state championship game against Castle in 1982.
Castle had a crazy quadruple-option offense that made it nearly impossible to figure out who was carrying the ball.
So at halftime, Kerr told his defense to get into the backfield and tackle everyone.
It worked.
Hobart still lost that game on a late tipped pass.
“That’s what we’ve got to do against Griffith,” Kerr told me.
This time, Hobart won, 14-13, on a sheet of mud.
Hobart defensive coordinator Robert Segudovic was a defensive back for Kerr in the early 1990s, winning two state titles and finishing second once.
Segudovic said Kerr had a little Lou Holtz in him.
“Every team we were playing, he would talk about their running back being like Walter Payton,” Segudovic said with a smile. “He would get us so fired up it was crazy.”
Segudovic is in his third year running the Brickie defense.
Kerr stayed around the program after his retirement. I can’t count the number of times he would walk over to me and talk about anything and everything for 15 or 20 minutes.
Always with a smile.
As his health slowed, Segudovic said Kerr would send him texts – things to watch out for in the upcoming game, what players needed to do and so on.
Then, afterward, Kerr would send congratulations on the effort from the school he loved.
Hobart coach Eric Schreiber Jr. has deep Griffith roots, but when he was hired three years ago, he said Kerr was one of the first people to congratulate him.
“I had to pinch myself,” Schreiber Jr. said. “I knew everything about him, what he meant to Hobart football and really high school football in America. He was such a good man. We will miss him.”
Last Friday, the Brickies ran onto the field carrying a flag remembering Kerr. They put TK stickers on their helmets.
All of this and so much more.
Last Friday night on the Heartland Sports Network GameNight program, we honored Kerr and his legacy.
And I cracked a joke that I’m sure Kerr would have laughed at.
I wondered if, now that he was in Heaven, he was able to give his alma mater, Michigan, an extra second in its game against Western Michigan.
Such a thing would not surprise me.
Rest in peace, Tom.
It was an honor to get to know you.

By Steve Hanlon
Heartland Sports Network