SUBSCRIBE NEWSLETTERS
ADVERTISE| CLASSIFIEDS| JOBS| E-TRIB
HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS NETWORK TRIBLIVE LOCAL
Western Pennsylvania's trusted news source
Jeannette product Robert Kennedy chooses East Carolina for next stop | TribLIVE.com
District College

Jeannette product Robert Kennedy chooses East Carolina for next stop

Bill Beckner
Bill Beckner
2281943_web1_GTR-JeannetteHC07-120817
Jeannette’s Robert Kennedy celebrates his first touchdown in the second quarter of the PIAA Class A championship game against Homer-Center on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017, at Hersheypark Stadium.

Jeannette’s Robert Kennedy kept it as quiet as he could.

He made a visit to the East Carolina campus over the weekend and took in the sights. But he had done the same thing in recent weeks at Arkansas State, Marshall, Massachusetts and Old Dominion.

This visit, though, was different.

Kennedy did something he had not done on those other stops: He gave a verbal commitment to play football for the Pirates.

His inconspicuous decision to accept a scholarship became public knowledge Wednesday — national signing day for NCAA Division I and II football players — when East Carolina announced its new recruit.

More goal-oriented than ever, Kennedy hopes this is the next rung on his career stepladder.

“As soon as I went to the campus, it felt like home,” Kennedy said. “The coaches have a family vibe that’s real. It feels great, but in the end this was my goal so now it’s time to attack my dreams of getting to the NFL.”

Kennedy celebrated the beginning of the next phase in his football career at a family gathering Wednesday night at his grandmother’s house in Jeannette.

A 5-foot-10, 180-pound defensive back who played two years at Lackawanna junior college in Scranton, he also had FCS offers from Youngstown State, Tennessee-Martin, Duquesne, Robert Morris, Albany, Sacred Heart, and St. Francis (Pa.).

But Kennedy opted to go the FBS route and, in the process, move farther away from home.

He will have two years of eligibility remaining and can use a redshirt year. He is on pace to graduate in May and will enroll at ECU in the summer.

“Robert Kennedy is a great player and even a better teammate,” Lackawanna coach Mark Duda said. “He is a high-effort player who loves football and is the definition of a winner. He embraces competition and is one of the best players I have coached. (East Carolina) is lucky to have him.”

Kennedy played cornerback and safety at Lackawanna, which finished 10-1 this season after reaching the junior college national title game.

Recruited lightly coming out of Jeannette because of poor grades, Kennedy dusted himself off and reshaped his college career into something of which he and his family can be proud.

“He was determined to succeed,” Jeannette coach Roy Hall said. “He worked his tail off in the classroom and the field. It shows you what you can do when you put your mind to it. What a class act he is.”

“Poogie” thinks he has matured into not only a better football player but also a better person. And he would endorse strongly the junior college path for players in situations such as his.

He won’t, however, flaunt his well-earned turnaround.

“A lot of people do feel like that once they make it out of JUCO,” Kennedy said. “But I’ll never feel like I’ll have to get back at them or flex on them because my success speaks for itself. I took on hate and criticism from grown men as a sixth-grader and on, so I feel like I can brush off whatever.”

A former small school “Mr. PA Football,” Kennedy helped lead Jeannette to WPIAL and PIAA Class A titles in 2017 as a quarterback, running back and defensive back who had 12 interceptions as a senior.

Last season at Lackawanna, he had 34 tackles, including 8½ for loss, 3½ sacks, five interceptions, two forced fumbles and a blocked kick.

Lackawanna had 19 players sign letters of intent to play at larger programs, including Yough graduate Scotty Houseman, a lineman who signed with Albany.

Kennedy will join another local player at East Carolina in redshirt freshman lineman Trent Holler, a Latrobe grad.

Bill Beckner Jr. is a TribLive reporter covering local sports in Westmoreland County. He can be reached at bbeckner@triblive.com.

Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.

Get Ad-Free >

Categories: District College | Sports
Sports and Partner News