To know how Centennial junior Cody Kessler became the athlete he is — and The Californian’s 2009 Football Player of the Year — you should know two things.
The first takes us back about eight years. Kessler was in third grade, and he joined his local Jack Frost football team for the first time.
“After a few practices, I thought it wasn’t for me,” Kessler said. “I played receiver, and they would always run the ball.”
Not that this is a story about selfishness; it’s more about need. Kessler always had a gift: He starred in the spotlight, and he led others to places they hadn’t been before.
In fifth grade, Kessler joined the team again to hang out with friends, but he made one important change.
“I figured the quarterback got the ball all the time,” said the kid who has led Centennial’s basketball team to back-to-back SWYL championships as a point guard.
The second item of interest here came this fall, when Kessler suffered a high ankle sprain early in Centennial’s game against Bakersfield.
It’s a nagging injury that often can sideline athletes for months. But Kessler, knowing the Central Section playoffs were mere weeks away, wasn’t going to stand for that.
“I was just thinking, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes,’” he said. “I went in for therapy at 7 in the morning, went to school, got out of school, did more therapy and then went to practice and watched. I wanted to come back after week 1, which obviously I just couldn't do.”
But Kessler was back three weeks later, just in time for the playoffs. Once there, he led the Golden Hawks from a No. 8 seed to the brink of a championship.
Like the team, Kessler got better as the competition did. He threw for 152 yards and ran for a touchdown in a win against No. 9 Clovis East, then 270 and a touchdown, plus a running TD and a last-minute drive for the winning field goal against No. 1 seed Clovis Buchanan. In the semifinals, it was 173 yards and two scores against Liberty. Then in the final, even in a 42-31 loss to No. 2 Fresno-Bullard, Kessler threw for 306 yards and a touchdown and ran for another score.
He had one turnover in all four games combined.
“Everyone talks about the how they do in the season, but playoffs is what really matters,” Kessler said. “We didn’t look at our seed at all. We knew we would get a bad seed, but we knew the postseason is what mattered.”
For Kessler, who finished the season with 2,191 yards and 10 touchdowns passing and 284 yards and eight TDs rushing despite missing those three games, this has been the way of things since he made that position switch in fifth grade.
“He’s a very special player,” Centennial coach Bryan Nixon said. “There’s no question about it. He brings a lot to the game. He manages the offense very well, and he’s just getting better.”
Nixon and his staff had a chance to peek at Kessler in his junior-high days at Jack Frost.
“You could see he was a natural leader and a good athlete,” Nixon said. “You get a player like that, and you’re going, ‘Man, there’s a lot of things we can do.’”
Now, Kessler has one year left to fulfill any high school prophecies. Then it’ll be off to college, where he plans to play football instead of basketball. New Mexico State has already offered the junior a scholarship, but Kessler and his family have regular contact with many other schools and expect more offers to roll in after this year’s signing day in February.
And who knows what stories we’ll tell of Kessler in eight more years.
“I want to play in the NFL,” he said. “... I don’t feel pressure when I have the ball. I love making decisions. I’ve kind of gotten used to it.”