Meet the new head football coach at Southeast for 2023
Michael Kinkade knows it’s possible.
He has seen the Southeast football team ascend to the playoffs as an assistant coach under Matt Lauber in 2014 and now hopes to replicate that success at the head of the table.
Kinkade was approved as Southeast’s interim head football coach by the District 186 board of education on Monday with the expectation of assuming the mantle beyond the 2023 season.
Tiffany Williams also replaces Fred Devoe as the school’s athletic director.
“There's a lot of great people at Southeast that I work with: colleagues and administration that I think the world of,” Kinkade said. “We've got a lot of great kids (at the school) and a lot of great kids on this football team that deserve to be coached well, deserve the things that the kids are getting at other schools and I'm just thankful that I'm in a position to do that for them.”
It will mark his sixth year at Southeast after previously serving as the offensive coordinator.
He previously assisted his alma mater, Christopher, before meeting Lauber at Belleville Althoff.
They wound up at Southeast together for one season in 2014 while Kinkade accrued additional experience at North Mac and Williamsville before returning to the Spartans for five consecutive seasons.
Lauber stepped down to take an administrative job at Rochester.
“It's always just been a good match,” Kinkade said of Lauber.
Get to know Kinkade
The 1999 Christopher graduate said he has been fortunate to spend time at each program.
He passed up the opportunity to play college football to take care of his mom before a chance meeting with a friend back at Christopher provided his first taste of coaching.
“I tell kids sometimes, there's a little bit of regret that I didn't play at the next level,” Kinkade said. “It's something I always wanted to do. But, you know, life happens and I'm happy how it turned out because it put me here in a position to coach. I think maybe if I played college football, I don't know if I would have gotten into coaching or not, but I'm pretty happy that I did 20 years later.”
After becoming the defensive coordinator, he welcomed the aid of the late Buddy Velasco, who was inducted into the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association hall of fame in 2016 after an extensive head coaching career.
“He let me learn by learning,” Kinkade said of Velasco. “He could have just stood there and told me how to do it and what he thinks and all this, but he allowed me to learn by learning.
“That's something I like to do with my assistant coaches now. I want them to go out, experience and try the things that they want to try and learn from them and recalibrate them and come back with new ideas.
“Don't get me wrong, we've got philosophies as a program as an offense and defense that we want to accomplish, but how we go about that on a day-to-day basis is something I like to let those guys learn.”
What to expect
Kinkade said he will essentially retain the same staff.
He will still run the offense while assistant Tony Webster will take charge of the defense.
Kinkade said he will also welcome back a strong core of players. That includes senior running back/wide receiver James Cummings, senior receiver David McGehee, junior receiver Marcell Jerome and sophomore lineman Chris Hull, among others.
Southeast finished 1-8 last season.
“I'm just going to try to get the ball in the hands of the guys that can play and let them make plays,” Kinkade said. “I think that's going to be our our ticket this year.”
It adds another wrinkle to the changing Central State Eight Conference landscape.
John Allison will replace longtime coach Ken Leonard at Sacred Heart-Griffin while Jon Hebb completed his first season at Springfield High.
Lincoln is also set to rejoin the CS8 this year in all sports while Quincy Notre Dame will expand the league to 12 teams in football only in 2024.
Contact Bill Welt: 788-1545, bill.welt@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/BillWelt
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: IHSA football: Michael Kinkade replaces Matt Lauber at Southeast
