Q & A with Guilford receiver Chris McKinney

Chris McKinney took a circuitous route to reach his junior season at Guilford.  After a pair of all-conference caliber years as a freshman and sophomore, the Apex, NC, native transferred to North Carolina State in January, 2000.  He walked on to football team and sat out the 2000 season per NCAA transfer regulations.  McKinney led the Wolfpack receivers in the football team’s spring scrimmage, but returned to Guilford in August when it became apparent the coaches wanted to use more of their highly touted freshmen.

            Sports Information Director/Assistant Athletics Director Dave Walters sat down with McKinney to discuss his Division I experience and what drew him back to Guilford.

Q. What were some of the reasons you left Guilford for North Carolina State?

A. The reasons I left Guilford for North Carolina State had nothing to do with the football team here, or the coach here, because Coach Ketchum is like a father to me.  The reason I left is because I felt like I didn’t want any regrets in life and I felt I was good enough in my abilities to go play at that level.  I wanted to try it.  I didn’t want to have any regrets in life.  I didn’t want to look back and say, “I had a chance.  I could’ve done this, but I didn’t.”  I don’t want any regrets in life, that’s all, that’s the reason I went there.  I don’t have any regrets.  I went there and did the best I could.  I gave it my all, and it didn’t work out.  Sometimes life goes and that’s fine with me.

Q. What was the biggest difference you noticed right away between State and Guilford?

A. The biggest difference is there are a lot more coaches, than the ones here and it’s a lot more one-on-one here at Guilford than there is at State.  There are a lot more position coaches.  There’s a coach for every little thing at State, and here there’s only four or five coaches, so it’s a lot more one-on-one, and I think that’s a little better.  The facilities at State, of course with the more money, you get the better facilities and better programs, weights.  The biggest difference in players, you know the skill positions aren’t really that different.  It’s the linemen up front that make (the difference).  They make the whole difference in the ballgame, anyway.  You go from Guilford having a 5-10, 5-11, 250-pound lineman and then you go up to State and have a 6-6, 310-pound, 315-pound lineman.  It’s night and day.  That’s the difference.

Q. What kinds of things did you miss about Guilford?

A.  I missed Coach Ketchum.  The main thing was Coach Ketchum’s always been straight forward with me and good to my Mom and to me.  Making my Mom happy is the biggest part to me.  He always took care of my Mom and always took care of my family.  At State, the emphasis wasn’t really on that.  It’s political there and they take care of other things.  Family’s not real big there and I wanted to come back here to where family was a big part of the team.

Q.  You came back bigger and stronger than when you left.  What was the conditioning program there like?

A. The conditioning program there was so much different.  It was so hard.  Football’s all year round at State.  There’s not a break.  We got two days off after Christmas was over.  First we had a bowl game, so we had no break over Christmas.  Then we had two days off coming back, when we finally got back to school.  And then we went right to winter workouts.  That’s five o’clock in the morning, four times a week for an hour.  The worst kind of agility drills you could ever think of for an hour, with every coach barking down your throat.  If your feet are positioned wrong, you have to go back and make your whole line go back again.  Not only does that kill you, but it kills your whole team, so it’s a whole team thing.  You don’t want to get sent back because you don’t want to send all of your friends back. 

The workouts over the summer are just (hard).  We lifted weights for an hour and a half.  Real hard weightlifting.  I’m talking about there’s five coaches in there that are breathing down your throat as you’re doing it. All fast, real fast. Once you’re done lifting weights, you’re dead, you have to go outside on the track in purple ozone layer days and we’re running 300s in 50 seconds and we have to do seven of those.  It’s ridiculous, but it gets you ready.  I think State is the best-conditioned team.  I don’t think anybody works harder than State in conditioning.  I don’t see how anybody could.  We killed each other out there.

Q.  What was the redshirt season like aside from conditioning?  How involved with you in the play?

A.  I was involved in the practice.  I was on the scout team.  We went against the defense every day. We never even really saw the offense until the defensive-offensive scrimmage.  We played the other team.  I had a pretty big part in it.  I was always one of the top receivers on the scout team.  It was fun.  I tried to make myself better every day by burning the best that Division I had to offer.  I tried to burn all of those guys as much as I can and I tried to make myself better and to prove to myself every day that I could do it.  I used it as a learning process.  Yeah it was a terrible, I hated it, but it was a good learning experience.

Q. In the spring, you got to practice with everyone, including the offense, how was that?

A. That was great. I paid my dues.  I worked real hard. A couple things happened with some guys and coach put me in and when he put me in, I was ready.  I always felt like I was ready the whole time.  I went in there and relaxed and did the best I can.  It worked out fine.  I did great and I don’t have any regrets about it.  I worked as hard as I could, and I did real well in the spring.  Real well.  Things didn’t pan out (over the summer) and that’s just the way life is.

Q. What was your favorite part about being at State?

A.  Just being around the guys.  Working out with the guys, lifting weights with them, practicing with them, going out, going to the clubs and having fun and parties with them.  It’s like a whole big family over there.  Like a hundred of us, it’s the biggest fraternity in the school.  It was crazy.  You just walked around with your head up because everybody knew who you were and everybody knew what you were a part of and it was fun.  Like a big family, everybody got to know everybody.  We all took care of each other.  We might fight each other on the field, but off the field we took care of each other.  Nobody would let anything happen to anybody.

Q. What’s been the hardest off-field adjustment for you since you’ve been back here?

A.  Off the field, it’s a small-school setting.  There’s not as many kids.  I don’t know.  It’s a lot different here than it is at State.  There was so much to do there and so many people.  Here it’s football practice, go to school, do your work.  There’s only a few guys around here to hang out with on the team and that’s about it.  There it was different.  There were thousands of people.

Q.  What’s the biggest difference between the Guilford team you left and the Guilford team to which you returned?

A.  The Guilford team I left had a lot of talent, but I think we got down real easy.  I think we were a good team and we were a couple plays away from being 8-2.  We were real close both years I was here before.  For some reason or another, things just didn’t work out, which was stuff that we did to ourselves, nothing that happened, like a ref made a bad call, we did it to ourselves. 

The team that’s here now, we have a lot more talent, a lot more speed and size. I think we’re a real great football team.  I don’t think we’re playing as a team.  I think there’s a lot of individuals out there that are trying to take care of us and everybody else, when everybody needs to take care of themselves.  And I think we’ll take care of it.  I think we can be great. 

I think we could’ve won all the games that we’ve lost, except the first one.  Even Hampden-Sydney.  I think if we don’t kill ourselves on that second drive, we score again.  We kick a field goal.  Against Washington and Lee, we kick a field goal, or we don’t mess up on that first drive.  We ran six plays and we ran five of them wrong.  I ran the wrong route, dropped a pass and they fumbled the ball.  If we don’t make a lot of mistakes, we win a lot of games.  I think we’re a good team; we just need to put it together.

Q. When you see scores from State in the paper or see highlights on TV, do you ever ask yourself, “What if?”

A. I don’t ask myself that anymore.  I don’t think about that.  When I talked to my coach at Apex (High School), he said, “Once you make your decision, don’t look back.”  I haven’t looked back since.  I made the right decision and I know I made the right decision for me and for my family and that’s all that matters to me.  I know in my heart, I was good enough to do it.  I know I had the talent to do it, but this was the right decision.  This is my home.  This is where I need to be.

Q. What types of opportunities will Guilford give you, that maybe you didn’t have at State, on and off the field?

A. On the field, it gives me the opportunity to get closer to the players and be more active as a team leader.  Try to give good examples for the younger guys here.  I feel like I can teach them by example a little more here than I could at State.  At State, I just did it by action because everybody’s real great over there and you just got to do what you have to do.  I think here I can show the guys you know how to do stuff here differently here than I could.  Be more of a team leader is basically what I can do here.

            Here, off the field, I don’t know, it’s a lot different here at Guilford because there’s not a lot of students and the sports teams really stick to themselves and its really hard to get out and to meet a lot of different types of people around here because everybody has their views about how football players or these players are and these players are around here.  That’s kind of hard, but I still think it’s a good learning environment because you have to learn how to get along with all different types of people in life.  I think that’s a good thing for me.