Opportunity to shine

Six Salem football players heading to Texas this weekend to participate in a national high school combine

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

One of Kemp Carr’s greatest joys of being a high school football coach is getting his players exposure to the next level of the game and this weekend six of his Salem players will get a lot of it on one of the biggest and most competitive stages.

They’ll be participating in the Navy All-American Bowl Combine in San Antonio. None of them will play in the game Saturday at the Alamodome, but they all will take part in the drills and testing to see where they measure up against the top players in the country with the results available to every college coach in the land. They’re leaving Thursday.

The group includes juniors Mahkye Murray, Wyatt Irvine, Kamal Chatum and KaiSiere Muhammad and freshmen Cashmir Parsley and Kyvion Parsons. They earned the opportunity not only by being a quality player but by making a 3.2 or better GPA in the first grading period.

“Everything is earned, not just given,” Carr said. “I’m always trying to build an opportunity I would want if I was a high school student. Then they get to do it on the grand stage. Nothing like doing it on the grand stage.

“But you’ve got to earn it. You have to qualify as a football player and you had to qualify as a student. And this is the way it’s always been. I just don’t pick guys at random and go, you’ve got to earn it and these kids have done a good job of doing that. I expected a bigger group next year because some guys see they got left behind.”

Carr has been taking players to the Combine every year since 2017. He estimated 90 percent of them have gone on to play college football with about a half dozen going to Division I programs. 

He said some of the players going this year have “sat at the table already with college coaches,” but this trip opens the door to a world of recruiting possibilities.

They’ve already seen firsthand what it can do for a player’s future. Edge rusher Antwuan Rogers went last year and the experience got him the looks that landed him at Temple. He leaves for the North Philly campus this week to prepare for his first college spring practice.

“It’s bigger than just the opportunity to get looked at,” Carr said. “Here’s a kid who changed the complexity of who he was, the identity of who he was, by getting on a plane and having an opportunity to fly to be around the game of football.

“He says he’s never been out of the Tri-State area, so he looked at it as an opportunity that if I do the right thing maybe this can become a lifestyle. So from a mental standpoint it gives them an opportunity to see if you do the right thing how far a game can take you.”

Former Salem and recently named Deptford head coach Montrey Wright will be coaching in the game. He will be coaching the East squad’s defensive line.

Photo: Mahkye Murray (9) will be one of six Salem players participating in this weekend’s Navy All-American Bowl Combine in Texas. He’s shown here pulling down KIPP running back Torey Jones on the first defensive play of their South Jersey Group I playoff game. (Photo by Julliana Love)