Last Sunday my friend/high school soccer coach passed away while he was waiting for a liver transplant. It has been about 3 years since I last talked with him, so I am not as deeply hurt as I would have been in high school. But there are a whole lot of soccer players and students at East High right now that are in serious greiving. Kernodle was not only an awesome soccer coach, he made one-on-one friendships with all of his players. When my brother was involved with drugs in High School, Kernodle made it his personal job to keep Chad in Check... he cared about him, along with all of his other players/students.
Fortunately, Kernodle went out on top. In the history of East High, the mens soccer team had never made it past the quarterfinals in the state tournament. Last year though, they made it all the way and won the state championship. This I think, will be his crowning achievment. He also was awared the Utah State coach of the year award last year. Great job to the '06 soccer team, for allowing him to leave this world on a High Note.
The weird thing about this all is, Last Friday Tennille and I were down in SLC. I know that the soccer team plays on Friday's so I wanted to go see the game and say Hi to Coach. After unsucessfully calling the school for a time and place of the game, we decided to just try the stadium. There was no soccer game there, so we went home and forgot about it. I think it is weird that I haven't attempted to see a game or say hi to Kernodle for 3 years, but for some reason I was thinking about him last weekend.
Like I said it has been 3 years since I last talked to him, but he has been a huge influence to my whole family (Mom, Chad, and I) and we will all miss him dearly!
Kernodle... Rest in Peace
