Jason Kelce thanked his high school teachers in his NFL retirement speech and reminded them ‘why we do it’

Kahari Hicks was teaching Monday afternoon when his phone started buzzing.

“But I couldn’t read the texts because I’m in class,” said Hicks, an English teacher at Cleveland Heights High School in Ohio.

Hicks eventually saw what the buzz was about: Jason Kelce thanked Hicks and his other Cleveland Heights football coaches by name during his 40-minute retirement speech.

“I got emotional,” Hicks said. “In the grand scheme of things, I’m just a high school football coach. I am who I am. But for a Hall of Famer to sit there and shout you out, it makes you feel like something you did resonated with him.”

Philadelphia was hooked on Kelce’s emotional farewell to football and so were pockets of Northeast Ohio, where Kelce was a saxophone-playing high schooler without a Division I scholarship long before he was considered a lock to be in the Hall of Fame. They have not forgotten Kelce at the public school just outside Cleveland. And Kelce made sure Monday to remember them.

“I’d like to thank my high school football coaches Mike Jones, Damion Creel, Kahari Hicks, and Gary Wroblewski. Coach Wrobo, you know who you are,” Kelce said, while wearing an Eagles shirt and sandals. “My hockey coaches Kirk Guenther, Steve Bogas, and Eddie Babcox, and my lacrosse coaches, Felipe Quintana and Ben Beckman. I’d also like to thank my band teacher, Brett Baker.”

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The passion that made Philadelphia fall for Kelce was there years ago on Friday nights in Ohio.

“There’s one particular story that I’ll never forget about Jason Kelce,” said Creel, then Cleveland Heights’ defensive coordinator. “We were playing away at Middletown, which is where Cris Carter went to school. We were down at halftime and Jason was going nuts because we were underperforming as a team and he felt he wasn’t performing.”

Kelce did not move to the offensive line until college and didn’t play much center — the position he mastered in the NFL — until his senior year. In high school, he was a linebacker and running back. Kelce, Hicks said, would do whatever his coaches asked.

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“The third quarter starts and it’s one of those games where we just needed a play to spark us,” Creel said. “We called a timeout and I went to Jason and I was in his face. I said, ‘Jason, I need you to make a play. I need you to make a freaking play to get us back on track.’ I’m in his face screaming and he’s just looking at me.”

Kelce stayed silent, listened to his coach and let his play on the field speak for him. He sped through the line on a blitz and met the quarterback just as he was ready to hand it off.

“He just took the ball and ran it for a touchdown,” Creel said. “I’ll always remember that play because he responded. They always say, ‘Players make plays when they need to make them.’ He definitely did that. I’ll always remember that.”

Kelce was a star of the team and captained Heights in his senior year while also playing the saxophone in the jazz band, which Kelce credits for his rise in football, as music taught him the importance of practice. He seemed to do everything at Heights, making it fitting that the football coaches used him as much as they could.

He ran jet sweeps on offense — “He ran over this outside linebacker who was an Ohio State commit,” Hicks said — and stripped the QB on defense. He even long-snapped on special teams, offering a window into his future. But Kelce’s frame (6-foot-2 and 225 pounds) didn’t do much for college recruiters. He had scholarships to play Division II football but wanted more. The Heights coaches agreed.

The University of Cincinnati finally offered him an opportunity to walk on with a chance to eventually earn a scholarship. The Bearcats didn’t have a position for Kelce to play, but his coaches told him the Cincinnati staff assured them that it would be able to find one. Kelce took the chance.

“You know how the story goes,” Creel said. “Jason earned everything he has.”

The opposing team — Heights’ rival Maple Heights — scored a touchdown and Kelce was ejected as a Friday night seemed to be falling apart.

“The referee says, ‘You’re out of the game,’ and I said, ‘For what?,’ ” said Wroblewski, the team’s strength and conditioning coach. “He said, ‘He told me to go ‘[bleep] off.’ I said, ‘What’s wrong with that? You hear that all the time.’ I said, ‘Can I talk to him? Can we get him back into the game?’ This was a huge game.”

Wroblewski sat with Kelce on the bench, explaining to him for a few minutes about why he couldn’t curse at the head referee, who happened to be the supervisor for all the refs in Cleveland. Kelce said he was just frustrated as the touchdown came after the Maple Heights receiver baited him again with the route Wroblewski had warned him about.

Kelce handed the ball back to the official — “I think Jason threw it at the ref,” Wroblewski said — and the ref didn’t like it. Kelce told the ref to beat it and the ref tossed him.

But Wroblewski and the ref were buddies — “I would shower them with gifts when they came to Cleveland Heights,” Wroblewski said — so he had a chance to get his player back in the game. Wroblewski held Kelce’s helmet for a few series as they chatted before asking him if he was ready to play.

“I said, ‘One more time and I’m going to throw the book at you,’ ” said Wroblewski, who worked for the Browns and John Carroll University before taking a teaching job at Heights. “He said, ‘I got it,’ and the ref let him back in the game. I said, ‘Thanks, I owe ya.’ I made sure the refs had pretzels, hot chocolate, and coffee after that game.”

Heights played a tough schedule as it traveled around Ohio to play the top teams. But Wroblewski said the coaches wanted to teach the teenagers more than football. They wanted to teach them about life while reminding them to watch what they said to referees. “Coach Wrobo” teared up Monday when he heard Kelce say his name.

“It was the game of life,” Wroblewski said. “We taught them that it’s more than a game. It’s about building relationships and teaching the guys how to be men, be great fathers, parents, and everything off the field. You can see how they’ve developed in the community. These Kelce brothers were nut cases. Just a lot of fun.”

The rehearsals, practices, and preparations were finished when the high school band traveled each year to its annual trip.

“We were just sitting on the back of a bus,” said Baker, then Heights’ music director. “It gave you a chance to sit and chat. Talk about music, talk about sports, talk about life. This was pre-social media, so we weren’t all on our phones. We were talking.”

Kelce applied the same dedication to learn the saxophone as he did to become one of the NFL’s premier centers as he took private lessons at a music shop near his home and studied with Baker. He spent four years in the jazz band and held his own in the wind ensemble. But those bus rides showed it was about more than just playing the right notes.

“It’s more than music,” Baker said. “As a band director, it’s even a little different than an algebra teacher. I had him for four years and all the other kids at that high school for four years. You have that relationship and you build on it.”

Kelce played three sports but still found time to play the sax. And he wasn’t the only athlete on stage.

“There were at least four hockey kids in the jazz ensemble,” Baker said. “That jazz ensemble was smoking. There were a couple professional musicians that came out of that band. It came down to the coaches and people wanting to share and give kids multiple experiences. Yeah, there are certain events that are more important. But the process of developing the whole person is allowing them to have multiple opportunities and not eliminating their opportunities if you can avoid it. That was why it all worked.”

“Shout-out to the parents, too. You have to have parents who are like, ‘You want to do both? We’ll figure it out. We’ll make a schedule. Make sure you get to practice over there and then from practice to music lessons.’ And of course, a lot of the effort is on Jason. Wanting to do things is one thing. Willing to put in the work to do them well is another level.”

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It was 70 degrees and sunny Monday afternoon in Ohio, so Mike Jones had his physical education class outside while Kelce was sobbing in Philadelphia. Jones, the head coach at Heights when Kelce played, couldn’t watch the news conference live, but it seemed like everyone else was tuned in. Like Hicks, Jones soon had texts flooding his phone.

Kelce thanked Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman. He credited his family, praised his teammates, and applauded the Philadelphia fans. He also remembered the guys who helped him in high school.

“This is exactly why we do it,” Jones said. “This is at the highest level of the game, but we get kids all the time who are doing some great things beyond high school and college and they always come back and let us know that we did them a solid. That’s why we do it. I had some great coaches in high school and knew that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to do the things they did for me.”

Kelce seems to be a safe bet for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The Eagles will likely retire No. 62. Maybe he’ll even get a statue. Kelce is a legend in Philadelphia, a sixth-round pick who blossomed into an all-time player who spends his summers in Sea Isle City and has a personality fit for Delaware County. But long before that, Kelce was a Cleveland Heights Tiger. They haven’t forgotten him. He hasn’t forgotten them, either.

“He remembers where he came from,” Hicks said. “I was fortunate enough to go to the Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl and I wore my Heights shirt. I had so many people say, ‘Do you know the Kelce brothers?’ I didn’t want to tell too many people that I coached them because I hate when people take credit for things that they have no business taking credit for. Jason Kelce was going to go to Cincinnati and be drafted by the Eagles and be a Hall of Famer regardless of if I coached him or not. He was.

“Coaching him was so fun. He was so charismatic, so coachable. I was just 26 years old. I was a first-year coordinator. I didn’t know much. Coaching Jason told me that if I ever get a kid like that again, a generational talent, I have to be ready.”

Maybe Hicks is right that Kelce would have been there Monday without him. But Kelce would probably disagree. And that’s why he made sure to thank him and the others by name.

“It’s pretty special to remember coaching him, see the level that he played at, and know you were a part of that,” said Creel, now the head coach at nearby Euclid High. “You get lost sometimes in it. You’re in it so long and you’re helping so many kids. This was humbling.”