Wisconsin-recruit Kevin Heywood’s evolution into a highly coveted prospect happened by design

Go heavy on the size and strength. You’ll want to double up on athleticism, too. Sprinkle in some nastiness.

Don’t skimp on the intelligence. Make sure to add all the desire you have on hand. Lastly, dust the top with leadership.

Let that marinate for about 17 years and perhaps you’ll have something approximating Kevin Heywood, the 6-foot-7, 305-pound offensive lineman sought by nearly every major college football program in the nation.

Wednesday at Pope John Paul II High, Heywood expects to sign his national letter of intent to Wisconsin, the finishing touch on a recipe conceived years ago.

“I’m beyond proud,” said Heywood’s stepfather, Erik Dougherty, in a phone interview. “We laid out a plan with ideas and thought processes for him to get to a certain point. He’s done anything and everything we’ve ever asked him.”

It doesn’t feel like Dougherty is taking credit for the concoction. He talks more like someone who has felt responsible for not ruining the gourmet ingredients.

The plan was to find the right personal trainers, the right schools, the right coaches, appropriately nurture Heywood’s passion, and provide room for growth.

It seems to have worked well. Next month, Heywood plans to enroll early at Wisconsin.

“Us as parents,” Dougherty said, “I feel like it would be a disservice if we didn’t give him all the opportunities …”

Dougherty amassed many local sports contacts coaching high school basketball for more than a decade at his alma mater, Perkiomen Valley.

So, when Heywood, now 17, had problems with his feet in middle school, Dougherty took him to a physician affiliated with the Eagles who saw Heywood’s growth plates and suspected that he would be tall.

That’s around the time Dougherty and his wife, Amie, sensed Heywood might have a chance to be a special athlete.

“We just wanted to give him as much opportunity and as much exposure as we could,” Dougherty said.

Around sixth grade, he connected Heywood with Spring-Ford grad Andrew Scanlan, who played wide receiver at Northwestern.

Scanlan had become a speed and agility trainer after his football career ended. Dougherty also connected Heywood with a local strength and conditioning coach named Mike Tucker, who played football at Dickinson.

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By eighth grade, Heywood was about 6-foot-1 and close to 230 pounds, Dougherty said.

Before Heywood reached high school, Dougherty’s friend John Pergine, whose father played linebacker at Notre Dame before carving out seven years in the NFL, suggested they look at Bishop McDevitt. Pergine’s son Johnny is a linebacker at Temple.

So, Dougherty took Heywood to a camp at McDevitt, where coach Mike Watkins had built a talented roster full of Division I hopefuls such as current Michigan freshman Semaj Bridgeman.

“He got in front of kids down there that wanted to use their work ethic to get to another place in life,” Dougherty said. “It totally changed his mindset.”

Perhaps it also sparked Heywood’s near maniacal passion for working out.

“I realized that if this is really what I want, I have to do this every single week of my life,” Heywood said. “I did it and then fell in love with it. Then I just kept picking up more trainers along the way and it got me to where I am today.”

When Heywood enrolled at McDevitt, Watkins saw the lineman’s potential almost immediately.

“I was like, ‘this kid is going to be massive,’” Watkins said in a phone interview. “I knew from the beginning that this kid was a left or right tackle.”

There were just two issues. One was minor: Heywood had a passion for playing defensive end, and he was good at it, too.

He even made the varsity rotation as a freshman. The second problem was major: McDevitt was scheduled to close in 2021.

McDevitt’s small class sizes had fit Dougherty’s plan to help Heywood flourish academically.

Next, they chose Archbishop Wood, where Watkins and several other McDevitt wanderers landed.

Watkins said Heywood excelled in the weight room at Wood.

“You could see that he wanted it,” said Watkins, who is now the coach at the Pennington School in New Jersey. “He just wanted to be great.”

In the summer of his sophomore year, Heywood’s greatness then went national.

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At the urging of coaches at Wood, Heywood switched to offensive tackle for the summer camp circuit that Dougherty had planned.

Early offers came from UConn, Penn State, and Rutgers. The success surprised Heywood because he had never played offensive line before.

His defensive line work with former Northeast High School and Penn State star Deion Barnes, however, had inadvertently prepared him to play O-line. He also uses Haverford School assistant coach Greg Isdaner as an O-line coach. Isdaner starred at Episcopal Academy before earning all-America honors at West Virginia.

“I was learning the best [D-line] moves [from Barnes],” Heywood said, “so now as a tackle I can already see what’s coming at me. I feel like it was good for me to play both sides of the ball.”

But after two years of commuting more than an hour to Wood, Heywood decided to finish his high school career at PJP, just a few miles from the family’s home in Royersford.

All Heywood did was help lead the Golden Panthers to their first Pioneer Athletic Conference football title.

“He brought a level of intensity that we hadn’t had,” PJP coach Scott Reed said via phone.

Heywood’s leadership style was subtle. By then he had almost 30 offers from nearly every major program. He didn’t say much, but he tried to be positive when he spoke. He just wanted his teammates to notice how hard and how often he worked out.

Reed thinks it worked. He noticed increased intensity across the offensive line.

Perhaps more than anything, Reed was impressed with Heywood’s physicality.

“To have that much size and be that athletic, but also, he is nasty,” Reed said. “He doesn’t just block people. He wants to punish them.”

So it seems Dougherty’s plan to give Heywood every opportunity to succeed has been an overwhelming success.

Heywood’s goal now is to reach the NFL. That plan perhaps is already in motion.

“We are extremely proud of him and of the choices he’s made,” Dougherty said. “ … Now it’s up to him to continue the work ethic and continue to go at it.”