‘Mainstays’ vital to Pioneer sideline stats

KINNIKINNICK — In the past three decades, Kevin Prickett and John Bennett have been two very familiar faces on the Zane Trace sideline.

Pioneer’s head coach Dwane Hall said that, not only does the duo have a noticeable impact on the players and the program, but they also make his job easier.

“They’ve been doing this for years. They call in the stats, put them up online,” Hall said. “It’s something I don’t have to worry about. ... We probably don’t notice it as much as we should.”

“You can always count on them,” said Allen Koker, Zane Trace athletic director. “Those two are the mainstays.”

Prickett started regularly taking stats for the Pioneers in 1984, the same year he started coaching for the junior high.

Though it’s not exactly tradition that the junior high coaches take varsity stats, Pricket said, the coaches before him did, so why not him too.

Having been a Pioneer himself, Prickett played football for four years there, and something about returning to the allure of the Friday night lights just seemed natural to him.

Friends gathered around the bench before the start of the game, recalled and laughed about a week that Prickett had a back injury, but they could not get him off the field until the game was over and the stats were in. Even then, they had to drag him away.

“It’s pretty cool. We have a lot of fun. I don’t know where else I’d be on a Friday night,” Prickett said.

Part of the “we” he is referring to is John Bennett, another junior high coach and statistician.

Bennett admits that his role on the Zane Trace field during his high school years was a bit different — he spent most of his time marching with the band — but he has a love for the game just the same.

Bennett has been helping Prickett track the numbers for about 25 years, and in that time, they’ve developed a communication system all their own.

“We’ve done it long enough it works. We’ve got hand signals. We’ve done it all,” Prickett said.

While keeping the stats and being there for the team is a plus, for Bennett and Prickett, one of the biggest rewards is seeing the players they have coached in junior high move up to the varsity level.

“They’re both longtime junior high coaches,” Koker said. “They get to know the kids at a young age and get to see them on the sidelines Friday night.”

In between jotting down yard lines and jersey numbers, Bennett and Prickett take time to look up and cheer on the Pioneers they have come to know so well.

“It’s what we tell the kids: The biggest thrill we get is coming here to watch them play,” Bennett said.