East football is on its best playoff run since 1983. Here’s how the program changed
Ordinarily when a football team wins a trophy, the coach hands it to the seniors and watches from the side as the players celebrate.
But Ene Akpan is no ordinary coach and East is no ordinary football team. Akpan has engineered one of the best turnarounds in City League history in his third season with the program, taking the Blue Aces from an afterthought in the City League to the Class 6A quarterfinals for the first time since 1983.
So when Akpan was handed a regional championship trophy following East’s 20-7 victory over Manhattan last Friday, he didn’t watch the celebration. He was in the middle of it, clutching East’s first football trophy in 37 years, screaming and jumping up and down with his players in unison.
This scene would have seemed ludicrous before Akpan, and even just three months ago when East thought its season was over before it began after the Wichita Public School’s Board of Education voted to cancel fall sports.
“This year started out with heartbreak because we knew we had a special year and a special group of kids,” Akpan said. “So this is such a good feeling for the kids who stuck through and worked hard all summer. Our guys had go through some adversity, but they pulled through every time. I’m really proud of the kids.
“Now we’ve got three more games to go.”
Here’s the story of how Akpan changed the culture of East’s football program, demanded excellence and now has a 7-1 team fully believing it can win a state championship entering Friday’s 6A quarterfinal matchup at Junction City (8-1).
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How Akpan changed the culture at East football
Akpan had never been a high school head coach before taking over at East in 2018, so there was no past examples of his vision for a program working. He knew his biggest challenge would be convincing East’s players his style would equate to wins.
What helped Akpan right away was his youth — it wasn’t long ago he was a standout football player at South — and his ability to connect to players. Being a former City League player himself, Akpan knew what it was like for his players and some of the challenges they face.
“We have a lot of single-parent homes, a lot of poverty and hardship,” Akpan said when he was hired. “So as coaches, we gotta be more like father figures, brotherly figures.”
What also helped was Akpan surrounding himself with a superb coaching staff, including the hiring of former East stars Bryce Brown as offensive coordinator and Chaq Reed as defensive line coach. Brown, a 2009 East graduate, is one of the best high school running backs in Kansas history and played four years in the NFL, while Reed, a 2010 East graduate, was a full-time starter on the defensive line for Kansas State in college.
Brown and Reed helped deliver back-to-back winning seasons at East in 2007 and 2008 and their football prowess commands respect from the current players.
“It’s been a special feeling for guys like me and Bryce who played here 10-plus years ago because we couldn’t get over the hump when we were here,” Reed said. “To be able to come back and help these kids get over the hump has been a wonderful feeling.”
Brown said he always knew East could have a great football team — it just needed the right leader. Akpan has proven to be a perfect fit.
“The thing is East has always had talent and we’ve always known that,” Brown said. “When I played here and when I came back as a coach, it’s nothing different. These guys just needed the right direction and the biggest thing was changing the culture. That’s the biggest thing for any coach. We changed how we practiced, how we won, how we lost.”
East’s players were hungry for success, but that didn’t change the facts: since its 1983 state championship team, East had produced just eight winning seasons in the past 36 years and won just 30% of its games before this season.
The past never mattered much to Akpan and his players instantly gravitated to him and his hubris. When he took over in 2018, he didn’t talk like a first-year coach of a struggling program. Akpan coached like he expected East to be a championship contender in his first season.
He was genuinely disappointed when East finished 3-6 in his first season, despite three wins being the average wins for the program the decade before.
“I think as humans, we’re impatient and I was very impatient,” Akpan said. “Everybody told me it would take time to build a program, but I wanted it right away. We’re in Year 3 now, but the guys are playing the way they should be playing now.”
Akpan is a demanding coach. Watching him on the sidelines during games, there’s a lot of yelling and screaming at his players. But he’s able to pull off being a tough coach during game days because of the rapport he has built with his players off the field.
“We coach these kids hard and we push those kids hard,” Akpan said. “Some days at practice it isn’t easy. I know some of the kids are like, ‘Man, Coach is tripping.’ But they stuck with it and they bought in and now it’s paying off.”
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A quarterfinal run is born with a stingy defense
Standing on the sidelines at Carpenter Stadium last Friday night in the midst of East’s 20-7 playoff win over Manhattan, athletic director Kevin Hartley remarked to principal Sara Richardson that “this is the nicest weather we’ve ever had playing football in November.”
Richardson quipped back, “Well, we haven’t been playing football in November.”
It was a good reminder of just how far East has come this season.
The two administrators said not only has the football team’s success excited the current students, but it has been an extreme point of pride to the schools’ alumni.
“We have heard from so many alumni who have reached out through email or on social media saying how excited they are to see the football team rise up again,” Richardson said. “Our kids are getting publicity in the City League they haven’t gotten before and they’re proud of themselves.”
“Obviously with COVID, we can’t have pep assemblies so we haven’t been able to share all of the excitement with the entire study body at the same time,” Hartley said. “But whenever an athletic team has success, they still feel that attachment and I know the kids and the alumni are excited about it.”
Like their championship teams in the early 80s, the Blue Aces have relied on a dominant defense. East’s defense has allowed 7.1 points per game in its 7-1 season and the first-string defense has only allowed 44 points in eight games. Northwest’s offense has averaged nearly 68 points in seven games against other competition. The same team that hung 75 points on East last season won 17-2 against East this season.
Defense has always been the biggest point of emphasis under Akpan, who was a defensive player himself.
“That’s the one thing on our team where there’s no excuses,” Akpan said. “If we lose the game 7-0, then it’s the defense’s fault. We pride ourselves on our defense.”
East senior defensive lineman Brendan Barley said despite the team’s success this season, he still doesn’t think East commands the type of respect they deserve for what they’ve accomplished this season. The players have used that as their motivation.
“We have a big chip on our shoulder,” Barley said. “Every week we hear about how we haven’t played anybody and how we’re over-hyped and overrated. We go out every week and we strive to show people different. That we really are everything you thought we are and more.”
That type of swagger that Akpan has helped install in East football again has been a selling point to athletes who may not have played football at East in the past. The best example of this is Daylan Jones, the East senior who was thought of more as a basketball player. But then he returned to the football field last season for the first time since seventh grade and now he’s garnering Division I interest in football as a wide receiver.
Now that East has its full complement of athletes on the football team, it’s better equipped to handle injuries like the season-ending one to freshman star quarterback Daeonte’ Mitchell on Oct. 16. At 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds, Jones was deemed East’s best option to replace him because he is the best athlete. Jones initially hated the idea, but he has blossomed in the last three weeks playing quarterback for the first time in his life during East’s playoff run.
Jones’ progression was on full display on a crucial fourth-down play in the final minutes against Manhattan when he dropped back, scanned the field and slung a touchdown pass to Caquoy Patterson for the game-clinching score to secure East’s best playoff run since 1983.
“Right now I’m falling in love with playing quarterback,” Jones said. “I like the challenge of trying to see the whole field and then being able to throw it to my teammates and hyping them up is amazing. I feel blessed to be in this position now.”
East will once again be looked at as the underdog this week when it travels to Junction City (8-1) to play a Blue Jays squad that just put up 70 points in their win last week.
That’s how East prefers it. The program has accepted its fate as the perpetual underdog and it’s embracing the role.
“I think people will begin to respect East High,” Bryce Brown said. “I don’t think anybody wants to see us right now. They know the talent that we have. If we come and play the game we’re supposed to play, I think we can play with anybody. It’s just about us coming and executing and playing our style.”
This story was originally published November 10, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
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