EudoraNews.com

His luck couldn't get any worse as a player. As a freshman, incoming Eudora High assistant football coach Chris Walters played special teams for Garden City Community College.

Then his sophomore year he won a starting job, but only played two games before tearing an anterior cruciate ligament, which ended his season. The following year, after taking a medical redshirt to maintain college eligibility, he tore the same ACL on the last day of three-a-days.

Hopefully for the Cardinals, his luck has turned in the years that have passed since those days. Walters joins the Cardinals staff as the only current assistant to have held a head coaching job at the high school level. He'll coach quarterbacks and wide receivers.

"He's got experience that most people don't have. He understands that there's a lot that goes into it," Eudora head coach Gregg Webb said. "He's got a football background, so he can give input and suggestions and really understands the game.

"Being a head coach in a small school, or any school, you have to be pretty familiar and pretty comfortable with every position. He'll do a great job."

Walters coached at Meade High School for a year after finishing his teaching degree at Fort Hays State. He then took a head coaching job at Dighton High where he coached for three years. Subsequent jobs landed him at Goodland High School for two years, Ness City High - his hometown school - for five years and Canton-Galva High for one year. Of those three, he was head coach at all but Canton-Galva, where he was defensive coordinator.

"When I was at Ness City, and I really enjoyed it there, we combined with Dighton High School and it was just a little tougher. Every other week, we went to the other site (to practice) which was 30 miles away," Walters said. "So it was kind of a tough situation. And then we didn't do real well."

In Walters' final year at the helm at Ness City the team went 2-7, a mark not good enough for Walters.

"I always said if I wasn't getting it done I would step down and let somebody else give it a try."

After assisting at Canton-Galva, the opportunity to coach at Eudora sprung up and Walters leapt at the chance. He said the size - it's a 4A school like Goodland - and the thought of joining Webb's staff appealed to him.

While Webb and Walters were heading staffs of smaller schools, during Webb's time at Claflin High School, the two became acquaintances through exchanging game film and attending other events like coaching clinics.

"As far as saying that we knew each other well, I wouldn't say that but we knew who each other was," Walters said. "I've always admired his program and thought he did a tremendous job with the kids."

Also appealing to Walters is the enthusiasm that surrounds high school football in Eudora.

"I just wanted to be somewhere where football is important. You know it's a big deal, Friday night comes and the town is fired up about football.

"From who I've talked to, it's that way in Eudora. They have tremendous crowds and it's exciting and a fun atmosphere and I'm excited about that.

For Eudora, Walters joins the Cardinals in a crucial year for the quarterback position. Brynnen Webb and Matthew Abel, two players who held the position by committee a year ago, have graduated.

Now it's down to at least a three-man race with Drew Noble, Zach Bryan and Christian Richardson. Richardson emerged at camp as a possibility after playing mostly wide receiver in summer 7-on-7 league games.

Either way the race goes, Walters, in his first year, looks forward to working with a first-year signal caller and Webb thinks having him on staff will help with the inexperience at the quarterback position.

"In a year where that position is so important to us - and it's important every year - he can help with the transition and that pressure that whoever gets that job is going to take to the next level, which is the varsity level," Webb said. "It's more about demeanor and poise and handling the pressure that he might be able to help them.