He's a hit

Kale Edwards’ eyes light up when the Coeur d’Alene High senior quarterback talks about what gets him excited on the football field.

It’s not what you might think.

It’s not about the touchdown passes, or the TD runs — though those are nice, and all.

“I love hitting people,” explains the 6-foot-5, 210-pound Edwards, who also starts at free safety for the Vikings. They are off to a 6-0 start after winning their 5A Inland Empire League opener last Friday at Lewiston.

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Growing up, Edwards said his favorite player was Earl Campbell, the bruising running back for the University of Texas and later the Houston Oilers. Another favorite player was Ronnie Lott, the hard-hitting cornerback/safety for the 49ers, who once had the tip of his finger cut off during a game so he could continue playing.

When Edwards played in the local “Fitz League” for third- and fourth-graders, he was too big for his age to play quarterback, so they made him play center.

Rather, he enjoyed playing center.

“I loved it, honestly,” he said.

When he was young, he wore Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots, and thought he was going to be a ranch hand or a bull rider when he grew up.

But once he passed the 5-8 mark years ago, he gave up on that dream.

“He’s been wired that way the whole time,” said his dad, Derek Edwards, who has been linebackers coach at Coeur d’Alene since the 2010 season. “He fits the quarterback mold, but he’s also really aggressive. He loves to hit guys.”

Coeur d’Alene coaches had to go back roughly two decades to find a Viking quarterback who also took meaningful snaps on defense.

“Bottom line is we need Kale on both sides of the ball,” Coeur d’Alene coach Shawn Amos said. “He brings a lot to our defense and he may end up playing on that side of the ball in college. I think you would prefer to play your QB just on offense, and we have been pretty blessed to be able to do that for the most part, but the goal is to put the team in the best position to win games and to do that Kale needs to play some defense also.”

AS A junior in 2017, Edwards was supposed to start the first few games at quarterback in place of returning starter Colson Yankoff, now a freshman QB at the University of Washington, who was recovering from a knee injury. But Edwards suffered a gruesome compound fracture of his left leg playing Hoopfest.

Edwards, who was also ticketed to start at safety last year, returned to action just in time for the playoffs, and saw action at linebacker — “because I was too slow for safety,” he said — in all three postseason games.

“The semifinal game (against Mountain View, in the Kibbie Dome) I got like eight tackles,” Edwards recalled. “It was fun to get back on the field.”

This year, Edwards has passed for 1,477 yards and 16 touchdowns with four interceptions — three in his first start, in the season opener at Rigby. He has not thrown a pick in the last four games. He has also rushed for 503 yards and 11 TDs.

So far, he has shown the elusiveness to avoid the rush and make big plays, as well as the power to gain the tough yards in short-yardage situations.

Amos noted Edwards is the fourth Viking quarterback in the past decade to receive a Division I scholarship offer, joining Chad Chalich (Idaho), Gunnar Amos (Idaho) and Yankoff.

“As a quarterback, Kale is a strong leader that brings a physical presence to the position,” said Ron Nelson, Coeur d’Alene’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. “He has blueprint size for the position, is very intelligent, throws the ball well, is deceptively elusive in space and can run with power and break tackles. He also basically had his junior year wiped out by injury so he takes nothing for granted.”

Edwards is in on most of Coeur d’Alene’s snaps on defense. In the Vikings’ convincing victory over then-No. 1 Highland of Pocatello on Sept. 21, he played free safety, strong safety, inside linebacker and both outside linebacker positions.

Last week in Lewiston, his sack of the Bengals’ quarterback on a safety blitz was a key play on the first of two goal-line stands by the Vikings in an eventual 49-13 triumph.

“One thing about him that a lot of people probably don’t recognize is how smart he is,” Derek Edwards said. “He understands the game really well. He’s a pretty easy kid to coach because you only have to tell him once, and he picks up on what’s going on.”

“He is certainly one of our most physical players on defense,” Amos said. “He also is very smart and helps others understand their responsibilities.”

Kale said his goal is to be on the field for the whole game — offense, defense, special teams, everything. As it is, he’s on the field for most of the game anyway.

He’s also on the “hands” team. Earlier this season, in a game at Roos Field in Cheney, he recovered an onside kick late in the game vs. Mead. He said he suffered a slight shoulder separation on his left (non-throwing) shoulder on the play, when a couple of players landed on his shoulder in the pile. But he said he was fine in a few days.

Edwards also is the backup long snapper, and said, “Hopefully nobody gets injured, but maybe they want to throw me in there.”

Nelson has been on the varsity staff at Coeur d’Alene for 23 years. He’s been offensive coordinator and QB coach for Amos for 14 of the 21-plus seasons he’s has the program — the first five years and the last nine years. In between, Nelson was defensive coordinator for seven seasons.

“When the defense is on the field I don’t watch,” Nelson said. “Not because I’m worried, but because I’m trying to get prepared for the next series. I put it out of my mind that our quarterback is out there making tackles. I believe it has been good for Kale and for me. We meet for a little bit about the last series, and then I say ‘go play defense.’ He doesn’t have the time to worry about or celebrate what might have happened on our last offensive series. It is what it is and we need him on both sides of the ball. Our staff is in agreement on that.”

So is Kale.

“I’ve got to be on defense … they know I have to take out my frustration every once in a while,” he said. “I think they just know that I love it so much, and they’re fine with getting me in there.”

DEREK EDWARDS played 8-man football at tiny Cambridge High, some 30 miles north of Weiser on U.S. 95. He went on to play at Whitworth, where he met his wife, the former Kim McFadden, who played on the Pirates’ basketball team.

After college, Derek was head coach at Fruitland for one season in the late 1990s, then defensive coordinator at Weiser for four seasons before Derek got a teaching job in Coeur d’Alene and the family moved north when Kale was 3. Derek was part of the Coeur d’Alene junior varsity coaching staff from 2003-09, before moving up to the varsity staff in 2010.

Kale’s older brother, Isaac, is a sophomore on the football team at NCAA Division III Chapman College in Orange, Calif.

Kale also plays basketball for the Vikings, and is considering turning out for the track and field or tennis team next spring.

Kale was a ballboy for the Vikings growing up, and has been around the program for as long as he can remember.

“It seems like yesterday that he and his brother Isaac were taking all our pads to build forts at practice,” Amos recalled.

Most of Kale’s free time is consumed by football, though he noted he enjoyed his time during the summer boating on the lake and getting ice cream at Roger’s with his girlfriend, Viking volleyball player Lauren Phillips.

BECAUSE OF his time lost last year due to injury, interest in Kale from colleges is still in its infancy. In recent weeks, he has received scholarship offers from Montana State-Northern in Havre, and most recently from the University of Idaho.

Edwards said the Vandals weren’t sure yet which side of the ball they wanted him to play. He said he might have his choice of positions at MSU-Northern.

He said he went to a camp at Washington State, and coaches were talking to him playing as a defensive end/rush linebacker mix.

A couple other Big Sky schools have also shown interest.

Does Edwards have a preference what position he plays?

“No,” he said. “I love both — scoring’s fun, and being the quarterback’s fun, being in command of everything that’s going on. But at the same time, playing defense and hitting people might be the greatest part of football.”