MIDDLETOWN >> Kurtis Woodard took it upon himself to teach running backs what their parents should have taught them: Stay out of alleys.
Otherwise they are apt to run into a ferocious defensive back such as Woodard, who was recently honored as a protector of football alleyways with his election to the Hall of Fame at Mendocino College.
It was a high point in Woodard’s ascension from All-County, All-League and All-Redwood Empire defensive back at Middletown in 1999 to leader of the No. 1 pass defense for Bemidji State University (Minnesota) in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. But there have been a lot of high points for Woodard after 19 years in football. No need to get out the spectacles. You read it right, 19.
Beginning with fourth grade, Kurtis suited up for Middletown teams beginning with Pop Warner football up to the Mustangs, for whom he now coaches. After graduating from Middletown in 2000, he moved on to Mendocino College in Ukiah, Bemidji State University in Bemidji, Minnesota, and then the North Bay Rattlers semi-pro team from which he may retire this year. If he does retire the Rattlers will be bidding adieu to a DB who played every down on defense from 1999 to 2014.
He says he will not pursue a head coaching job, one for which he seems perfectly suited. One reason: There simply aren’t enough hours in a day to work his other two jobs — at a family-owned garage door company and a solar paneling company, and as a father of two.
“My work schedule is way too busy for my wife and family to be a head coach,” he said. “My passion for Middletown still exists,” he added. “If I wasn’t at Middletown I would not make time to practice five days a week (as an assistant coach).”
Woodard’s tough reputation on defense was built on making running backs who venture into the secondary view the game through their helmet’s earhole.
“One of my strengths was hitting the alleys on defense,” he says. “I got burned on occasion. But that’s what happens when you play aggressive defense.”
“When a running back had to bounce to the outside I would hit the alleys aggressively. I just went to tackle. I’d shoot for their legs. They can’t run without their thighs.”
Woodard’s high school football coach, Bill Foltmer, had a sideline view of this up-and-coming talent way back in the late 1990s.
“This guy took it to the next level. Make your hit. Make your presence be known and that’s what I got with Kurtis. He was a good athlete and a good competitor and there was a little bit of orneriness in him, Foltmer said.”
And toughness.
At Mendocino College, Woodard was credited with 112 tackles in 2000 and 105 in 2001. He was team captain and a first-team All Bay Valley League defensive back and punter. At Bemidji State, he headed a defense that was best in its conference with 145 tackles during a two-year span.
“When I got my bell rung I kind of laughed about it,” Woodard said. “I don’t know if I ever had a concussion. I never had a doctor tell me I did.
“But,” he added. “I’ve had plenty of pinched nerves. Pinched nerves are the worst.”
Woodard didn’t begin to play in the Middletown High defense until his junior year. And then he played so forcefully and was so menacing that people actually forgot that he came up to the Mustang varsity as a starting quarterback, which is almost a conflict in terms.
He couldn’t play at quarterback for the first four games of his junior year because of the only injury he ever experienced in football (elbow).
“So I played the wingback and running back,” he said.
That his grandfather was a prize fighter may be part of the reason Woodard deals in punishing his opponents.
Foltmer, who carries a roster of his favorite proteges in his heart the way some people carry a pacemaker, took Woodard’s Hall of Fame induction as a way to verbalize his style of play in the late ’90s and early 2000s when Middletown not only won league championships, but three section titles (1997,1999, 2001).
“He was a leader,” Foltmer told the audience of Woodward, a key figure on the Mustangs’ 1999 section championship club.
“We were preparing for a championship game against a team (Kelseyville) that had beaten us early in the season and we were working on our kickoff team. I told Kurtis to kick away from number 34, their star player. And Kurtis said, ‘No, no, coach. We want to kick to him so we can kick his ass.’”
And so indeed, the Mustangs kicked to No. 34 and, as Foltmer describes it, “ran down the field like their asses were on fire and kicked his ass.” Foltmer cites that incident as the reason Middletown won the game.
The team finished 10-2-1 with a sectional championship, that after a 3-6 season in 1998. The difference, both Foltmer and Woodard say, was camaraderie.
“Kurtis Woodard is synonymous with passion,” said Bemidji State defensive coordinator. Rich Jahner. “That’s how he played the game. His enthusiasm for football was almost as contagious as his smile. He was a major contributor to the success of our team and served as a positive ambassador of Beaver football.”
A smile is not what you’d get from Kurtis Woodard during a game; something closer to a snarl is what you might expect.
“To play defense you have to have an attitude and you have to play angry if you’re going to be successful,” Woodard says. His attitude, he says, is, “They can’t progress the ball. There’s that whole theory of bend, don’t break.
“As far as being tough I think everybody thinks they’re tough until they play against other tough guys,” he says. “I am aggressive, but I am not a monster.”
Some of Woodard’s tenacity may have vanished a year and a half ago with his marriage to Valora, a former gymnast and cheerleader at Marina Villa College. They have two infant daughters.
Much as calling plays on offense, Woodard is no less a quarterback of the defense. Defining the two roles he finds it easy to talk about defense, but not so readily about offense.
“I take my experience from being quarterback and being cerebral on what they may be doing on offense from watching film,” he said. “I’m a student of the game.”
He learned that defense is a matter of “balls to the wall,” and offense is a matter of study.
“Defensively, I learned a lot in high school and college from tendencies of different coaches and different experiences. Opposing coaches want to run on first down to keep momentum going with second and short yardage or whatever the case may be. But if I can speed up and make the quarterback throw the ball deep, chances are we can get a turnover on second down.
Foltmer recalled Woodard’s senior year at Middletown.
“He was our captain, quarterback, safety, kicker, punter, kick returner,” Foltmer said. “He never left the field. Poor guy did everything but announce the game.”
