10/22/2004 - Football
Vaughn Kelley: Proving His Doubters Wrong

Being the first day of this particular English class, in the very infancy of his college experience, he was asked to stand before the other students, state his name and describe himself.

Just a year earlier he sat nearby, looking on from the stands of Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium with his fellow prep-school recruits.

Back then his eyes were fixed on a home team struggling through a loss to Temple, while his mind wandered into the realm of what ifs.

What if the coaches were to suddenly turn to the crowd and call him out? What if he was on the field instead, helping to rescue victory from defeat?

This, however, was a moment for neither what nor if.

It was a time to talk about when. So he rose to his feet, but a wiry-thin plebe, and introduced his big, fat intention.

"Hi, my name is Vaughn Kelley," he said. "And before I graduate, Navy will go to a bowl game."

Rather bold thinking, or so the amused professor thought. Especially for a kid small by his sport's standards, a seemingly na?ve newcomer to a team accustomed only to losing.

"Well, why don't you win a ball game first," cracked the teacher, a smirk on his face, his words inducing laughter throughout the room.

To LeVaughn Kelley Jr., though, it was no joking matter. Never was and never will be.

As with any other dream, he wasn't going to give in to the sarcasm of a skeptic. Besides, long before arriving in Annapolis, he'd already developed a knack for dispelling the doubts of others.

Kelley was a mere 120 pounds when he entered Ft. Lauderdale's St. Thomas Aquinas, where coach George Smith had built the Raiders into one of the elite programs in South Florida - perhaps the nation's most fertile territory for high school football talent.

"I've always been a little person, always had to prove myself," says Kelley, who grew to a sinewy 6-foot-1, 180 pounds. "Everyone always said I was too small to do this, too small to do that."

Obviously, there was no way for "everyone" to see the size of his heart. It was big enough and strong enough to help Kelley contribute to two state championships in a three-year span.

And for a cornerback with collegiate aspirations, there was no better training ground than the Raiders' practice field, where he had to keep up with receivers like Tony Brown and Jomo Fagan.

But while they were both bound for Tennessee and the Southeastern Conference, Kelley was being either overlooked or undervalued by Division I-A programs. Except for one.

He was planning to attend tiny Rhodes College in Tennessee when Kelley first heard from Navy.

At the time, the button-down life of an officer in training might have seemed illogical for a kid sporting an Afro. When he wasn't wearing his hair in braids.

"A lot of people back home probably never saw me conforming to the military lifestyle," Kelley says. "But perception isn't always reality."

The reality of his situation - and the very real possibility of a future at Navy - became apparent with the help of a friend and mentor.

Wayne Blair had preceded Kelley at St. Thomas Aquinas, his ability at linebacker good enough to earn a scholarship at Tulane and employment in the Canadian Football League. He was also a coach of sorts and an offseason workout partner.

With the prodding of Blair, as well as family members, Kelley scheduled a visit to Annapolis in February of his senior year.

"Everything was white," he remembers of a winter scene starkly contrasting the beach sand close to home in South Florida. "I had seen snow come down. (But) that was the first time I saw it (accumulate) on the ground."

Instead of turning a cold shoulder, Kelley decided to embrace the opportunity.

"I could see myself being here," Vaughn says, having figured that he could always do what the natives did when the mercury fell - stay inside. "Before you know it (I was) at the prep school."

After withstanding winter in Rhode Island, it was on to Annapolis and the heat of plebe summer. The words of his mother, Doris Stephens, still resonate from the day she dropped off the youngest of her four children for his Academy indoctrination.

"She said, 'You did prep school. It's just one more year,'" Kelley says of the advice he received as a freshman. "'Just keep going.'"

Early on, it wasn't easy. Still, he persisted - through encouragement over the phone and inspiration by way of e-mail.

"(My mother) would send Bible verses over e-mail to keep encouraging me," Vaughn says. "She kept (me) in prayer."

While Doris' long-distance assurances helped diminish the drudgery of plebe life, her physical absence left a void in Kelley's athletic career.

"I had to get a whole new motivation for playing," he says. "When I got here, I'd look up in the stands and see a bunch of faces. On the field, when I looked in the stands, I (wasn't) seeing anyone I knew who was watching me play."

Since playing youth football for his father, a 22-year veteran of the Air Force, Vaughn had always been able to spy family members when scanning the bleachers.

Without such support, he tapped into an alternative source of fuel, dedicating himself to his craft on the corner.

By sophomore year, Kelley was a regular in Navy's secondary. Again discrediting the doubts of others.

"It verifies for myself that I can play up to the level other schools didn't recruit me at," Vaughn says of his status as a three-year starter for the Mids. "For those who looked past me, here I am."

And here he's been, starting 30 of Navy's last 31 games entering Saturday's meeting with Rice.

So slight of frame, Kelley's durability is more remarkable considering the demands he's imposed on himself beyond his role as defensive back.

"Some people don't realize how many snaps (Vaughn) plays, because he never comes off the field," says defensive coordinator Buddy Green, emphasizing Kelley's many contributions on special teams. "You name all the plays he's actually played over the last three years, since we've been here, and you'd be amazed."

What also impresses Green is Kelley's commitment to being a student of the game.

"He works hard every day, tries to get better, studies tape and, knock on wood, he's been here able to play every ballgame," Green says.

"You can only see what you prepare to see," Kelley says of his devotion to film study, which opens his eyes to opponents' tendencies. "If you don't study film you'll get lost in coverage."

Finding his way with a remote in hand, Kelley catches up on his tape work whenever time allows. Usually, that means during lunch hour. Often, it requires extra schoolwork early to accord a few minutes of game prep much later.

It's been a matter of routine since he first hooked up with Shalimar Brazier, once the opposite corner of the Mids' defense. No longer study partners, they remain in close contact.

"I talk to him all the time," Kelley says of Brazier, a 2004 graduate now assigned to the prep school in Newport. "He just kept me going. We were able to feed off each other."

And push each other with a friendly competition during practice.

Brazier and Kelley would vie to produce more interceptions or, at least, break up more passes. Being on the short end resulted in plenty of push-ups or, sometimes, the more grueling up-downs.

They also exchanged ideas or explained coverages to one another. Just as Kelley tries to do with younger teammates of the present, like sophomore Hunter Reddick.

"(Vaughn's) helped me a lot, especially during the summer with the mental part," Reddick says. "We help each other, always talking about defenses. He's like my mentor."

And, it's no stretch to suggest, a role model too.

"He's very consistent and a great player," Reddick adds. "Just being reliable, that's what I want to be as well."

To become all of that and more, Kelley first had to believe in his own abilities. Conviction is a requisite when playing cornerback, where one truly becomes an island unto himself.

"I've always said that you have to have ice water in your veins to play corner," explains Green. "Corner is isolated week after week with speed, with (receivers) who can run and quarterbacks who can throw. Whether you're playing man (coverage) or zone, it doesn't make any difference, he's still isolated out there, one on one."

"If a (defensive back) messes up, everybody in the stands knows it," says Kelley. "You want to get your confidence level to the point where you (believe) you can cover anybody out there. You can't be afraid to fail."

"There's going to be some good plays and some bad plays," says Green. " You have to get over them and go to the next play. You can't let (a bad play) eat at you and carry over to the next play. If you do, you're not going to be any good."

Which means you better have a short memory.

Even if some things time won't erase.

Like the doubts you were driven to dispel. Or the person who'd scoffed at your notion of a postseason appearance someday soon.

Vaughn Kelley certainly didn't forgot. Not last December anyway, when he encountered a certain someone passing through the Academy's Dahlgren Hall.

The old professor was likely on his way to or from lunch.

Meanwhile, his former pupil was heading to the Houston Bowl.