“If it was easy everyone would do it!”
Kevin Payne was six years old the first time Derby football gave him a job. He did not get a helmet. He got a water bucket.
That was the year his father and three other men started Derby Junior Football, and Payne was a year too young to play. So he did the next best thing: he tagged along with his brother's team, hauled water, and waited. Friday nights the family sat in the stands at the varsity games, and by the early 1970s the boy with the bucket had already made up his mind about what he wanted to be.
"Being a Panther football player was something very special," he says of those nights, "and I knew I wanted to do that."
Two Sophomores
He got there faster than most. As a sophomore, Payne was one of only two varsity lettermen on a Derby team good enough to reach the state playoffs — and he earned it the way sophomores earn it, on special teams. He led the club in special-team tackles that fall and took real snaps on a real contender.
His junior season the team was, by his own honest accounting, average. Payne was not. He started at running back and finished as the second-leading rusher.
By his senior year he barely left the field: starter on offense, starter on defense, and every special team. He led Derby in kickoff returns and return yardage and finished as the team's leading rusher. The record — 4-5, no playoffs — still sits with him nearly fifty years later. Ask him about that season and he will tell you the number before he tells you the numbers.
When the Playing Stopped
College was supposed to be the next chapter. There was a stop at Butler and a stop at Friends University, and then injuries closed the book earlier than anybody had planned.
Plenty of players disappear at that point. Payne went home and went to work on the program his father helped build.
He coached in Derby Junior Football. He served on the board. He served as president. Add it up and it runs past twenty years — two decades of practice plans, parent meetings, equipment nights, and Saturday mornings.
Dirt to Grass
His contribution did not stop at the whistle. Through his business, Payne donated time, labor, and equipment to renovate practice facilities around Derby — and then took on the varsity field itself, converting it from dirt to lush playing grass before one season.
"Yes," he notes, "we used to play on real grass."
He coached middle school football for four seasons and is proud to point out that several of the young men he coached went on to win state championships. Over more than thirty years he has trained past and present Panthers, and he has never really stopped. Somewhere along the way he picked up a microphone: he and his broadcast partner are entering their 25th season as the radio voices of Derby Panther Football.
The Tunnel, and What Came After
Asked for his best memory as a player, Payne goes straight to the tunnel — running out of it on a Friday night and understanding, in real time, that the thing he had dreamed about as a waterboy had actually happened. He played beside childhood friends, and those men still argue about games from half a century ago.
But he will tell you the playing memories are not the top of the list.
"The thrill of watching young men I have coached and trained with play on Friday nights surpasses anything I have accomplished myself," he says. That includes two of his own: Kelly, a Panther from the class of 2003, and Ryne, class of 2010.
Life After 44 Years
Payne recently retired after 44 years of owning Tender Care Lawn and Landscape. The business is in good hands — his son Ryne and a longtime former employee run it now — and he still offers advice and checks in regularly.
He and his wife Cindy celebrate 45 years of marriage this year. There are five grandkids, all playing something, and the Paynes are in the stands for most of it. He still coaches a little, still trains, and still calls the games.
"Looking forward to many more years supporting Derby Panther Football," he says.
What the Game Taught Him
The lessons, Payne argues, are usually the ones you do not notice you are learning: how to be a team player. How to give everything you have for somebody other than yourself. The difference between confidence and being overly confident.
"Just like in football — being prepared for a job, an assignment, working hard and having good character will take you a long way," he says. "At the end of the day football is a game that, while teaching valuable life lessons, should more importantly teach you how to be a good human being. I feel good that in Derby we teach this."
"Hard work pays off. Be proud of wearing and representing your school. And always remember where you came from. Being a Panther is about more than just wearing the uniform."