Dream team, dream job: St. Henry begins first varsity season

Tim Odom remembers the conversation as if it was yesterday.

St. Henry begins its inaugural varsity football season Aug. 22 against Holy Cross with Odom on the sidelines. Leading the Crusaders is Odom’s dream coaching job – as he told his brother, the late Steve Odom, some 35 years ago, when he was defensive coordinator at Dixie Heights.

“And you know, I think he thought I’d say something like, well, being the head coach of Moeller, where I played in high school or Ohio State (where Tim played in college) or something like that,” Odom said. “And I said, ‘Man, I’m telling you, if St. Henry ever got a football program. I would want to be that guy.’”

St. Henry opened in 1933. The Crusaders are the newest of 22 Northern Kentucky football-playing teams. (Covington Latin, Heritage Academy, Calvary Christian and Villa Madonna do not offer football.)

‘Kind of drawn’

Odom said folks have wanted football for decades, but being the first football coach wasn’t the whole reason he wanted to come to 3755 Scheben Drive in Erlanger.

“I just always admired the school, admired its culture,” Odom said. “
I played baseball in the summertime with a lot of St. Henry guys on Knothole teams. And I was kind of drawn to them. If St. Henry would’ve had football when I was looking for a high school to go to (Odom is a 1982 Moeller graduate), I never would have went to Moeller.”

St. Henry is playing varsity football a season early – it wasn’t supposed to start until 2026, but Odom said taking advantage of the new Class 2A, District 5 alignment, which includes Beechwood, Bracken County, Gallatin County, Owen County and Walton-Verona, necessitated the change.

“The community kind of just came together … almost like providentially, you know?” Odom said. “So they had the field built and the goal post put up and all that even before they started looking for a coach.”

Creative naming

If there’s a word of the day, week, month or year, Odom might choose “creative” because it’s his philosophy. Starting with how he names positions.

“We don’t use, Z or Y or X or flanker or tight end … because we’re Crusaders,” Odom said. “We call them by Crusader weapons. You know, we got Spear and Ax and Hammer and Dagger. We’re just being unconventional and having a lot of fun with it.”

St. Henry compiled a 5-10 record in freshman and junior varsity games.

One of the first lessons legendary UCLA men’s basketball coach John Wooden taught was to put on socks without wrinkles that could cause blisters; Odom likewise learned to remember the small details and not assume anything.

“We had kids that had never been in a huddle, didn’t know what that meant,” Odom said. “You know, we had kids that had never put on a helmet. We had to make sure we showed them how the helmet goes on. My biggest lesson is that when you’re coming into something that’s really brand new, you’ve got to listen really hard and be attentive to what they don’t know and what they think you’re saying versus what you are saying.”

St. Henry brings some size, starting with 6-foot-4, 230-pound senior receiver/cornerback Caden Kunstek, who missed most of last season with a shoulder injury and had surgery on the other shoulder after a pickup basketball game in April.

“Caden is unlike any player I’ve ever coached,” Odom said. “His athletic potential is high, but it’s his integrity, leadership, and charitable heart that make him one of a kind. I’ll be fortunate to coach another like him in my lifetime.”

Senior Brennan Lemmond (6-4, 200) is another receiver and cornerback; Odom said he’ll miss the first four games with an injury.

Another senior, Gabe Larkins (6-1, 270) anchors the offensive and defensive lines. What you don’t automatically notice: he was born with a twisted left foot that forces him to walk on the side of his sole and ankle.

Larkins, who injured his shoulder, is waiting for a custom shoe that will prevent him from running on his ankle; he’s not self-conscious about his foot – or anything else.

“I want to say I’m anxious,” he said about Aug. 22. “I have faith in my team and my coaches and the program, but we’ve got to come to play. We’ve got to work hard, we’ve got to work 110%. It’s on us to show up and perform. And, you know, I’m excited.”

Leadership on, off field

Odom said senior Gunnar Ditrick missed most of last season after surgery on his left elbow and is now recovering from stress fractures in his left tibia and fibula.

“It does suck being on the sidelines, but as one of the team captains, you know, just because you’re not on the field doesn’t mean you can’t have leadership off of it,” Ditrick said.

Odom called senior receiver/linebacker Will Miller his best defensive player. “Will is our enforcer – aggressive, instinctive, and all-in on every snap,” he said. “Football has been his proving ground, and he’s flourished in it.”

Maybe what Odom likes most is his team humbly yet confidently walking like football players with “a stride that’s powerful without even knowing it.”

“We’re hoping in that regard,” Odom said, “we’ve gotten away from all the fear – the fear of the game, the fear of failure.”

Kunstek, meanwhile, thinks about future Crusaders.

“A successful season would be, overall, laying the groundwork for the future teams to come,” Kunstek said. “But also, for us, for our team specifically, I would say definitely if we were able to make playoffs, that would be a huge step and definitely something we can all look back on and say we did well and we worked hard – and it paid off.”