Kennedy Manyika '16 Recruiting Profile

I have been playing football since 8th grade.  My goal is to play Division 1 Football in college.   Apart from my love for the game, I believe football is a great sport to foster personal discipline and develop leadership skills.  I also believe it can be a great platform to make a difference in the world.   I want to attend a school that will prepare me to be a leader during and beyond my collegiate football career.   I would like to improve my communication, organizational and personal leadership skills. I can see myself leading organizations that make a difference in people’s lives, broadcasting, coaching and mentoring.   I would also like to attend a school where I can develop my musical gift.   
I am committed to personal excellence, discipline and leadership on and off the field.   I have been on the A/B Honor Roll since 8th grade and have served on the student government and as class chaplain for the past 3 years.   I am currently in charge of the high school praise and worship team and lead devotions each Wednesday morning for 7th grade boys.   I also lead praise and worship at my church where I am a lead singer and drummer.
In 2009, I was chosen by the Coalition to end Child Homelessness in Charlotte to welcome 11 year-old Zach Bonner, founder of The Little Red Wagon Foundation and Presidential Service Award winner who was walking across the United States to raise funding and awareness for homeless children.   In 2011, I received the Charlotte Christian School Knights Gold Award for Service, and in 2012 the Timothy Award for Service above Self.  I also won the Character Award in Track and Field for showing the most character and leadership potential in 2012 and 2013.
I have been a camp counselor for Seek the City for four years.  Seek the City runs sports camps for at-risk students, in addition to working in homeless shelters, nursing homes, and completing work projects for senior citizens in the community.   At 15 I was personally recruited by Coach Dan McGovern, the founder of Yes I Can Basketball (www.yesicanbasketball.com), the Charlotte area's premier youth basketball program, to be a coach, camp counselor and referee. Coach Mac who spent 19 years as a head basketball coach has over 300 wins as a head college basketball coach and was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame at Barton County Community College.
At the beginning of 2014, I was unanimously selected by the entire high school staff to represent Charlotte Christian School at the HOBY leadership conference in June.   The HOBY organization was founded in 1958 to provide students with the most potential for leadership with an opportunity to participate in unique leadership training, service-learning and motivation-building experiences (www.hoby.org)  
I have had the opportunity to travel to Zimbabwe on missions twice where we have served poor children through the Shoes of Hope program in partnership with Samaritan’s Feet (www.samaritansfeet.org)   In addition to helping distribute thousands of shoes to underprivileged children from impoverished schools in the country, I had the opportunity to meet the Vice President of the country, Dr. John Nkomo and the former Prime Minister, Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai as part of a delegation that was facilitating reconciliation in my parents’ country of birth.
I attended the Michigan Football camp at the age of 14 and was mentioned in an article in maizeandblue.com as a defensive player and 2016 prospect worth watching.  (http://www.maizeandbluenews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1039:wednesday-summer-camp-observations&catid=21:recruiting&Itemid=96)   During the same year, I attended the Dabo Swinney Summer Football Camp at Clemson University where I was pulled up to go against senior offensive linemen.   My personal and defensive line coach in the past two years has been 6-time Pro Bowler & 2-time First-Team All-Pro Michael Dean Perry who played in the NFL for ten seasons and set the school record for sacks at Clemson with 28 during his time there.  I am also coached (football, wrestling and track and field) by former safety and Super Bowl XXXI champion Eugene Robinson who played 16 years in the NFL.
I am as determined to win as I am to make others better and to make a difference.    I will therefore learn from my coaches and teammates, play to the best of my abilities and talents, and share my gift with others.   It is my goal to finish my high school football career not only with great stats for my position, but without ever having been suspended from the team.