I grew up in a small town on the banks of Florida’s Meadow Wood River, a place where the air was so thick and damp with humidity it sweated mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds. A place where cats lay on the sidewalks and little kids perpetually had the garden hose tilted to their mouths.
Redcrest, Florida, had a population of about 1,300, and if you didn’t know everybody personally, somebody you knew somebody else—until we all knew each other. And it was a town where everyone seemed to love football, even though during the late 1970s, our team—the Redcrest Tigers—was the laughingstock of Central Florida’s football programs.
We were one of the smallest schools in the state classification, and we boys didn’t bring much hope. Still, our fans showed up. We routinely faced teams twice our size, and with far more talent. We were humiliated and slaughtered almost every Friday night and seemed to be everyone’s homecoming opponent —and rightfully so. We were outscored by nearly 1,200 points over five years and barely won six games. We knew we were a disappointment to so many people, including ourselves. Redcrest was the kind of town that never made headlines—yet the community remained hungry for a competitive team, even if it seemed impossible.
Then, in 1982, Coach Kevin Collins took over our fledgling high school program, and it was clear right from the start that he would do things his way. We were a small group of White and Black players who didn’t believe in each other—or ourselves. But that was about to change. In a town where racial tensions simmered just beneath the surface, football became the unlikely bridge.
Down, Set, Win! is a coming-of-age story about two teenage best friends, Kirk and Scott. They are obsessed with girls and football. Led by a coach we feared, respected, and grew to love, he changed our lives for the better—and the impossible became possible. It’s a tale of grit, determination, and heart as a small-town group of boys banded together to become winners in more ways than one.
To a teenage boy, Coach Collins was mean, but he pushed us to find our limits—and then push past them. Football practices were brutal, more brutal than our actual games. It felt at times like our flesh was being ripped from our bones. Every practice, when we thought we were done, Coach put us through at least another thirty minutes of conditioning, including the infamous 40 40-yard sprints—where death felt just a hair’s breadth away.
Exhausted, bruised, and battered players began questioning if playing football for Redcrest High School was worth the price that had to be paid. It didn’t take long before players decided they had better things to do than get beat on and yelled at, and they started quitting one by one. By the fall season, the team had dwindled from fifty-five players in the spring to twenty-two, and those of us who remained endured Coach’s punishment day after day in the unrelenting Florida heat.
Coach Collins knew that by putting us through the gauntlet, he had players he could depend on. He had instilled a level of discipline none of us knew we had. Coach convinced us that when we went into a game, there was nothing else to do but win. As we chased perfection, we found excellence.
Through sports, romance, rejection, and the unbreakable bonds of friendship, we gained self-respect, confidence, and pride in our roots.
While the story that follows is fictional, it’s deeply rooted in real experiences, emotions, and memories from my teenage years.
Down, Set, Win! honors the grit of small-town football, the discipline instilled by a tough coach we grew to revere and the lasting friendships that defined our journey into manhood. I hope you’ll laugh, remember, and maybe even ache a little as you step onto the field with us under the Friday night lights.
Get ready to enjoy one of the most compelling sports stories you will ever read.
Dr. Kirk Eriksen