My Friend Larry

NFLRaidersLarry Kennan
Written By Dave Sellers

Recently I had the pleasure of sitting down with my friend Larry Kennan to talk about football.

Larry Kennan currently resides in a large suburb of Indianapolis. When I first met Larry he was wearing a 1984 Raiders Superbowl windbreaker. Being a curious football fan I wanted to ask him about the jacket but decided not to bother Larry.

After crossing paths with him a few more times, I had to ask. The jacket looked authentic, possibly from the 80s, and Larry looked good for his age but you could tell he was let’s say seasoned.

With all of that in mind, I struck up a conversation about the jacket, before I knew he was showing me his massive Superbowl Ring that he proudly wears on his right hand. I don’t know why I never noticed it but a friendship was born that day.

As time went on I started getting more and more curious about Larry’s past. I would ask him about his coaching stops, the players he worked with, and the coaches that hired Larry. I finally decided I wanted to document everything and to pick the brain of a man whoe has seen the game of football grow so much.

Resume

Larry Kennan has coached at every level from high school to the pros. He has held various jobs to include position coach, coordinator, and head coach. Here are some of the highlights.

  • Graduate assistant at the University of Colorado

  • Offensive coordinator at UNLV and SMU

  • Head coach at Lamar and Incarnate Word

  • Head coach of the London Monchars

  • Coached for the Raiders, Broncos, Colts, Seahawks and Saints

Over his 51 years in coaching, he worked with talented quarterbacks.

  • Drew Bledsoe

  • Jeff Hostetler

  • Jeff George

  • Jim Plunkett

Larry later in his career worked with draft prospects including:

  • Alex Smith

  • Eli Manning

  • Byron Leftwhich

  • Drew Brees

  • Chad Pennington

  • Tim Couch

It’s safe to say Larry knows Football and has been around some of the most talented quarterbacks in the game's history.

DS: You worked with some interesting personalities like Pete Carroll and Al Davis. Any insights or stories you would like to share?

LK: Al Davis was a difficult guy to deal with because he never exactly “talked” to you, he more yelled and sometimes threw in some colorful language but what he did was spend all his time finding good players.

I still have a relationship with the Raider organization. I’ve been rereading Al’s book and it brought up some memories so I reached out to his long-time secretary Cheryl Nichols to catch up.

Pete hired me as an offensive coordinator in New England in 1997. That was a great team with Drew Bledsoe, Curtis Martin, Terry Glenn, and Ben Coates. But unfortunately due to injuries, we couldn’t get past Pittsburgh in the first round.

It was a great experience but ownership wanted to make changes after year one and I was not in those plans, even tho Bledsoe posted a career-high in TD passes and QBR that season.

DS: You worked with talented quarterbacks either as a coach or as part of their prep work for the draft. What does a QB need to be successful in the league?

LK: For starters, they need the physical ability to play the position combined with having talent around them topped off with great coaching.

Coaching is the real key, when QBs struggle, the coaching staff has to be supportive to allow the player not to lose their confidence.

Great example Tim Couch. Couch should have been a great QB but he went to bad teams with zero help and it never worked out.

Another example is Ryan Leaf. I worked Leaf out for the draft and thought he should have been drafted over Peyton Manning. He had all the ability in the world but went to a bad team and things fell apart.

DS: To someone going into coaching, any advice on how to connect with players?

LK: We all want to be heard. For example, when I was working with Bledsoe, he asked me “What will happen if I throw an interception.” I told him if you can explain why you made that throw, we can work with that. That was a relief for Bledsoe after having to get yelled at prior year by Bill Parcells.

You have to be willing to compromise. For example, Jeff George, when I was hired in Indianapolis. George undoubtedly had the ability but came with a poor reputation.

I told George he needed to come in on Mondays to look at film, which is normally an off day. George told me no, so instead of being a hot-headed demanding coach, I told him if he came in three hours early on Tuesdays to watch film that would work. George agreed and we both got what we wanted.

Ego is necessary to work with players but you have to keep it under control. I will never claim to know everything but if you asked me if I was a great QB coach, the answer was yes.

DS: Let’s do a hypothetical, build your perfect QB.

LK: The perfect QB would have:

-Tony Romo’s arm. During his workout for the drafts, I could tell he was going to be special.

-Drew Bree’s brains. Brees should have been the number one pick the year he came out but he was five inches too short.

-Byron Leftwhich’s toughness/leadership skills. Leftwich just had that “Stuff”.

-John Elway’s ability to run. When I was with the Raiders we tried to trade for Elway but it never worked out.

I want to thank Larry for his time and willingness to share his past experiences in football.

Dave Sellers