Yeast encourages community to support KWC football, hire players after graduation

March 8, 2019 | 3:01 am

Updated March 7, 2019 | 10:40 pm

The March Rooster Booster breakfast hosted by the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce brought a full house to the Owensboro Convention Center. | Photo by Jamie Alexander

The March Rooster Booster breakfast hosted by the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce brought a full house to the Owensboro Convention Center. Sponsored this month by German American Bank, the breakfast aims to connect the Owensboro business community and provide a guest speaker. Addressing the crowd Thursday morning was Craig Yeast, head football coach at Kentucky Wesleyan College.

Yeast was named the coach on Dec. 3, 2018. He is a former National Football League (NFL) player and All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) wide receiver at the University of Kentucky and will serve as the program’s 17th head coach in 58 seasons of program history (1907-30/1983-present).

Yeast told the crowd that he has been able to sign one of the biggest classes in the last 10 or 15 years at the college, with 45 men set to play KWC football in the fall. Yeast has focused recruitment efforts locally, hoping that upon graduation those men will remain in Owensboro.

“Our goal at Wesleyan on the football team is to build a young man who is strong academically and understands what it means to work,” Yeast told the crowd. “We want our players to be so developed and the community so ingrained in their success so when they walk across that stage, you are there, ready to shake their hand and offer them a job.”

With the team in place, Yeast asked the community for buy-in, lightheartedly telling the crowd he expected to see them at a KWC football game next season.

Giving the room a taste of his coaching strategy, Yeast compared building his team to building a business, similar to those he was speaking to in the room of Owensboro professionals. He offered his self-coined “Seven Fs of Success” that he uses to lead his team through the week — faith, fundamentals, going fast, fight, finish, family and fun.

“It’s a cycle,” Yeast said. “Seven days to be successful. Seven days to make your life better that it was the day before.”

March 8, 2019 | 3:01 am

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