A mother's love and play by play keeps son connected to football

Mark Kidd and Peyton Manning

The most heartfelt play-by-play call in Kentucky football this fall will not come from Tom Leach on Kentucky games, nor from Paul Rogers on Louisville contests, nor from any of the small army of radio broadcasters who fill the airwaves on Friday nights with descriptions of local high schools' exploits.

Instead, it will come from a 42-year-old Rowan County, Kentucky mom who admits, "I don't know that much about football."

On some Friday nights, that does not stop Melissa "Missy" Kidd from taking up a position behind the home team bench near midfield at Rowan County's Coach Paul Ousley Stadium. She is there to deliver a real-time description of that night's high school game to an audience of one.

"No, no, no, no, Mark, the Panthers just scored another touchdown. Oh, no!"

Almost since Mark Kidd was old enough to speak, he has had a passion for football. His parents are convinced that the little boy whose first spoken word was "ball" and who was so fearless that, as a 3-year-old, he climbed a ladder and got on the roof of his family's house would have been a holy terror on Friday nights.

"Mark would have been an animal in high school football," says his father, Ashley Kidd.

If only he had gotten that chance.

Read the entire story from the Lexington Herald Leader