Heavy Hitter

Perry

rising senior free safety Keinijus King is in love with the big hit. Like all

safeties and secondary players, he will look to make the big plays during the

season to come. It wasn’t always like that though. King was 8 years old when

his mother, Sanchez Williams, decided to put him into the Perry’s 9-10-year-old

football league. King wasn’t in love with hitting then; he wanted to be on the

other side of the ball.

“At

first, I wanted to be a quarterback, but one day I stopped being afraid of the

contact and now I just love the contact,” says King, who, along with fellow

rising senior defensive back Je’Cory Burks, gives the Panthers and first-year

head coach Kevin Smith arguably the best defensive backfield in the region and

middle Georgia.

Perry

played its spring game at home against Dodge County High School more than a

month ago and King can still feel the contact from that game. He’s looking

forward to playing in a regular season game and hitting someone with a

different helmet again.

“I

was ready to hit somebody other than my teammates,” he says. “Coming downfield

and hitting someone just hypes me up.”

The

regular season is near and King will get plenty of opportunities to duplicate

his performance from the spring game when he made seven of the Panthers first

10 tackles. If that game was any example of the kind of senior season King is

going to have then the heavy hitter is going to have a heck of a senior season.

“I

would like to accomplish a few things,” says King when asked what he wants most

from the upcoming season. “I want to lead the team on defense, get more

interceptions and continue keeping everybody straight. If anything, I would like

to play college football.”

King,

6’0”, 172 pounds and growing, has been in contact with coaches from both West

Georgia University and Alabama A&M University thus far.

“I

feel like the next level can bring more out of me,” he said.

The

Panthers rivalry game against Peach County High School will be one of the

season’s highlights, but King isn’t impressed with the Perry schedule regarding

who the Panthers are going to play.

“I

just take it a game at a time,” he says. “Whatever game we play that week is

the big game to me. Last year, I didn’t always have the same mentality, but

this year is going to be different.”

There

were a number of lessons learned by King during the Panthers’ three-win 2016

season.

The

lessons King continues to learn from his cousins and his mother (King considers

her his role model) keep him on the right path heading into the most important

season of his young career. There is also a particular heavy hitting free

safety that King looks up to as well. Arizona Cardinal Pro Bowler Tyrann

Mathieu is the player King looks toward as a future goal.

“I

look up to him because his game motivates me,” says King. “He’s a ball hawk and

he just comes out and hits people.”

The

ball hawk of the Perry Panthers’ defensive backfield is looking to take what he

has learned thus far and put it all together this season. One game at a time; one

hit at a time.

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