Weaver, AL – ‘Family’ on Weaver’s new white helmets, family in Cofer’s white pickup keep his coaching engine running entering a potential coming-of-age season.
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Family time for Ken Cofer looks like his wife and daughters around a dinner table, and it often looks like his white pickup full of players needing rides home.
It also looks like a word on the front of Weaver’s new white football helmets, and family Cofer seeks in many things the second-year Bearcats coach does.
The letters F-A-M-I-L-Y spell out more than an acronym to him.
“That means something to me, because I didn’t really grow up with a big family,” Cofer said. “I need these kids just as much as as they need me. It is a big deal to me.”
Families go through growing pains together, some through tough times. Senior Weaver standouts like Kaden Gooden and KeShawn Allen know all too well what it was like to take varsity blows before they could call themselves freshmen.
Weaver fans don’t need reminding about the tough seasons since the Bearcats last made the playoffs, in 2017. The most bright-side look notes slow progress, from zero wins two years in a row, to one win, to two wins and then four wins in 2023, Cofer’s first season with them.
Cofer, the third Weaver driver of those after-practice and after-game mass rides home since Daryl Hamby led Weaver to eight playoff berths in nine years, cringes at last season’s 4-6 record. He sees at least four more games his latest football family could’ve won.
His second season could be a coming-of-age season for the Bearcats. They’ll try to turn those losses to wins in a realigned, nine-team region with Glencoe, J.B. Pennington, Locust Fork, Ohatchee, Piedmont, Saks, Wellborn and Westbrook Christian.
In the bigger picture, Cofer enjoys being the driver. It’s his full-circle turn amid family pursuits.
“I get emotional every time I think about it,” he said. “I just remember my dad coaching, and I was that little water boy, 4 or 5 years old, and we got to take kids home.
“We took white kids home. We took black kids home, and I got to see everything in how my dad interacted with those kids, and I think that’s what sold me on being a teacher and a coach.”
Those players from yesteryear became Cofer’s big brothers. He saw his dad hug their necks, tell them “I love you” and mean it. He saw those relationships live on past those rides home, as those players grew into men.
Either through social media or other means, Cofer remains in contact with players who played for his dad in the 1970s.
Then came his high school teammates.
“I said, if I ever have a chance to be a head coach, I’m going to make that team my family,” he said. “Look, I had a great mom and dad. Both of them were educators, but I didn’t have any brothers. I didn’t have any sisters. I had four stepsisters.
“But I didn’t have brothers to grow up with except those players except those guys I played high school football with.”
They still have a group text and talk “every so often.”
“They are a very special part of my life, because you don’t ever forget who you played ball with,” Cofer said. “We still talk. We still love each other. We still tell each other that.”
Fast forward to Weaver, Cofer’s sixth head-coaching assignment and first in Alabama, and family means more than a word on the front of the Bearcats’ helmets. If the football field is their yard, then his old white pickup often serves as a living room for those he drives.
“I used to call it the ‘chick magnet,’ but i’ve got a little white truck,” he said. “I call it ‘the white chick,’ and that’s the truck to go pick up kids.
“Since I’ve started coaching, way back in ’96, I’ve always had a vehicle to go get kids and take them home. It’s just part of it. I don’t need gas money, and stuff like that. I was raised that’s part of the job, but that’s not even a job to me. That’s how you build relationships outside of football, driving down the road and having conversations about family.”
Cofer said he’s always had players dealing with hard things outside of football, more so at Weaver than anywhere else. He said he went through similar things when he was their age, and “it’s not good.”
What’s good is to hug necks, say ‘I love you” and mean it.
“I don’t want to say I’m excited that they’re sharing that with me,” he said, “but I am excited that they feel comfortable enough to speak to me and share their private stuff that they’re going through, their struggles, with me.”
Bearcat facts
Things to know about Weaver football heading into the 2024 season:
— Ken Cofer enters his second season as Weaver’s head coach.
— Weaver went 4-6 in 2023, the Bearcats’ best season since 2017. They went 3-2 in their final five games.
—Key graduation losses from 2023 include two All-Calhoun County players: RB Gabe King and LB Richard Knowlton., FB/TE Christian Marturello and OL/DL Eric Barnes.
—The following All-Calhoun County picks return: senior QB/DB/WR/KR/P Kaden Gooden, senior WR/DB KeShawn Allen, senior OL/DL Brandon Jolliff, sophomore OL/DL Caden Green, senior LB/RB Caden Thornton, junior K Gianluca Torres.
— Players to watch: sophomore Junior Allen, KeShawn’s younger brother, completes a strong receiver corps for the Bearcats. Junior RB/LB Taylor Green, formerly with White Plains, moved in from Texas.
— Realignment moved Weaver back from Class 3A south to 3A north, in Region 6. The Bearcats align with Glencoe, J.B. Pennington, Locust Fork, Ohatchee, Piedmont, Saks, Wellorn and Westbrook Christian.
