Kahlil McKenzie (left) had 12 sacks and earned All-American second-team honors as a junior at De La Salle.
Photo by Dennis Lee
One of the
nation's top 2015 football recruits is leaving perhaps the nation's most
recognizable football program.
Kahlil McKenzie, a dominating 6-foot-4, 330-pound defensive tackle ranked the
No. 35 recruit overall by 247Sports, withdrew from
De La Salle (Concord, Calif.) today after only one year.
McKenzie
announced the withdrawl on his Twitter account and De La Salle coach
Justin Alumbaugh confirmed by phone a short time ago. McKenzie said he
will be transferring to
Clayton Valley Charter (Concord, Calif.), a public school about three miles from the De La Salle campus, and that he wouldn't take any questions on the matter.
"Kahlil is a great kid - a great player - and we wish him nothing but the best," Alumbaugh said. "That's all I can really say."
Calls
and texts to McKenzie and a text to his father, Oakland Raiders General
Manager Reggie McKenzie, were not immediately returned. Apparently a debate whether Kahlil should attend Nike's "The Opening" summer camp was at the heart of a small rift. Alumbaugh would not confirm or comment.
Kahlil transferred to De La Salle from
Southwest (Green Bay, Wis.)
a year after his father was hired by the Raiders. A hard worker with a gregarious personality, Kahlil was very popular among players and the
coaching staff.
"He showed up last year and just went right to
work," Alumbaugh said on May 17. "He lost a lot of body fat and got a
lot stronger in the weight room. The kids really like him. There's a lot
of attention placed upon him, he doesn't draw it himself. He treats the
other guys very well."
Asked about his talent on May 17, Alumbaugh said: "He can be really special. He's one of the more talented guys we've ever had."
He
showed it with a team-high 12 sacks last year and 74 tackles, earning
him second-team All-American honors. In the spring, he hit the weights
even harder and also won the North Coast Section Meet of Champions shot
put title.
Last weekend at the state finals in Clovis, he earned a spot in the finals and placed 11th overall.
Clayton
Valley coach Tim Murphy said that to his knowledge, McKenzie has not applied
to the charter school, but he's heard the rumors.
"But every week I hear
four or five guys are transferring to our school," he said. "About one
of 10 actually do it. I've never met the kid. I wouldn't know if Kahlil
McKenzie walked right by me, though I've heard he's pretty big."
Transferring to any school in the NCS might not guarantee McKenzie can play football his senior season.
Gil
Lemmon, the NCS commissioner, said Monday that students transferring
from a private school to any public school — charter or otherwise — still have to
meet exhaustive and strict rules. The most important is that the
transfer cannot be "athletically motivated." If deemed so, then no
matter if there's a change of residency or not, Lemmon can rule a
student athletically ineligible for up to a school year.
He said
he receives sometimes 10 to 15 calls a week from parents, for 30-40
minutes each, wanting to know eligibility issues laid out in form
207/208/510 of the NCS bylaws.
"I will always listen and will explain to
them all the rules," he said.
All calls in advance are
confidential, Lemmon said, and "I never make rulings before the actual
transfer. My decisions are based on the applications I begin seeing Aug.
1. … I look at all the circumstances as they apply to the rule, then
grant the least-restrictive measure possible."
Transfers from De
La Salle are rare. Another high-profile athlete and son of a famous
father, Nate Montana, transferred from De La Salle to
Oaks Christian (Westlake Village, Calif.) in 2008. Montana, the son of Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana, transferred from
Cardinal Newman (Santa Rosa, Calif.) his sophomore season and started on the De La Salle JV team.
With
stiff competition at quarterback, his private quarterback coach located
in Southern California and a more pass-friendly offense at Oaks
Christian, Nate Montana's family moved to Westlake Village. He had two
successful seasons at Oaks Christian, passing for more than 5,000 yards
and 67 touchdowns in two seasons and the Lions went 27-1.
McKenzie recently narrowed his college choices to Arizona or Tennessee. He plans to announce his decision at "The Opening," on July 10.
De La Salle, which has won upwards of eight mythical national titles, is No. 5 in the
MaxPreps preseason rankings.
With six starters returning on offense and now five on defense, the
Spartans will still be a national and state threat. But without McKenzie
dominating the middle, others will definitely have to step up.
