This is a nice hole,” Kitna says, as we prepare to tee off on The Home Course’s par-4 ninth hole, Old Fort. Like most holes at The Home Course (ranked No. 7 in Cascade Golfer’s 2013 rankings of Washington’s public courses), Old Fort’s fairway pitches and rolls from tee to green, with a little local knowledge helpful towards guiding players to the most desirable landing areas and angles of approach.
Kitna first picked up golf in Cincinnati, teaming with Palmer to sneak out after morning practices at training camp and squeeze in 18 holes before dashing back to the team’s Germantown, Ky., facility for the afternoon practice. At his best, he says he had his handicap down to a three; now, he’s a 10, though on this day, he plays much closer to his old number than his new one. The ongoing demands of being a teacher, coach, father and role model for over 100 Lincoln High School football players takes up nearly every hour in the day.
Most days, he’s up around 4:30 a.m., working out and getting his own four kids — Jordan (16), Jada (15), Jalen (10) and Jamison (6) — off to school, before heading in to Lincoln to start his own workday. Unlike most of his first two years at Lincoln, Kitna doesn’t have a math class to teach this semester, so the first few hours of his day consist of logistical work — helping his students with their SAT prep and college applications, drafting up offseason training and weightlifting schedules for the football team. In the afternoons, it’s training time with students and student-athletes in the weight room, before returning home for dinner with Jennifer and the kids. Tonight just happens to be family night, when the whole Kitna clan gathers around to watch “Survivor” — “It’s our absolute favorite show,” he says.
When Kitna first returned to Lincoln, he knew he’d encounter more challenges than had ever been presented by an NFL defense. But even he wasn’t prepared for just how bad things had become in the 20 years he’d been away.
“We have 100 kids, and on average, 85 of them don’t have a dad at home,” he says. “Four out of five are on free or reduced lunch. Before we even get to football, we’re just trying to increase their basic needs.”
Kitna learned that one student was walking five miles each way to and from school each day. He set up a booster club and 501(c)(3) charity, put Jennifer in charge, and bought the student a bike. He spent $150,000 to overhaul the Lincoln weight room, and tapped into a lifetime of NFL relationships to replace Lincoln’s worn-out, outdated gear with state-of-the-art equipment. Palmer, Tony Romo, Calvin Johnson and DeMarcus Ware are just a few of the NFL All-Pros who jumped at the chance to help their former teammate — as big a testament to the respect and esteem with which Kitna’s teammates regard him as any statistic ever could be.
Money, though, can only do so much. To truly reach the kids, to impact their lives in the way that mentors had impacted and changed the course of his own, he had to reach deeper. He had to get R.E.A.L.
In prefacing his R.E.A.L. program, essentially a set of guidelines by which to live your live, Kitna cites a 20-year-study that found that 80 percent of NFL players are broke, divorced or addicted to drugs within one year out of the league.
“The NFL life affords you the ability to really stay a child,” he says. “All you have to worry about is yourself; you’re in your own little bubble. It’s a very selfish lifestyle. All of a sudden, nobody wants your autograph anymore, and you’re not making any money. If that was your identity, now what?”
Eighty percent. If accurate, it’s a staggering number, and puts into perspective the challenge of maintaining a clean lifestyle in an environment that drives so many in another direction.
“And then, what does society tell us a real man is like?” Kitna continues. “Society tells us he has a lot of money, a lot of sexual conquests or a lot of fame. So, by definition, I spent 16 years of my life surrounded by real men. But if the world says that’s what a real man is, and that’s what’s happening to those ‘real’ men — that four out of five are divorced, broke or on drugs — then we need to redefine what a real man is.”
According to Kitna, a R.E.A.L. man:
- Rejects passivity,
- Empathizes with others,
- Accepts responsibility, and
- Leads courageously.
He calls them the four pillars of manhood, a moral — and, importantly, secular — set of guidelines to help his players, and indeed anyone, live a virtuous life. For Kitna, it’s about breaking the cycle of irresponsibility and indifference in which so many of his students have been raised, and building a foundation from which an entire generation of healthy, productive families can grow.
In addition to spreading his message among the halls and locker rooms of Lincoln High School, Kitna shares the R.E.A.L. philosophy with corporate groups throughout the United States, who want to learn more about team-building and personal strategies for success.
“Obviously, football is a big part of what we do [at Lincoln], but not many of them are going to play football after high school,” he says. “But they’re all going to go on in life, so that’s really what we try to focus on more than anything.”