2025 HSFT Stop #12: Caledonia
CALEDONIA, MS (WCBI)- Caledonia football went through plenty of growing pains last season. After dropping seven of their final eight, Head coach Caleb Kelly knew that his next team needed to be closer off the field.
“I think it’s good to get outside of the place, off of the practice field, out of the weight room, out of a meeting room where we’re not talking about football.” Kelly said. “We talk about life, we have fun with them. We bring them over to the house and have swimming parties with them, we’re taking guys out to eat, we’re doing things together. At the end of the day, football is a great story, but this is a people business. You’ve got to love these kids, they have to love us, and that’s how we develop a family, build relationships. We’ve been really intentional about that. We’ll see how far that gets us this season.”
As a result, Kelly’s program has adopted the mentality of being intentional with everything they do. Kelly believes that mindset goes much further than just the field.
“We have to be intentional with getting up, taking care of ourselves, taking care of our families, taking care of this football team,” he said. “These young men outside of this field house have to be intentional about going to eat together, spending time together. That’s a word we use a lot around here. Be intentional. Be intentional about what you’re doing because if not, it’s never going to get done in life.”
The Cavaliers have taken this mindset to heart. Many players seem to have built a lasting connection outside of football.
“This summer especially we’ve really started doing that,” Kolton Waters said. “Coach Kelly will bring every position group to his house on Thursday, and we’ll spend throughout the night there and have fun. Usually before games, we’ll go eat somewhere and we’ll just bring up random activities, and we’ll just do them all as a team.”
“I’ve gone on two beach trips with some buddies from here,” Cohen Clark said. “Every day we’re going golfing and going to eat. We work with each other just building connections outside of football, making the team more fun here.”
Caledonia will begin their season against Itawamba on August 29.
