Kofa football preview: Team speed

What Kofa lacks in size this year, it more than makes up for in team speed. And perhaps no King is harder to catch than running back Timmy Lee.

As a sophomore playing varsity football for the first time last year, all Lee did was make First-Team All Gila Valley Region and earn one of two running back selections on The Sun/Yuma Rotary Club team.

"I know more about myself this year," Lee said. "It helps having more experience. I really didn't know what to expect last year."

Lee was the lead back in a tandem system last year, pairing with Dustin Stevenson to provide opposing defenses a couple different looks in the backfield.

Now, Lee said he's ready to shoulder the load his junior year.

"He's got a little bit of swagger to him, and he knows what he's capable of now," Kofa coach Kevin Moore said. "We want to get him the ball as much as we can, because at the end of the day, he's our best athlete. He can make a play where there's nothing."

Lee is one of only a handful of returners at Kofa with game experience.

Kofa graduated 27 seniors last year and has only three returning starters on defense.

"Having Timmy Lee back makes a big difference," Moore said. "We have a lot of varsity players back from last year, but not a lot of playing time from those guys. It's going to be young across the board and it's going to be interesting to see how these guys adapt to really playing varsity football for the first time."

Returning senior quarterback Kane Nelson said he is looking forward to throwing to Kofa's batch of speedy receivers, in particular David Calvillo. But he added that having Lee in the backfield is a great safety net to have.

"It makes you feel good when you're calling a pass play or a running play and you've got probably the best running back in this county to your right or right behind you," Nelson said. "They gameplan around him, so it takes a lot of pressure of me."

Nelson and Lee also figure to be Kofa's team leaders. Moore said Lee is a quiet, lead-by-example player who is well-respected amongst his peers, while Nelson added that he learned to take on more leadership last year in his first as a varsity quarterback.

"Toward the end of the season I kinda picked it up a little bit. I was just trying to get my feet wet the first couple games," Nelson said. "We had a lot of senior leadership, so I really didn't have to pick that role up until the end of the season when people started looking at me to do more things."