Introduction

Hoosiers, the 1986 motion picture about high school basketball hysteria in Indiana, was based loosely on the real story of how tiny Milan High School, in 1954, became the last small school to win a single-class state high school basketball tournament in Indiana.

The story touched millions of people in Indiana and beyond. The reasons it did so are varied, but there’s no mistaking the fact that millions of Americans like to root for the little guy, who doesn’t get nearly the attention, publicity or respect accorded the big guys in sports and athletics.

Hoosiers love their football, too, just like many other Americans. Indiana fans of the sport read or hear volumes about the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League and big high schools and colleges (such as the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame) on a regular basis, while football programs at small high schools and colleges routinely get the short shrift in attention and coverage.

On Hoosier Gridirons is an attempt to address that shortcoming in true-story fashion. The tales that unfold in the chapters ahead are not “loosely based” on fact like Hoosiers. These are stories that really happened.

Readers will be introduced to not one, not two, but four small-school Indiana football programs in a narrative told primarily through the early lives of two remarkable quarterbacks who were in the same grade year of school, the high school Class of 2007.

The narrative tracks these athletes from their childhood years through their senior years of college. And for reasons you’ll hopefully agree are warranted, a vignette of a third quarterback, involving yet another small-high school program, is included for good measure.

While growing up in small towns at opposite ends of Indiana, Eric Watt and Kyle Ray followed starkly different football paths as they pursued team success and individual excellence.

Both started out experiencing relatively normal – and similar – childhoods, bonding with family and neighborhood friends, taking an interest in multiple sports and playing youth league ball in their communities. But their paths turned in different directions once they entered their school football programs.

The journey was steadily progressive for Watt, who got better and more successful with each year, in high school and then college. For Kyle Ray, the occasional high points in the sport came with an inordinate amount of personal frustration, grief and disappointment, topping out in 2009, his junior year of college.

Watt and Ray’s teams never faced each other in high school, but on Sept. 26, 2009, in their junior years of college, the two quarterbacks squared off against each other as starters in a non-conference meeting of emerging Indiana small-college football powers. It was a contest decided by a single point, thanks to the the heroics of yet a third quarterback, whose story will be looked at here as well, albeit in a more condensed fashion.

I attended that Sept. 26 game, and I did so on a lark. I went to Franklin College that day primarily to take photographs, excited to put a newly acquired high-quality zoom lens to the test at a high-action sporting event. At the time, the game at Stewart “Red” Faught Stadium was simply a means for me to accomplish that objective. I didn’t learn much of what you read in the pages ahead until years after the game, but I’m very pleased that I took the time to research and conduct the interviews, and to meet a lot of wonderful people whose stories touched me along the way.

The heroics of that third quarterback at the 2009 game at Franklin College certainly are memorable. But what I remembered even more about that contest was the performance of Eric Watt. At the time, I had the impression that most quarterbacks of small-college teams either were great passers who lacked the mobility to run well with the ball … or excellent ball carriers who passed only when they absolutely had to. Or if they could do both, they were short in stature, an unfortunate physical attribute that deters recruiters for big-school programs. Rarely, it seemed, were decent-sized, small-school QBs exceptional at both passing and running.

Eric Watt, however, was one of those rarities. In just that one game, the 6-foot, 1-inch Watt completed 27 of 39 passes for 233 yards and three touchdowns. As for running with the ball ... well, he gained 127 yards on 17 carries – easily the best rushing performance of the day by either team.

On my drive home, I remember wishing he were playing for Franklin, because if he were, I would have entertained the idea of repeating the short drive from Indianapolis to Franklin to see more home games that season and the next. Unfortunately, Trine University, Watt’s school in northeastern Indiana, was much farther away, too long of a drive for me to commit to doing something like that at the time. Of course, if I had known then what I learned later, or if knew that I would embark on this project at some point down the road, it would have been a no-brainer for me.

Kyle Ray was Watt’s counterpart for the first two and a half quarters on Sept. 26, 2009. He was already struggling on the field at the time – and it was only his team’s third game of the season – and his struggles and disappointments would last the entire season ... and for several months thereafter.

Even before the season started, his coaches could not decide whether to designate Ray or Nick Purichia as the permanent starter, so they decided to rotate the two throughout the first two games. Then, just before the Sept. 26 game, they chose to stop the platooning and give Ray their blessing to lead the offense full time. But Ray learned in the third quarter that the vote of confidence lasted only as long as he could produce.

As I mentioned earlier, I knew nothing about the platooning when I was at the game. Nor did I know at the time that when Kyle Ray had come to training camp that August, only two months had passed since the death of his beloved father, Rob Ray. Rob had starred at the same high school and college that son Kyle had attended.

I also learned much later that Eric Watt and Kyle Ray would have seasons to remember the following year, 2010, their last year of college ball. Their contributions to their teams would earn them team, conference and national recognition, accolades and honors.

For Kyle Ray, such a thing was an astonishing and inspirational turnabout and development, given his uneven 2009 season.

As for Watt, well, it was a natural progression, which certainly is not to diminish all that he accomplished. He was an incredibly focused and dedicated athlete and quarterback, and it was clear from his junior season in high school and thereafter, that barring any serious injury, his destiny with greatness would not be denied.

All of Chapter 12 is devoted to that Sept. 26, 2009, game, by the way. The chapter includes pictures I took along the sidelines, a visual reminder of a game that would, in relatively short order, launch me on a multi-year travel odyssey in Indiana to photograph small-college football and small-college campus landscapes.

The odyssey led me to the more detailed stories of Watt, Ray and some of the teammates these athletes played with and against in their years toiling for small high schools and colleges.

What I learned was enough for me to take a protracted detour – a little more than two years – from my original, much less compelling pursuit to make something out of my small-college football travels and pictures so that I could instead research, interview and develop this story.

Eric and Kyle’s journeys chronicled here are something you wouldn’t find covered by big-city media because these very fine athletes came from small towns. The people who live in their home communities might know a lot of what appears on these pages, because it’s the nature of small-town folk to know everybody’s business, something one of Kyle’s best friends articulates in the chapters ahead.

However, not many people beyond those borders know about it. That can change right here.

Just dive into the chapters ahead and learn some of what happened with Eric and Kyle … on Hoosier gridirons. 

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Note to readers: An overwhelming volume of quotes attributed in this story were gathered in interviews conducted in 2022 and 2023. The interviews were more than a decade after events discussed in the stories. Because of that time lapse, the author reminds readers why some people's memories might be fuzzy or conflict with those of others. Given that the interviews were conducted in that compact period of time, the author has elected to source the timeframe of quotes obtained only outside the purview of the 2022-23 interviews. Thus, readers can correctly and safely assume that all undated or otherwise explained or sourced comments or quotes came from the 2022-23 interviews. 

The series resumes tomorrow with Chapter 1 and will continue at the rate of one new chapter each day thereafter. New chapters will appear each day no later than 11 a.m. EDT.

Tomorrow in Chapter 1: 'We Stood Out'