Aggies start team camp on ‘pretty emotional’ note
NORBORNE – Monday was a rough day for Norborne Hardin-Central varsity coach Kirk Thacker.
That evening, Thacker and his Aggies held their first team camp session for 8-man football this summer at Norborne. Had life gone as planned, Thacker’s son, Dalton, would have been the quarterback leading the NHC offense through its paces.
Alas, it did not. Thacker’s son died in May.
“It was hard to get motivated to come and hard to get things going,” Thacker said. “But the boys needed me and I needed them. And I’ve already told them that I probably need them more than they need me.”
Kobe Gibson, a Norborne sophomore and a friend of Thacker’s son, sensed an absence Monday.
“It was tough at the beginning not seeing him … (here) because (I have) played with him since, like, fifth grade,” Gibson said.
Monday was “a pretty emotional practice,” Hardin-Central junior Brayden Schick admitted. Schick, whom Thacker has tapped to play quarterback, has found a way to keep his former teammate’s memory…