On Wednesday, Jan. 12, Hays High senior Jaren Kanak held a commitment celebration to the University of Oklahoma football program. For years, HHS had signing ceremonies in the school cafeteria. The large gathering included Indian head football coach Tony Crough, his wife Chrisy and their twin third-grade boys.
Kanak sat at a table adorned with photos and Oklahoma gear. He wore an Oklahoma crimson shirt with the Sooner schooner in white. Kanak’s mom, Lisa, donned an Oklahoma shirt. Kanak’s step-father, Scott McGrath, had an Sooner Nike shirt and Sooner hat.
The room held dozens of Kanak’s closest supporters, including coaches, friends and teammates, such as linebacker Gavin Meyers. Kanak and Meyers were consensus Top 11 all class selections. Meyers eventually signed with Kansas State this spring. They were seniors in widely considered the most talented boy class in Indian annals. Crough spoke about Kanak’s leadership, unparalleled work ethic and record-breaking season.
“This group of kids is so talented, and so driven, and they have all pushed each other so well,” Crough said. “And they are so connected and so close to each other.”
Kanak’s career arc is highly publicized, including the story of his parents. Lisa’s and Scott’s first spouses passed away when Kanak was young. Lisa and Scott married and have five children in a blended family. Lisa wrote a book about her experiences called “The Journey Between Us: My Faith Walk: Overcoming Grief to Finding Joy in the Journey.”
Kanak served as an all-purpose threat his first three seasons. Then, Dylan Dreiling, HHS’ starting quarterback and Tennessee baseball signee, elected to just play baseball as a senior. Kanak had rarely played quarterback before. He set school records with 1,615 rushing yards and 142 points.
In the state quarterfinals, Kanak trucked multiple Maize defenders on a long TD run. MaxPreps named it the No. 2 play in the country for last fall. When Kanak scored, longtime Indian broadcaster Dustin Armbruster said “What did we just see?!” HHS went 8-3 and enjoyed its best season since 1995.
“Everybody loves their senior year of football, and it’s something that everybody will remember for a long time,” Kanak said. “And definitely something that I will remember for a long time. We had a little run going there for a little bit, and I had a great time playing with these guys. They are my brothers, and they always will be.”
Kansas’ top recruit for the Class of 2022, Kanak received 34 offers, including Alabama, and originally committed to Clemson. However, when longtime Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables took the Oklahoma job in the winter, Kanak eventually de-committed.
Kanak, who had grown close to Venables, called the coaching change a “whirlwind.” He wrote down a pros and cons list, prayed and looked for clarity. Kanak eventually enrolled in Oklahoma as a student before an official offer was extended. His commitment celebration served as a financial aid agreement since the next signing period didn’t open until February. Kanak’s decision drew positive attention from quarterback Baker Mayfield, a former Heisman winner at Oklahoma. He plans to focus on an exercise and health science major.
“It’s definitely been a crazy process, and I am grateful for all the blessings and opportunities that I had,” Kanak said at his signing. “There was a lot to go through, and I am glad we finally made it through and made a great decision.”
Kanak’s story is more than his family, the well-known position switch, school records, incredible athleticism and work ethic. It includes a servant heart, magnetic personality, a relationship he built with the Crough family, kickoff returns and an injured hamstring.
Kanak even helped impact the Hays High School cafeteria and building itself where he had his signing ceremony.
“Make the standard and take the standard to a higher place,” Kanak said. “And just pretty much put in as much work as I can and do things to elevate myself above the level of competition.”
It’s those qualities that helped Kanak, likely the state’s biggest football recruit since Olathe South and current Indianapolis Colt lineman Braden Smith in 2014, earn this year’s KPreps Dylan Meier Get Busy Livin’ Player of the Year award. Kanak was in National Honor Society, part of First United Methodist Church, Special Olympics volunteer, youth football camp counselor, and helped elderly move in and out of homes.
The GBL Award is KPreps’ most prestigious honor and is awarded to one senior football player each school year. It’s in honor of Dylan Meier, a former All-State quarterback at Pittsburg High and starter at Kansas State University who died in a hiking accident in 2010 at the age of 26.
The award goes to one high school senior who not only has shown excellence on the field but has also demonstrated the values that Dylan embodied and GBL strives to promote: adventure, fitness, curiosity, and daily zest for life experiences.
Previous Kansas award winners include Bishop Miege’s Carter Putz, Bishop Carroll’s Denzel Goolsby, Rossville’s Tucker Horak and Mill Valley’s Tyler Green. Putz recently helped Notre Dame baseball reach the College World Series in Omaha. Goolsby became a captain and leader at Kansas State. Horak was featured in Sports Illustrated at Rossville and was all-conference at Pittsburg State. Green won football and wrestling titles at Mill Valley and was a highly rare Kansas player to sign with Dartmouth football.
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Jaren’s and Crough’s families live a short distance away. The Croughs have driven by Jaren’s house for four years. The Crough boys love sports and are engaged in athletics in the Hays community. The Crough children are similarly aged to Lisa and Scott’s youngest child.
“Jaren has a great story to tell about living your everyday to its fullest, which he personifies daily,” Crough said.
As they have grown, the twins have sometimes made their way to Jaren’s house. At times, Tony and Chrisy, the public relations officer for USD 489 Hays, will be trying to find the boys.
They would be down at Jaren’s house.
“He would have them out in the backyard playing catch with them and running through drills,” Crough said. “It’s just kind of been a unique little thing there. … My boys look at all of them like big brothers.”
Additionally, the Crough’s have a four-year-old daughter. She loves Jaren. After every game, she waited for him to come out on the field. She would run up to him and try to get a picture.
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Many of the key HHS seniors had played sports together since elementary school. Wesley Oakley was the quarterback. Oakley was a 6-foot-3 starter for HHS basketball this winter and signed with Manhattan Christian College basketball. Kanak didn’t really stick out as a youngster.
In the summer of 2018, the current seniors attended their first Indian football camp as freshmen. Kanak was in a cast. He had run hurdles a few months earlier in middle school track, broke his wrist and missed the season.
“He was under the radar because he couldn’t run in middle school,” Crough said.
Kanak asked the coaches to play receiver. The coaches were apprehensive because of Kanak’s cast. Kanak caught every pass with the cast on.
“He probably caught 200 balls that week of practice that he should have dropped almost every single one of them,” Crough said.
In 2019, Kanak served as a receiver and on special teams. He accounted for more than 1,000 all-purpose yards.
Defensive end Gaven Haselhorst, an eventual Shrine Bowler and Kansas State commit, was always the first one down on kickoff. In a film session with the entire team, Crough asked: Can anyone beat Haselhorst down the field on kickoff? Kanak said, “I will.”
Haselhorst bowed up and said, “You can’t beat me.” Kanak said, “Yeah, I will.” They raced each other in practice. In the games, they were the first two down and head butting each other.
“That’s kind of where it all started,” Crough said. “To where we started going, ‘Oh, wait a minute, he might just be more than a speed guy and a receiver.”
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Crough believes Dreiling would have made HHS a better football team. The plan was to have Dreiling and Kanak in the backfield. Kanak, a linebacker for Oklahoma, would have played defense full-time, too. Instead, Kanak played around five percent of defensive snaps for ’21 after Dreiling decided to forgo football in August. Kanak and running back Roy Moroni, a Fort Hays commit, served as the primary ball carriers.
Kanak accounted for nearly 500 all-purpose yards between passing, rushing and kick return in a season-opening victory versus Wichita East, an eventual Round of 16 team in Class 6A.
“There’s a lot of different things that he could have done throughout the game that we couldn’t do with him because we were so desperately needing him to play quarterback,” Crough said.
Hays High completed the regular season 6-2 and faced Goddard-Eisenhower in a Week 9 home bracket game. Kanak had hurt his hamstring in a high-scoring Week 8 loss to Wichita Northwest.
Entering the contest, the Indian coaching and training staff’s questions revolved around: How much of a load can Kanak handle? When and where can we turn him loose? Can he run full speed? Veteran HHS trainer Dylan Moore continually said Kanak was “not 100 percent,” but he’s “extremely tough, and he’s extremely determined.”
“Physically, he’s probably not ready to carry the load,” Crough recalled Moore saying. “But mentally he is, and that’s going to take him a long ways.”
Kanak had one carry in the first half against Eisenhower. In a close game at halftime, Kanak came to Crough and said “Give me the ball.” Crough said it was “time to turn him loose.”
“Hamstring is kind of a tedious injury,” Kanak told KPreps at the time. “So we have kind of just been playing it by ear, but this could have been the last game of the season, so just kind of had to tough it out, and get in there and do what we had to do.”
Kanak delivered a 28-yard run on 3rd-and-11 on the game-winning drive. He scored from a yard out with under a minute left for a 19-13 win.
Crough turned to Moore after a big Kanak play. He echoed a similar line that Armbruster used two weeks later.
“What did I just witness?” Crough asked.
“I don’t know,” Moore said. “I just know that mentally he said he could do it.”
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Even with the hamstring, Kanak didn’t miss anything in practice.
“He wouldn’t let us,” Crough said. “We tried to rest him a couple of times, and he wouldn’t let us. He would not let us…We would tell him, ‘Jaren, you are not suiting out today, come out in your jersey and shorts and just get mental reps and just have your tennis shoes on.’ And we would come to practice, and he would be in his helmet and shoulder pads and cleats and warming up with the guys. And we would tell him, ‘No, get out of here.’ He wouldn’t let us.”
In practice, Hays High protected Kanak by not calling plays that would put him in a compromising position. Kanak wouldn’t come out of any drill. If HHS did some running, Kanak would try to run with his teammates.
“We would always pull him away for something or act like we needed to talk to him just to get him away,” Crough said with a laugh. “But he wouldn’t. I think that’s the most impressive part of Jaren. … He doesn’t want to miss anything. He always wants to lead by example when it comes to training and working, and I think the team saw that. Coaches definitely took note of it.”
After the Eisenhower game, Kanak delivered 26 carries for 190 yards in an 18-6 road win versus Andover, the top scoring defense in 5A. In the quarterfinals versus Maize, Kanak had his legendary run that went viral with more than 300,000 views. Kanak finished with 203 rushing yards.
“Your natural instincts take over,” Kanak said. “Truck this guy, juke that guy, type of thing. It just took over. When I got in the end zone, I was like, ‘Did that just happen? It’s like, that will look cool on ESPN, I guess.’”
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USD 489 had struggled for more than 30 years with getting a bond passed for a new high school, including unsuccessful attempts in ’16-17. The 2017 bond vote for $79 million received less than 40 percent yes.
Crough’s wife was on the committee that spearheaded the bond efforts. On Tuesday May 10, Hays officially passed the $143 million bond with 54 percent of the vote. The bond will build a new high school and renovate the current high school into the middle school, among other changes. Crough said the senior class success “had so much to do” with tilting public opinion in favor of the bond. HHS’ facilities are currently behind the teams in its league.
“The townspeople responded,” Crough said. “And did a great job.”
In addition to the football success, HHS boys’ basketball enjoyed the winningest three-year run in school history. Jace Linenberger signed with Arkansas-Fort Smith basketball. Carson Kieffer became the school’s all-time assist leader. Jordan Dale is the state’s top high jumper and has signed with Washburn. Garrett Wellbrock inked with Fort Hays baseball. HHS baseball took third in 5A last spring.
Many of those players took a group picture with Kanak at his Oklahoma commitment day, punctuating an historic career.
“This class of senior boys, so many people have watched them and watched how hard they’ve worked and the success they’ve had,” Crough said.
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Dylan Meier – Get Busy Livin’ Player of the Year Award
The award is in honor of Dylan Meier, a former All-State quarterback at Pittsburg High School and starter at Kansas State University who died in a hiking accident in 2010 at the age of 26.
The award goes out to one Kansas high school senior who not only has shown excellence on the field but also has demonstrated the values that Dylan embodied and Get Busy Livin’ (GBL) strives to promote: adventure, fitness, curiosity and a daily zest for life experiences.
The award is made possible by the Get Busy Livin’ Foundation and Kpreps.com.
Past award winners include:
2020 – No award named
2019 – Tyler Green, Mill Valley
2018 – Jace Friesen, Basehor-Linwood
2017 – Carter Putz, Bishop Miege
2016 – Will Schneider, Shawnee Mission North
2015 – Tucker Horak, Rossville
2014 – Denzel Goolsby, Bishop Carroll
2013 – Austin Chambers, Shawnee Mission West
2012 – Brad Strauss, Lawrence
2011 – Kole Schankie, Madison
ABOUT DYLAN MEIER & THE GET BUSY LIVIN’ FOUNDATION
Dylan Meier, a 2002 graduate of Pittsburg High School, was a two-time All-State quarterback for the Purple Dragons. He continued his football career at Kansas State University and started 11 games from 2004-06 as the Wildcats’ signal caller.
On April 19, 2010, Meier died at the age of 26 in an accident while hiking with family in Arkansas.
In addition to his time in Kansas, Dylan played professional football in Germany and Italy, served as a bodyguard for Italian fashion models, worked in a vineyard overseas, ran with the bulls in Spain and went skydiving in the Alps. His next plans included coaching football in Europe, teaching English in Korea and possibly a return to Kansas State as a graduate assistant.
“He had a real zest for life,” Merle Clark, Dylan’s high school coach and family friend said days after the accident. “He lived a lot in his 26 years.”
That zest for life is the basis of the Get Busy Livin’ Foundation that was established in Dylan’s honor. The mission is to provide support for individuals and groups that embody the values that Dylan pursued: adventure, fitness, curiosity, generosity and a daily zest for life experiences.
The GBL Foundation is determined to break down the boundaries that keep people from living life to the fullest, whether those boundaries are social, economic or imaginary.
GBL uses donations to promote these values in the following ways: student/athletic scholarships, sport camp sponsorships, student travel abroad scholarships, community service needs and other activities that inspire and build character.
For more information, please visit http://getbusylivin.org.
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