Kemp Learned Life's Lessons From His Accomplished Football Family
10/3/2019 11:12:00 AM | Football, Features
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The motivation for personal glory is strong in football and other sports. Once athletes get a sense of being better than most, they set goals to measure whether greatness is achieved.
University of Michigan defensive tackle and co-captain Carlo Kemp was no different in that regard. So, he had a question for his grandfather, Sam Pagano, a Colorado Sports Hall of Fame inductee and coaching legend at Boulder's Fairview High.
"I asked him in high school, 'What does it take to become an All-American?'" Kemp recalled this week. "He was laying down, and he jumped up so fast. He said, 'ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You play for Fairview first! You play for your team and let that other stuff take care of itself. Don't worry about stats; don't worry about tackle or sacks. That stuff will all come if you just play hard and play for your teammates.'"
Kemp followed Grandpa's advice, and the personal honors came, too. He played linebacker, defensive end, fullback and tight end for the Knights and was a three-time first-team all-state selection, a PrepStar Magazine All-American and won the 2015 Colorado Golden Helmet Award -- the highest honor a player can earn in the state of Colorado for outstanding play, academics and citizenship. Kemp had a 4.0 grade-point average all four years.
Sam Pagano with grandsons Mariano (left) and Carlo Kemp
His NFL coaching uncles played for their father at Fairview and also fostered Carlo's no-nonsense team approach to the game. Chuck Pagano was the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts (2012-17), going 56-46 with three playoff berths, and is now defensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears. John Pagano is a senior defensive assistant and outside linebackers coach for the Houston Texans.
"The Pagano family, from grandfather to uncles, you walk into their house and around the dinner table and it's football talk, pictures that hang on the wall," said Wolverine head coach Jim Harbaugh. "There are football pictures, there are family and friends, their experiences. Carlo's had that and his brother (Mariano Kemp, a redshirt freshman running back at Colorado State-Pueblo) has had that their whole lives.
"How valuable is that? I don't exactly know, but it's a lot. He's doing a tremendous job. I mean, he's one of our real staunch leaders on the team, and his play and the effort that he gives each game, he just knows. He was taught that from the time he could toddle."
Kemp chose Michigan over Notre Dame and hometown Colorado. Washington, UCLA, Wisconsin and others were in the next tier of consideration. His father, Nikki Kemp, was a tailback for the Badgers in a brief college career.
Carlo announced the Wolverines as his choice in the den of his grandfather, or nonno in Italian, and his mother, Jennifer "Peach" Pagano, encouraged him to stay in Ann Arbor until that first Thanksgiving to adapt to his new school, team and town. Carlo said he'd always lived with his mother and brother at his grandparents' two-story house with a view of the Rocky Mountains. Mom was a student manager at Fairview and helped Dad with his Mile High Football Camps, showing a true love for the game, too.
Success didn't come quickly for Carlo in Ann Arbor. He spent his freshman season on the scout team as a defensive end, playing in one game while backing up Chris Wormley (Baltimore Ravens) and Rashan Gary (Green Bay Packers), and didn't start until the second game of his junior year and after moving to defensive tackle.
It would've been easy to head back home or somewhere else to start earlier, but Kemp was solid on his choice.
"That never crossed my mind," he said. "I never wanted to leave. I play for Michigan, no question. I've gone through Michigan with the same mentality I got at Fairview from my grandfather."
Kemp with his mother, Jennifer "Peach" Pagano
Kemp earned his keep as a first-time starter in 2018 on a dynamic front line that featured Gary and Chase Winovich (New England Patriots). Kemp made 17 tackles, including 2.5 for lost yardage, and shared one sack last season. But he learned the importance of being a valuable teammate in the center of the line and freeing Winovich, Gary and others for sacks and big plays.
Kemp (6-foot-3, 286 pounds) had a career-high nine tackles in a physical double-overtime win over Army on Sept. 7, and he has already nearly matched last season's total with 16 tackles.
"It just comes with being confident and getting a whole year at that position and playing in games," said Kemp. "Then the tackles take care of themselves. I trust myself this year. A big thing is reading linemen. Last year, it was, 'Is he pulling?' And you play into a double team (from the brief indecision). Now, it's, 'He's pulling!' I go straight to center. That decision can be the difference between negative yardage and a 20-yard gain. It happens so fast."
His role hasn't changed, though.
"We've done a good job of just trying to force the ball to our playmakers," said Kemp. "When you've got edge rushers like Kwity Paye, Aidan Hutchinson and Josh Uche, you've just got to give them a little pressure up front to get that quarterback.
"I see Kwity Paye on fire and ask myself, 'How can I keep him on fire?' I tell Kwity, 'I'll draw this guy for you. You just go.' He can play free, he can play hot with that spark. That's what makes it fun, making sacrifices for your guys and letting them have fun and get the rewards for hard work. I love it because you know everything it took to get there. I'd rather lift my teammates up than be the one being lifted."
Kemp was selected Michigan's Most Improved Player on defense in 2018 and a captain for 2019.
"It's a huge honor to be recognized as a captain by your teammates," said Kemp. "When Coach Harbaugh read my name, I thought, 'No way.' There are so many great players and leaders on this team."
Chuck Pagano (USATSI photo)
John Pagano (USATSI photo)
Kemp said his uncles motivated him back in 2017 by telling him they wouldn't draft him, and "tough love" has been a way of life in a football family. He's most certainly made them proud with the selflessness, efficiency and power he's displayed.
"My uncles are always giving me crap about something," Kemp said with a chuckle. "We watch UFC or MMA fights together. They send me 'good luck' texts before games.
"Both my uncles have been so influential. They played high school football and college football, and now they coach in the NFL. I ask them what they're looking for in players and what they see in their players. They're both with perennial (Pro Bowl) players. One of them has Khalil Mack (on the Bears) and the other has J.J. Watt (on the Texans). So, I ask them about those guys and how they work and what they do to help them be a little better."
Uncle Chuck discovered he had leukemia during his first season as head coach in Indianapolis.
"Just seeing him battle," said his nephew. "You have to remember that football is so engrained, just running through our blood, but it reminded you that it might seem so important, that the game is everything, (but) at the end of the day it's just a game. He was fighting for his life, and talk about grit and courage to beat it and come back and coach again.
"Football is so hard, and why do I have it? The biggest thing I took from his experience was him saying what he gets to do. It became, 'I get to.' It wasn't, 'I have to.' It was, 'I get to get up in the morning. I get to be on this team.' It changes your whole outlook, and you realize football is a great opportunity to just play and have fun."
Clockwise from top left: Diana Pagano, Carlo Kemp, Sam Pagano, Jennifer "Peach" Pagano, Mariano Kemp
Football is family, just as surely as family is football for the Kemps and Paganos. It's nearly impossible to separate the two for them.
"I know," said Carlo. "Even before I was born, it started with my grandfather. And the really cool thing about the Fairview High connection is that everyone in my family went there. My uncles played for him, his (four) daughters went there. It's just a cool experience."
Sam Pagano won three state championships (1978-79-87) and was 164-58-4 in 26 seasons. He was described as the "godfather of coaching in Colorado" by Doug Ottewill of Mile High Sports Magazine.
"When I was in middle school," said Kemp, "I couldn't wait to get to Fairview and be a freshman there. It was really important to me to carry on that tradition of being part of the Fairview family. If my mom had a boy, he was going to Fairview, he was playing football."
There's another Fairview family Carlo considers an extension of his family.
Legendary Colorado coach Bill McCartney, who had previously been on Bo Schembechler's coaching staffs at Michigan and won a national championship in 1990 with the Buffaloes, lived across the street from the Harbaughs in Ann Arbor. His son, Tom McCartney, succeeded Sam Pagano at Fairview in 1993 and coached Mariano and Carlo.
Kemp said, "It's so cool being able to have my family -- the central person is my grandfather, who knew this guy and that guy and everybody -- and learning about all these players he was connected to and how they played.
"He's coached Hall of Fame guys at Fairview, and I ask about what they did then, what they did in college, and what they did in the NFL and what they do now. Tony Boselli (USC College Football Hall of Fame offensive lineman and No. 2 overall NFL draft pick of the Jacksonville Jaguars) is his best one, and the list goes on. I get to meet those guys and always talked about how they got here."
They all played for Fairview, then played for their colleges and then for their NFL teams. Carlo Kemp appears on his way to that same trifecta and, who knows, maybe one day Uncle Chuck's or Uncle John's team just could draft their nephew after all.
