When the high school career ends for many football players, they choose a college to attend and move on.
For Warren G. Harding wide receiver Edward Killingsworth, he has decided he is not quite ready to advance to that level and has decided to attend West Virginia Prep Academy this season.
West Virginia Prep Academy is a private school preparing students for college in post graduate work. West Virginia Prep Academy coach Daniel Hicks explained attending the school would not affect Killingsworth's eligibility in playing college football and is the equivalent of redshirting in college.
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Killingsworth
Killingsworth chose to go there instead of colleges such as Michigan State, Toledo and Ball State. He will major in broadcasting.
"I think I need another year to grow," he said. "There's no need to jump in. I need another year to get better."
Former Harding coach D.J. Dota gave his opinion of Killingsworth's abilities.
"He was a guy whose strengths as a wide receiver were catching the deep ball," he said. "He does a great job positioning his body to catch those balls. He had a knack to do it. He got in the right situations to make those catches. He also improved on his short game as senior. Because he had seven to eight touchdown catches as a junior going for the fade ball in the end zone, people took that away from him (as a senior)."
Killingsworth had 40 catches for 540 yards and 12 touchdowns combined as a junior and senior with the Raiders.
Both Dota and Killingsworth had the same answer when each was asked which of the receiver's games stand out in their minds.
"The Ignatius game as a junior and the Glenville game this year," Dota said. "Against Ignatius, he had a couple deep ball catches that changed the momentum of the game. Against Glenville, he athletically competed against those guys. He turned short catches into big runs. Where he always did a great job was to block. Physically as a wide receiver, he handled the guy. He had a lot of pancake blocks."
"St. Ignatius as a junior and Glenville as a senior," added Killingsworth, who also played basketball as a freshman and sophomore for Harding. "Against them I showed everybody I can play."
Dota said Killingsworth should do very well at the next level.
"Excellent," he said. "With the wide receiver position in college, he can work it all the time and not have to worry about any other position. He really could've played tight end for us, that's how big he is. He can play the inside flex receiver or outside in college. The more he's able to work on his football skills the better he's going to be."
