In 2020, Outside the Huddle started an award for someone who the editors of Outside the Huddle deemed an ideal student athlete on the gridiron, one who really showcased the virtues we appreciate most in a high school football player.
Those virtues: discipline, work ethic and spirit were also three of the qualities most highly displayed by Clayten Stuart. A football player at Bishop Dwenger, Clayten passed away in November 2020. It is in his honor and with the blessing of the Stuart family that Outside the Huddle is proud to be able to annually present the Clayten Stuart Award.
“Clayten arrived to practice everyday with a joyful spirit. I never saw him without a smile on his face. He loved being with his friends and he loved to play football,” Bishop Dwenger football coach Jason Garrett said. “As soon as the helmet went on, he was a tenacious, physical player. No one outworked Clayten; a young man of great joy and tenacity.”
Throughout 2023 and even before then, there was one area player who stood out clearly above the rest for this award. A tremendous leader with an unwavering grit and tenacity on the field, Heritage’s Kobe Meyer is the 2023 Clayten Stuart Award recipient.
“He is a fierce competitor who has always felt he must outwork the other guy just to have a chance. And as you have all watched, our team goes as Kobe goes. He just became “that guy” for the program, not only one of our best players, but one of our best leaders, hardest workers, and an excellent team captain,” Heritage coach Casey Kolkman said.
And it is true. The impact that Meyer’s every move made on the entire Patriots team was incredibly visible. Meyer always worked hard and uplifted his team. When any of your best players, especially the quarterback, works at the rate that Meyer did on game night and every other day in between during the season and offseason, it permeates through the program.
“When things get tough it’s always hard to be a good leader for anyone. But for me when things get tough I usually have to focus by myself and get myself to think positive first,” Meyer said. “Then know that I need to make sure no one gets down on themselves even when it’s hard not to. Just try to get everyone to stay positive and focus in on the goal. Try to make sure no more mental errors happen.”
That leadership and passion to help others succeed, Meyer says, comes through multiple role models in his life, including family members. But he also counts Kolkman in as someone imperative to his own individual success and growth.
Meyer claims that Kolkman is someone that he goes to when he needs advice both in sport and in life with his approach to handling both. Meyer says Kolkman is also the guy that can be his friend, but also be the one that pushes him the most to be the best player and person he can be.
“When I’m not doing the best at times he is the first person to get on me about it and holds me accountable because he knows I can be better,” Meyer said.
Kolkman, from his perspective, throws that praise right back at Meyer. And in that praise rings the one thing you always want out of a leader, out of a quarterback and something that Outside the Huddle looks for intently with the Clayten Stuart Award recipient: a true “coach’s player.”
“He is the kind every coach wants. He is a vocal leader at practice and in the locker room, He is a source of enthusiasm as well as someone who with instruct and correct his teammates,” said Kolkman.
That leadership began far before the 2023 season as Meyer took the initiative to lead by example. He helped lead the charge of offseason morning AM lifting, which was the best time for some of the players to get into the weight room, Kolkman said. It meant for Meyer and others who didn’t have weights class in school and/or played other sports, to get in before school to take on that task.
Getting to where he ended his career with Heritage was a grind for Meyer. He played wide receiver in middle school, but Kolkman and his Heritage staff felt that with time and patience, Meyer’s particular skill set could develop to help the team do whatever they wanted in the offense.
It meant that Meyer had to work hard and it meant that he was going to have to overcome obstacles in the mean time.
One of those obstacles during his sophomore season, Kolkman said, proved to the coaching staff that everything they had felt about Meyer being the lead for their program was correct.
“We were working a big-on-big goal line session where our offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator used the starters and called it like a game. We don’t do this often, but when we do, it gets rather spirited,” Kolkman said.
The offensive coordinator called a quarterback sweep and Meyer took off, headed for the goal line, where he met two-time first team strong safety Landon Hicks. Meyer attempted to truck him, but Hicks got low and made the tackle. Unfortunately, Meyer broke his wrist in the process of doing this. Meyer went to the doctor, got a cast and returned to practice the next day.
“Sure, at the time I was not happy that we might have lost our QB for six weeks, but…I knew we hard our guy. A competitor that did not care, he just wanted to be better,” Kolkman said.
“Being a quarterback for any team is a huge role. Not only are people always relying on you but on top of that you have to make sure that you are a good leader. I try to do everything right on the team so others on the team can look up to me,” Meyer said. “I like being someone that others can look up to and try to help everyone so our team can be as successful as we can be. I know that there are multiple people relying on me to perform good every Friday and want to make them proud.”
Meyer’s impact as “the guy” proved significant. In Meyer’s freshman season, the team went 2-6 in a shortened due to Covid 2020 campaign. Then it was 4-6 during his injury season and 6-2 as a junior. As a senior, Meyer led the Patriots to a 9-2 effort with the lone regular season loss coming to eventual Class 1A state runner up Adams Central. Despite being upset in the second round of Sectional play by Garrett, the Patriots and Meyer set the highest win total at Heritage for the program since 2012 and only the fifth season of nine or more wins in the 2000s.
Individually, Meyer was dynamite as a senior, throwing for 1,197 yards and rushing for 1,056 more with a total of 32 touchdowns for the Patriots. He finished his career with 4,596 total yards despite the majority of his playing time coming during his final two seasons. He also scored 52 touchdowns for the Patriots in that time running and throwing the ball, with a completion percentage of 54.4 overall.
On the field, Meyer left a major impact with his work ethic and a spirit that kept Heritage charging forward in 2023 as one of the best teams in Northeast Indiana including winning streaks of four and five games this season. And to Meyer’s credit of being a leader, his final thoughts of his time as a Heritage Patriot football player isn’t all about him, it’s about the collective.
“I hope the impact I left at Heritage is just a kid who worked hard to make Heritage football good again,” Meyer said. “Not just me but our whole senior class put a bunch of hard work and time into the sport we all love. I’m happy that I could be apart of a team that wanted success just as much as me. High school football will always be something special to me and is something I will always miss.”
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