Where Are They Now: OG Steve Kenney
March 17, 2007
By JIM GEHMAN

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Steve Kenney is a good example that one can definitely learn from experience. An undrafted rookie offensive lineman from Clemson, he spent a lot of time during Philadelphia's 1979 training camp drills and scrimmages lined up across from eight-time All-Pro defensive end Claude Humphrey.

"I had some success blocking him and I think that's why I made the team," Kenney said. "He ran into me years later and said, 'They kept you because I couldn't intimidate you.' And then there were guys like Wade Key, Jerry Sisemore and Stan Walters, who were great guys and took me under their wing. They helped project a sense of confidence, I guess. They would help a guy like me and tell me I was doing well or help me to believe I could do the job."

Ending up on Philadelphia's season-long injury list during that first year, Kenney made the active roster in 1980 and found himself in the trenches for the season opener against Denver while the National Anthem was still echoing around Veterans Stadium.

"I was the backup tackle and Jerry Sisemore got knocked unconscious on the first or second play," Kenney recalled.

"I remember getting in the huddle and (quarterback Ron) Jaworski looked at me, my nickname was 'Redman,' and he said, 'Redman! What are you doing in the huddle?' I said, 'Well, I didn't have anything else to do today. I thought I'd come out here,'" laughed Kenney.

Kenney's first season on the field could not have come at a better time as the Eagles went on to post a 12-4 record, capture the NFC title and play in Super Bowl XV against the Raiders.

Kenney offered a few reasons why the team did so well.

"Good coaching, good players and good chemistry," said Kenney. "I felt like the players were very tight-knit. It was my first active year so I probably wasn't as zeroed in on it as some of the guys who had been there losing all those years. But I would say through coach (Dick) Vermeil's efforts, the team was definitely on a mission, had a sense of purpose."

Kenney became a starter at left guard during his third year, positioned between Walters, the 10-year veteran tackle, and ninth-year center Guy Morriss. He held his own against some of the NFL's elite.

"In '82, we played Dallas down there and beat them and I had a good game against Randy White, who was their best player. I was able to shut him out and that really made me feel that I really belonged in the league, that I could play against anybody," Kenney said.

"I barely got a scholarship to college and then the fact that I became a full-time starter in the NFL, I was real proud of that. I took it very seriously and I loved doing it. I loved being a player and I got a lot of personal satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment out of it."

Kenney has accomplished a great deal since his six seasons with the Eagles and one with Detroit. After retiring in 1987, he returned to his hometown of Raleigh, N.C., and started a real estate development company called Kenney Properties.

"I wanted to go into real estate when I got out of school and then I decided to give the pros a try. So it was eight years before I got into real estate," Kenney said. "I really didn't know much about what I was doing. I didn't have a salary or anything and by 1990, I was broke.

"But I got started and developed single-family subdivisions and in the mid-'90s, I began to transition into developing apartment communities.

"Right now, we're mainly building student apartments. We try to buy land beside growing colleges and build student apartments in addition to our conventional-type apartments. In the colleges, if we have say a four-bedroom unit, we rent each of the four beds out to a different individual.

"We're in both Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee and hopefully we'll be in Kentucky next year. We have a dozen communities right now and fixing on starting No. 13. We have probably, between the units we rent and the student units, a total of 3,000 units."

Kenney's company has nearly 70 employees, not including the field construction personnel, and continues to keep an eye on its future.

"I would like to stretch our footprint out to the west," Kenney said. "We have a plan since we've got in the student business to try to touch each state south of the Mason-Dixon Line, say from here out to Texas.

"I want to keep doing a good job. We've been in business for 20 years now and we've never even had a late payment to any of the banks we borrowed money from. I'm very proud of that. I don't care about being the biggest, that's for sure, but I'd like to keep enough going to keep it interesting."

What some may also find interesting is that Kenney credits his business success to lessons he learned from his father as well as his coaches.

"Dick Vermeil and a coach I had in college, Charley Pell, really showed me how important it was to be organized and to have a focus, a plan. Both had a way of really pushing you hard but then taking their foot off the gas just enough every now and then and pat you on the back," Kenney said.

"Business is complicated, but I don't think I'll ever do anything in business as hard as going to training camp," laughed Kenney. "Especially with Dick Vermeil. We went to camp and worked hard at Clemson, but it only lasted a week. With Dick it was like, 'When is this thing going to be over with?' It was for six or seven weeks and we were going twice a day with full pads."

Making his home in Raleigh with his wife, Camilla, the Kenney's have two children: Stephen, 22, a junior at Washington University in St. Louis; and Lesley, 15, a high school sophomore.