Evans, Aspiring Coach, Looks to Make Youngsters Champions On, Off the Field
By Steve Kornacki
Note: This story first appeared in the University of Michigan football game program for the Wolverines' Sept. 15 win over Southern Methodist.
Chris Evans gets it.
Evans, a junior tailback from Indianapolis, understands that becoming a champion on the field is the goal for every team. But he also realizes that becoming a champion off the field is what carries the most meaning in life.
Evans aspires to become a coach, following in the footsteps of his University of Michigan head coach, Jim Harbaugh, and all those who have influenced him in not only becoming a better football player but the best man he can become.
"I want to coach a high school football team," said Evans. "To go to an inner-city school in Indianapolis and give them structure and apply discipline to kids who don't have a father figure. They'll be able see the results of what I did to get to Michigan, and that will give them an opportunity to play at a high level."
He said his father, Derrick, who coached him in youth league basketball, inspired him to coach. And the need Chris felt to begin doing so with his younger brother, Andrew, now 12, is what prompted him to begin coaching a youth league football team in 2014, when he also ran for 131 yards in the state championship game victory for Indianapolis Ben Davis High.
Evans was a custodian at Westlake Elementary in Indianapolis that same year, and that connection led to securing a gymnasium for his 12 Gauge team to practice in during the winter.
Chris Evans (right) with his father, Derrick.
"I wanted to see my little brother blossom as a young man," said Evans, 20. "I wanted to push him, and instead of just being his older brother, I wanted to be a coach to him and make sure he was going down the right path. My dad was a big influence because he told me, 'Coaching is going to be your passion. I can see that you love it.'
"I tell the kids I coach something that Coach Harbaugh tells us. When they ask me how good our team is going to be, I say, 'You won't really know how good your team is until you see what kind of father you become, what kind of brother you become first. If they take care of their mom and their dad, too, you can look back 15 or 20 years later and say that this team was really good."
Evans wanted to continue impacting youth upon moving to Ann Arbor in 2016, and that resulted in the forming of CE Stars (@CE_Stars12), a non-profit youth sports organization.
"I just re-invented what I had been doing in Indianapolis," said Evans. "We won championships the first two years in Ann Arbor, and I blew it up from there. My freshman year, we just played in the local league. But then we started taking the best kids from the league and playing in tournaments.
"I had sixth-grade and eighth-grade teams, and we had tryouts. I had the eighth-grade team play in a high school league to show them how hard they had to work to get where they want to get. After that league was over, we just blew out the eighth-grade teams we played. Seven-on-seven is becoming a big sport in America, and both the sixth- and eighth-grade teams won state championships.
"We also had other Michigan football players coaching and really got the best out of the kids. My eighth-grade team went to the national tournament in Atlanta and placed ninth out of 60 teams. We were all happy with how we did after starting practice in January, and it was a dream come true getting all those kids to Atlanta with fundraising."
But there is far more to his teams than championships and national tourneys.
That purpose is stated in the mission statement for CE Stars: "Helping young athletes discover the CHAMPION WITHIN through skills development, mentorship & exposure platforms, while promoting a clear understanding of what it takes to be a CHAMPION in sports and in life."
Evans looks for teaching moments with his teams, and considers one such experience one of his favorite interactions in five years of youth coaching.
"I had two kids, specifically, who had trouble with attitudes," said Evans. "They didn't respond well when you talked to them. Now, I'm a kid at heart and a players' coach, not a military type. I play with the kids, too. But our quarterback was having arguments in the huddle with receivers who came back saying they were open.
"Going into the state championship game, I said, 'If you've got to argue with anyone, do it right now.' I made a circle of players around him and everyone said something to him. Everyone thought he was going to explode, but he kept his temper. He clapped his hands, like saying, 'I'm not about to let y'all get into my head.' And I could see a light bulb going on in his head. He realized the importance of talking things out, letting other things go and doing his job."
The other highlight came during his freshman season at Michigan, when 12 Gauge (Evans wears No. 12) and CE Stars came together to play at a midway point, the University of Saint Francis College in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
"We had a big game and a cookout after it," said Evans. "We had a lot of fun, and also had bounce houses out there for the kids."
Evans shares a passion for coaching kids with starting tailback Karan Higdon, who established the Empire For the Youth foundation in Ann Arbor and runs Who Next football camps in his hometown of Sarasota, Florida, and the Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights.
They also share the load in the backfield, with Higdon getting 34 carries for 228 yards and two touchdowns in the first three games of 2018 and Evans getting 30 for 172 yards and two touchdowns. It was 164 carries for Higdon in 2017 to 135 for Evans.
Evans needed only 13 carries to amass 191 yards (14.7-yard average) last year against Minnesota, scoring touchdowns on runs of 60 and 67 yards. He combined with Higdon (200 yards, 16 carries, two touchdowns) to become the first conference teammates to become co-Big Ten Offensive Players of the Week.
"At halftime," recalled Evans, "Karan said, 'We're going to make history.' I didn't know exactly what he was talking about, but we just played great and the great offensive line got us to another level."
Evans hopes to add to a different kind of "history" when his playing career concludes, joining Wolverine tailback greats such as Thomas Wilcher (Detroit Cass Tech), Ricky Powers (Akron Buchtel in Ohio) and current Jacksonville Jaguars running backs coach and former Michigan assistant Tyrone Wheatley (Dearborn Heights Robichaud) as a high school head coach.
