Mike Kent glad to be “home”
Mike Kent says that it’s good to be “home.”
He returned to Appalachian State in December as strength and conditioning coach for athletics, a job he had held for nine years before moving on to oversee programs at Louisville, Pitt and Kansas State.
When Jeff Dillman left ASU last August to become director of athletic performance at IMG Academies in Bradenton, Fla., Kent said he and his wife Deena were very interested in the possibility of returning.
They had built a home between Boone and Mountain City, Tenn., in 1992, kept it and had been using it as a vacation home.
“It was time to come back,” Kent said. “My wife and I have been a bunch of different places since we left, so it’s basically coming back to the roots of what really got us started. I had been coaching before I got here, but we were here from 1990 to ’99, which were great years.”
Kent said that the nine years he spent at ASU were the most he’s ever stayed in one place. He said that he moved around a lot growing up. His father, who now lives in Garner, was a district manager for a five-and-dime retail chain. Kent and his wife, a veterinarian technician, are both originally from West Virginia.
“We’re mountain people, basically,” Kent said. “We like trees and all that good stuff.”
Kent said that he’s amazed at how the campus had changed and grown while he was away. He is enjoying working in ASU’s new athletic complex, which opened this past football season.
“It’s impressive,” Kent said. “The utilization of space is incredible. One day last week we had field hockey, football and wrestling team all working out at the same time. We couldn’t have done that in the old facility.”
But Kent said that, in a lot of ways, it’s like he never left ASU.
“Once you come to App State you’re always App State, even when you go out there,” Kent said. “There is a piece that goes with you. I haven’t been anywhere in my profession that you don’t run into someone that’s either coached or played at App State, and they’re always excited about it. It’s like you’re always vested somehow.”