Like Father, Like Son

By Seth Herrold
R-T Sports Editor

Lathan Croy does not remember a whole lot about life before Trenton. That’s understandable, seeing how he was just entering kindergarten when his father, Wes Croy, took the Trenton High School head football coaching position.
For the elder Croy, the move was a homecoming. A chance to come home and coach at the very high school he graduated from in 1985. The high school he helped lead to a Midland Empire Conference championship as a player in 1984.
It was in those early years following the Croys’ move that Lathan had his first major football memory. He probably would have turned into a football player regardless, but on a late October night, Croy got his picture taken with his Dad’s star fullback in the minutes following a 44-25 victory over Brookfield – one that gave the school its first district championship in nearly a decade.
“I remember 2007 especially,” Lathan recalls. “I took a picture with Andie (DeAndre Vandevender) after the Brookfield game I think it was. I have brief memories before we moved here, but I would say that was the one moment that was the main memory I remember.”
It was fitting it was that night that gave Croy such an impactful moment in his young life. Trenton had struggled with Brookfield in the years prior. The game was a defining moment in a season that saw the Bulldogs set a school record with 11 wins and roll all the way to the state quarterfinals before being knocked off by Blair Oaks. In the moments before taking his picture with Lathan, Vandevender had torched Brookfield, carrying the ball a whopping 54 times for 311 yards.
“That Brookfield game was probably the thing we look at the most from that season,” Wes said. “We had so many disappointments throughout the previous years with Brookfield. To win that game and know that you were in the driver’s seat to get to the state playoffs was quite a big deal.”
Nearly a full 10 years down the road Lathan, now a senior, sits high above the field that he has called home for each of the past four autumns. It is just two nights before Senior Night at venerable, old C.F. Russell Stadium. Lathan and his fellow seniors from the football team ventured out on this evening to help the Quarterback Club paint the field for what figures to be their last game on the playing field where they laid claim to a Grand River Conference championship just one year ago.
Now in the press box, the boys admire their handiwork. They joke and reminisce, but that soon gives way as they realize their time together on the gridiron is waning. There are other sports to come before they cross the stage on graduation day, but this is football. This is special.
“It’s kind of all setting in that this could be our last one at C.F. Russell Stadium,” Lathan said. “All of the seniors, for the most part, helped paint the field. We all sat in the press box and kind of looked over the field one last time. It was pretty cool.”
Friday night and the few weeks to follow will author the final chapter in Lathan’s football playing career. He is talented enough to probably play collegiately in any of his three sports at the right level. But the senior has no plans beyond high school at the moment. There will be time to figure that out later. Right now, he is just focused on Gallatin and Friday night’s game.
“We are ready, we are excited,” Lathan says “We want to go get a win on senior night.”
Lathan has been around football for his entire life. Literally, Wes remembers holding him as a baby after games at Maysville where he was coaching at the time. As the years moved on and Wes Croy traveled to South Harrison for what would be his final coaching stop before his return to Trenton, the younger Croy was a staple of his Dad’s practices, always listening, always doing what he could to help out.
“I have a picture at home of me holding Lathan when he was a baby on the field at Maysville – we were both a lot younger then,” Wes says with a laugh. “That’s probably the first memory, but as he got older I can just remember him at South Harrison, coming to practice and staying out of my way. He was supposed to stay parked by the water fountain and he followed instructions pretty well. When we got to Trenton, he got to where he could help more and more – pulling bags in or collecting footballs. He was always around. He was always pretty knowledgeable, even at a young age, (as to) how he was supposed to act and what he was supposed to do when he was at a practice.”
When Lathan got to the age he was able to start playing himself, he hardly resembled the tall slender quarterback with the big arm that he is now. In his middle school years, he played on the offensive line. In an ironic twist, Lathan was the team’s center and Mason Owen, currently Trenton’s center, was the quarterback.
“Mason got big and strong and Lathan got tall and thin,” Wes Croy recalls. “That’s been really kind of neat. Those are two kids that have some physical talent, but their football IQ is such that it has allowed them both to do very well at a position where thinking sometimes is every bit as important as what you are able to do physically.”
Prior to Lathan’s junior season, Brandon Boswell, who took over the program from Wes just before Lathan’s first high school season, pondered moving Croy to quarterback. He went to Wes – who had his doubts – with the idea. Wes took his son to a quarterback camp at Pittsburg State to see if he looked comfortable at the position. Lathan took to the spot well at the camp and at that point, Wes began to think that Lathan could pull it off.
After a bit of a rough start in weeks one and two, things began to click for Lathan. The Bulldogs ripped off six wins in a row to claim the Grand River Conference title, the first for Trenton since the elder Croy’s team won that MEC title 32 years earlier.
“When we won the MEC in ’84, that was a big deal for us,” Wes recalls. “I can remember being 17 years old and all of that happening and how proud we were to be conference champions. Unfortunately, the kids here at Trenton High School didn’t even have the opportunity to experience that for an extended period of time. For Lathan and last year’s group to be able to do that, especially in our first year in the conference, I was just happy for them to get to experience it. It is a big deal and I was just happy that (Lathan) got to be a part of that.”
The Croys are forever linked with the two conference championships. Lathan and his dad talk football all the time, but when it comes to reminiscing about those conference titles, the talk usually centers on the 2016 team.
“He doesn’t talk about his season a whole lot,” Lathan says. “I would say my dad is a very humble person, so usually when we do talk about it, it’s about the other guys and how great they were. How he enjoyed being around them so much and how they still talk about their memories today. He said that’s what he wants me to enjoy.”
Lathan, in a lot of ways, is his father. You will not find an ounce of arrogance in either one. They both found a lot of success within the game of football, but they would be the last ones to broadcast it. It’s a trait Wes got from his father Garry Croy, who is also a Trenton football alum, graduating in 1966, one year before the Bulldogs won the state championship that fall. Wes passed it on to Lathan, a third-generation Bulldog.
Greg Dalrymple is now Trenton’s offensive coordinator. He works closely with Lathan in practice and at games and was an assistant coach on Wes’ staff for all nine years he coached the Bulldogs. Dalrymple sees the similarities in the two often.
“The thing that is the most obvious about the two of them is how much they don’t seek out attention,” Dalrymple said. “Lathan is pretty laid back and he is easy to coach. He is easy to be around and he is always trying to do the right thing. That comes a lot from his dad and they both just have that way about them that anything they are involved with is good. That’s just how they are.”
Lathan is quick to pass praise off to his teammates, another trait he gets from his father. When asked about Lathan’s success Wes, too, turns the focus to the kids around his son.
“Lathan has been really fortunate to be surrounded by really good players over the past couple of years,” Wes Croy said. “He has had really good receivers in Colton Colston and Connor Cotton and Hunter Dugan. He has been blessed with good running backs to hand the ball off to in Austin Burkeybile and Carson Radcliff and then he has had good kids up front. Mason Owen and Jadan Whitney, Jarren King, Carson Burchett, Cole Schilling and those kids that were seniors last year. He has been well-protected and well-aided.
“I think a lot of times head coaches and quarterbacks have a lot in common. They shoulder way too much blame when things go wrong but they get too much credit when things go right. Lathan has been very fortunate to be around kids who have allowed a lot of things to go right.”
Tonight, Lathan will put on the black number 11 jersey – a number he wears because that’s the number Cole Leazenby wore when he was taking snaps for Wes Croy’s team at South Harrison that reached the state semifinals in 2001. Lathan doesn’t remember a lot about those days, but he has heard the stories over and over and seen the highlight videos time and time again. Look closely at Lathan’s shoes and you will see white tape spatted around the heel and ankle. That, too, is a nod to Leazenby.
“It was the number I always wanted to wear on the football field,” Lathan says. “I grew up wanting to be as good as Cole, so when the chance came to wear it, I jumped on it.”
Lathan’s time on the football field is winding down and that is setting in for him. For Wes, there are mixed emotions surrounding this senior night. He will undoubtedly be sad to see his lone son’s football playing days draw to a close, but he sees the big picture. He lived through this when it was his turn to walk out under the lights at C.F. Russell Stadium for one final game all of those years ago. He knows that life holds bigger things than winning games for four fleeting years in high school.
“I will miss watching him play, but I’m also excited for him.” Wes Croy said. “High school sports are awesome and I love high school football, but there is a next phase of life and I am just happy that so far he has been able to enjoy his experience and stay healthy.
“I will be proud of him when we walk out there before the game just like every parent will be proud of their kid when they walk out there before the game. After the game he is going to come out of the locker room and I’m going to shake his hand and give him a kiss on the forehead just like I have after every other game that he has ever played.”