How The Fade changed his life, but it didn’t change Erik Kimrey

Erik Kimrey laughed, and then sighed, his standard response whenever the subject of fame – his – comes up.

The head football coach for 14 seasons at Hammond School has a coaching resume to die for: 156 victories and just 17 losses; 10 trips to the SCISA state championship game with eight titles; the fastest coach in S.C. prep history to 100 victories.

Yet the 38-year-old Kimrey knows that, for all his coaching achievements, what he is best known for – and probably always will be, at least among South Carolina fans – happened during a game 17 years ago.

Not even a game, but simply one play: The Fade.

Kimrey, husband and father of three, says that other than his marriage and the birth of his kids, The Fade was perhaps the biggest day of his life. He says that is both “cool” and “embarrassing” in equal measure. But there’s no question of its impact.

“Listen, that’s one of the best memories of my life,” he said. “It changed my life.”

On Sunday at 7 p.m., SCETV (WRLK-TV 35 in Columbia) will air a 30-minute special on that moment. “The Fade,” written and produced by veteran documentarian Les Carroll, revisits the day a former (Kimrey’s words) “seventh-string” USC quarterback carved out a permanent place in Gamecocks football history.

There is much more to this story, and to Kimrey, than one play, however. The documentary tells all of that, too. First, though … The Fade.

On Sept. 23, 2000, with less than five minutes to play at Williams-Brice Stadium, USC trailed No. 25 Mississippi State, 19-13. On third-and-10 from the MSU 25, quarterback Phil Petty threw away the ball under a heavy MSU rush, went down and came up limping.

Kimrey, Petty’s backup, remembers thinking to himself: “I’d probably better get my helmet.”

Pause here for perspective: That 2000 team, in its second season under legendary coach Lou Holtz, had won its first three games – this after going 0-11 in 1999, part of a historic 0-for-21 losing streak – but questions remained. How good were the Gamecocks? And, now, what would they do without Petty?

USC fans know what came next – or think they do: Kimrey, asked on the sideline by Holtz for a play on fourth-and-10, responded, “Coach, I can throw the fade (route).”

Memorable – except that didn’t happen, Kimrey said.

“(Offensive coach) Todd Fitch asked me, ‘What do you like?’ And I said, “18” – which was a fade route down the left sideline to receiver Jermale Kelly. “I never said (the words), ‘I can throw the fade.’ ”

And then he did just that, lofting a high, accurate strike that landed in Kelly’s hands for a touchdown and a 20-19 lead. USC added a field goal to win 23-19 and go to 4-0, en route to an 8-4 Outback Bowl-winning season.

Bill Kimrey, Erik’s father and his coach at Dutch Fork High, laughed recalling his view of the play. “I was sitting in the parents’ section – actually, I was standing on my seat -- and of course, everyone I’ve ever met since has told me they were there that day,” he said. “There must’ve been 100,000 people in that corner.”

That was the feeling Les Carroll got when he set out to produce “The Fade.”

A1978 Hammond graduate and member of the Skyhawks’ undefeated state championship team in 1977, Carroll attended USC (after a Latter Day Saints mission to Australia) and worked briefly for two S.C. newspapers before spending 28 years in the U.S. Air Force. Much of that time was as a public affairs officer with the S.C. Air National Guard, where part of his job involved producing documentaries on the Guard’s history for ETV.

Carroll’s breakthrough in the field came when he teamed with Cliff Springs of Genesis Studios to produce a moving film, “Bringing The Fallen Home,” about honoring and returning remains of military members from the Middle East. The video aired nationally on PBS, and led to other projects since.

When he first met Erik Kimrey in their neighborhood in March 2016, the two Hammond alums talked about their lives, and Carroll was intrigued by Kimrey and The Fade. “Erik said that play changed his life, and I said, ‘I’m a filmmaker, and that might make a good documentary,’” said Carroll, who since 2013 works for the ALS Association as special projects manager.

Thus began a fundraising effort to pay for the project, which delayed its completion until this fall. Carroll obtained football footage from USC, including sideline shots of Kimrey and the Holtzes (Lou and son/offensive coordinator Skip), “not just what was on TV that day,” he said. Along with videographer Dan Beale, Carroll interviewed the Kimrey family and others at Hammond, and later talked with fans at a USC baseball game.

“I’d walk up and say, ‘What do you remember about The Fade?’ And some said it was the greatest moment in their lives,” Carroll said. “We found a Hammond student who was born the moment Erik threw the pass; we interviewed her grandfather, who was watching the game on TV when the nurse told him, ‘You have a new granddaughter.’ ”

Carroll wrote the script and paired it with Beale’s and USC’s videos. There is no narrator – “the interviews were so good, we didn’t need one,” he said – and a gentle musical score underneath brings it all together.

Especially poignant is the part of the documentary focusing on Erik’s brother Kevin, who more than anyone besides Erik was impacted by response to The Fade. Not long after the MSU game, Kevin broke his neck during a pickup football game. Bill Kimrey says that his son being rendered a quadriplegic turned the family’s life upside down – but The Fade helped their transition in unexpected ways.

“People don’t realize … I tell them Erik threw up a prayer that day, and it was answered,” the elder Kimrey said. “Probably because of the popularity of The Fade and how excited the Gamecocks were, they held a fund-raising golf tournament for us, and we were able to raise enough money to buy a handicapped van for Kevin.

“The Holtz family also was really good to us,” assisting Kevin in getting into a rehabilitation center, Bill Kimrey said. Today, Kevin lives in a “bachelor pad” attached to his parents’ home; “it gives him a little independence, a place for his friends to come over, but where we can walk in and help him.”

Bill Kimrey, whose four sons include Kyle, wrestling coach at White Knoll High, and graphics designer Bill Jr., paused. “Of all my sons, (Kevin) is definitely my hero,” he said.

All of that is in the documentary, along with Erik’s coaching career, which Bill Kimrey says started “when he was about eight (years old) in our front yard. He was doing hand signals for plays with his brothers back before there was a no-huddle offense.

“He always had that itch to coach. When he got to high school (where he starred at quarterback), he’d come to staff meetings and we’d put that stuff in the game plan.” Coaching, Erik’s father said, “just came natural to him.”

Which is a good thing, Erik said with a laugh. “I had mixed emotions (about doing a documentary), about a guy who was maybe the worst player in USC history, all that attention on one play,” he said. But after he and wife Erica viewed the final product, Kimrey was moved “when I saw other people reflect on what you’ve done in your life.”

After graduation, Kimrey spent a season as a graduate assistant under Skip Holtz and then, at age 24, was named Hammond’s head coach, succeeding – who else? – Phil Petty. Neither Kimrey nor Hammond ever regretted giving the job to an unproven young coach – one everyone knew, though, thanks to The Fade.

Kimrey hasn’t been only about success on the football field. When parts of Columbia were flooded in October 2015, the coach and his players helped families with salvage and cleanup. The documentary shows grateful neighbors praising the players and their coach.

“One of my favorite quotes,” Carroll said, “is from Hammond’s headmaster (Chris Angel) when he says, “Erik has had a lot of good weeks, but this might be his best.” A Hammond student, asked on camera about Kimrey, summed him up thus: “He cares.”

The documentary, concluding with Kelly’s catch and the delirious celebrations afterward, is about a moment in time, yes, but so much more. It’s also about an unheralded player who rose to the occasion one day – and never stopped doing so.

“It was a moment in history; you felt the (USC) program turning that season,” Kimrey said. “And it made a difference in my career, gave me an opportunity to do what I feel I was born to do – coach.”

Carroll said he hopes viewers will be moved by Kimrey’s story. “They’ll see this young man, a great example, a builder of other young men, a mentor and coach,” he said. “He’s making a difference in people’s lives, and I think that’ll come out.”

This is what comes out for Bill Kimrey about his son: “The Fade changed his life,” he said, “but it didn’t change him.”

This story was originally published November 2, 2017 at 2:11 PM with the headline "How The Fade changed his life, but it didn’t change Erik Kimrey."