Meet the former Pawhuska three-sport legend bolstering Bartlesville football fortunes

For those who have closely followed Bartlesville-area sports during the past several years, the name Cameron Kirk should have a familiar sound.

His shadow of achievements has covered his alma mater Pawhuska High School and Dewey American Legion Baseball. Now he is passing on his gritty wealth of sports knowledge to Bartlesville High football players.

"He does a really good job on the defensive side as the junior high defensive coordinator," Bruin head coach Harry Wright said. "I've been impressed with him. He's teaching them (freshmen) the fundamentals."

Kirk works with the linebackers and running backs for the eighth-grade and ninth-grade teams, serves as the ninth-grade defensive coordinator, and is part of the varsity coaches pressbox crew on Friday nights.

"There's a lot of personalities up in the box," Kirk said. "When we're trying to kill time … there's always a lot of laughs. But we know how to buckle down and do our job .It's a good experience to be around these guys."

Kirk is heading into his fourth season as a Bruin football assistant and also assists in wrestling and baseball.

As a Huskie athlete, Kirk truly epitomized the warrior athlete for all seasons. Simply put, he was born to play.

"One of the pluses is that he's a three-sport athlete and he coaches three sports," Wright said. "A lot of kids flock to him."

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"My dad was a football and wrestling coach in Sapulpa," Kirk recalled. "I went to Sapulpa one year and after seventh grade we then moved to Pawhuska. … Ever since I could remember, I've been around high school sports. Instead of riding the bus home after elementary school, I walked over to the practice and got to hang with the high school guys. … I've always been around athletics."

As a sophomore, he helped propel the Pawhuska football team to a 9-1 regular season record and power playoff run to the state semifinals; his senior year the Huskies played in the quarterfinals.

On the wrestling mat, Kirk won three-straight Class 3A regional titles (2010-138, 2011-132, 2012-145) and a two-time state champion (2010, 2012).

He also excelled on the high school baseball diamond, helping Pawhuska make a deep playoff run his senior season. He played American Legion summer baseball for both the Dewey Seminoles and the Bartlesville Doenges Ford Indians.

Kirk followed a circuitous route during his college years.

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He started out at Northern Oklahoma College-Tonkawa and then transferred to Rogers State. From there, he moved to the Mid-America Christian. Following college, he turned in a successful two-year tenure as the head baseball coach at Shidler High; he made Blackwell High his next coaching/teaching stop.

A boyhood encounter resulted in the door opening up for him at Bartlesville. The head wrestling coach at Sapulpa Middle School had been Jason Sport, who later became the Bartlesville head football coach and thought of Kirk for an opening.

"I checked it out and Bartlesville was a great fit for me," Kirk said.

Serendipity gave Kirk another boost. Bartlesville head baseball coach Cody Price had attended Mid-America Christian with Kirk and brought him on staff. But, it's football season now and Kirk is focused on the present and the future.

One middle school player Bruin fans might want to pay attention to is Phoenix Bolden, Kirk said.

"We played him at running back during the Ponca City scrimmage and that dude will run through a brick wall," Kirk said. "He could be a hidden gem."

Speaking of gems, Kirk still feels the blood flowing when he thinks back to the 2009 playoff game victory, 34-20, against Heritage Hall -- whose star players included Barry Sanders Jr. and Sterling Shepherd.

Pawhuska hosted the star-studded showdown, which drew people from throughout the state, filled the stands and then some.

"There were people four lines deep all the way around the stadium," Kirk said. "That was definitely the craziest atmosphere for a football game I've played."

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Meet the staff: Cameron Kirk helps build Bartlesville's football fate