Free Press boys athlete of the year: BHS star Kevin Garrison

Don't ask Brennan Carney to cut the highlight reel for Kevin Garrison.

Chances are the finished product would look like a full-length, sit-down-with-popcorn feature.

"Too long. Do you show the big plays? The small things?" said Carney, Garrison's football coach at Burlington High School the past four years. "It'd be long. It'd be entertaining."

For that matter, don't give the task to BHS basketball coach Tom Barron either. He'd end up producing the sequel.

"Oh, not a day goes by, whether it's a practice or a game, where there aren't 'KG moments,'" Barron said. "A dynamic move to the rim, a rebound or a steal, or getting to a loose ball ... when Matt Johnson was there we'd just look at each other like, 'What was that?' He's been doing it since he was in ninth grade." 

A two-sport star known by two letters, Garrison was nothing short of electrifying for the Seahorses on the gridiron and the hardwood, a playmaker without rival in Vermont and a slam dunk to be named the Burlington Free Press' boys athlete of the year.

"You can't teach some things — the nuance of just making a play," Carney said. "The big thing you talk about with great players is they make great plays in big moments. There's just no question about it. There's no disappointment. And with Kevin, he's constantly there over and over again."

A two-time BFP first-team all-state selection in football and basketball, Garrison dazzled at running back with 1,450 yards and 21 touchdowns as a senior despite playing through a high-ankle sprain for most of the season.

He went on to crack the 1,000-point mark in basketball this winter while averaging 18 points and seven rebounds per game — and wreaking havoc when the Seahorses didn't have the ball.

"We literally would have offenses to gear away from Kevin Garrison," Rice coach Paul Pecor said. "He dictated a lot of what we tried to do offensively. He drove me nuts." 

More:Kevin Garrison joins Burlington High School's 1,000-point club

Yet for a long time that athletic dexterity was a source of frustration — for him. 

When Garrison thought about his future, football wasn't in it. He longed to play college basketball. Nearly everyone else thought differently.

"It was definitely a big motivator, that people were saying, 'You should go with football, you could go farther, you're better at it,'" Garrison said. 

More:28th Annual Free Press All-State Football Team: Offense

More:28th Annual Free Press All-State Boys Basketball Team

That motivation took an unexpected turn just this month, though, when a chance meeting with University of Vermont men's basketball coach John Becker resulted in an opportunity to join the Catamounts as a walk-on.

Garrison had originally committed to a similar offer from St. Michael's College. But the smaller financial burden at UVM and the prospect of joining a Division I program led him to make an uncomfortable phone call to the Purple Knights coaching staff.

"I was scared they were going to be mad at me but they were understanding," said Garrison, who'd been accepted to both schools. "Life works out in weird ways and I'm very blessed."

“We are excited that Kevin will be joining our team this fall," Becker said this week. "He is a great kid and extremely hard working. I’m glad this worked out. I look forward to having an opportunity to coach him.”

Becker and Co. inherit a player upon whom Carney heaped praise for creating a positive, healthy team culture.

'He's humble in the right places and cocky in all the other right places to be great," Carney said. "He's a really nice kid. He's the most polite, nice kid you're going to meet. It's awesome. That's what makes him fun to coach."

And plenty of those traits can be traced back to the lineage of Seahorses standouts.

Garrison grew up idolizing players like Tyrone Conley, Clancy Rugg, Joe O'Shea, Andrew Plumley. Neighbors with Barron, he could see them up close while shooting hoops at home.

"When my son was playing, he'd be wide-eyed across the street watching him and Clancy and Joe O'Shea," Barron said.

The way they treated Garrison left an imprint on the talented youngster.

"You kind of realize it's your duty, any athlete's duty, to make a positive change," Garrison said. "I realized there's these younger kids looking up to me and I can make a difference.

"It was always in the back of my head that you've got to present yourself well in front of these people."

Sometimes that's easier said than done, particularly in the heat of one of the state's fiercest rivalries, Burlington vs. Rice.

But time after time, Garrison rose to the occasion — much to the dismay of the Green Knights. A knowing, mutual respect emerged.

"I tried to say he fouled too much — even though he didn't foul," Pecor said, laughing.

"He made my life difficult but at the end of the day I love KG," Pecor said. "At the end of the game at our place he gave me a big hug and said, 'This might be our last one.' It was. We had a hell of a run."

Contact Austin Danforth at 651-4851 or edanforth@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @eadanforth.