If you ask Stan Drayton how he got into coaching, he’ll tell you Ken O’Keefe, his former Allegheny coach, introduced the idea 29 years ago. Long before taking on the head coaching job at Temple, Drayton started as an assistant fresh out of college in 1993 for his alma mater.
“When he got back, I asked, ‘Did you get it fixed? Is that how you got around during the week?’ ” O’Keefe said. “He goes, ‘No, no, I just drove on the doughnut the whole week.’ ”The newly appointed running backs coach tossed the flat tire into his trunk, replaced it with the spare — which shouldn’t be driven on for more than about 50 miles — and continued the trip. Drayton refused to let anything stop him from reaching each school on his list before 7 a.m. during his first recruiting assignment.
Allegheny’s offensive coordinator at the time walked into John Marshall High School upon recommendation from their coach and met Drayton the football player, who primarily played defensive back for the Lawyers. “He recruited me the right way. He poured into my person, who I was, where I was from,” Drayton said. “He poured into my family. Told me what it was like to be a student-athlete. It was bigger than football, he developed a real relationship with me. To this day, I still live that way.”
His first year with the Fighting Irish overlapped with Raghib “Rocket” Ismail’s final season. Ismail was runner-up for the 1990 Heisman Trophy, and in the spirit of his rocket moniker, ran an unofficial 4.28 40-yard dash at a predraft combine.
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