The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree for Kirk Callahan.

A childhood that saw him spend years as the ball boy for his dad state championship winning teams, groomed Callahan for the career he was destined for in coaching.

The son of Sefner Armwood head coach Sean Callahan, Kirk not only wanted to emulate his father, but also go a step farther.

“He’s won enough state championships so I figured the one way to outdo him was to go to the next level.”

Callahan has been at “the next level” since 2007 when he became a student assistant at his alma mater, UCF. He spent two seasons at North Carolina as a graduate assistant before coming to Gainesville to serve the Gators as a defensive GA from 2010-2011.

Callahan then returned to his alma mater where he served the Knights as the defensive backs coach from 2012-2014.

Now he’s back in Gainesville as part of his ping-pong coaching path, although he couldn’t have foreseen it happening.

“Obviously that was the plan from the beginning”, Callahan joked.

“No, it was just timing and everything worked out the way it was. I was blessed to be, wherever I’ve been I’ve been with really good coaches, and I’ve been very thankful for all the opportunities that I’ve been with, or who I’ve been with. And then, just the path – you do things the right way and I think good things happen for people that do that.”

Along his path, Callahan was able to coach a couple of notable DB’s, including Janoris Jenkins, currently with the St. Louis Rams.

He was also able to spend time coaching Josh Evans, who is now with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

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Now Callahan will have the opportunity to coach up some future NFL stars, like All-American Vernon Hargreaves III.

“I’m excited. I knew Vernon obviously from Tampa days where he’s from. He’s done a great job to this point and I’m excited to work with him in terms of that. He’s already a good player, well how can we make him better? And that’s going to come with me looking at film and our staff as we meet together and see how we can better him even more.”

No matter who he’s coaching though, his philosophy will remain the same…get the ball.

Callahan’s secondary was able to take away 18 interceptions in 2014, which is two more than the Gators did during that time.

“The ball’s ours”, Callahan explains adamantly.

“When the ball is in the air, it should be ours. At the end of the day when that thing is in the air, we should be acting like it’s ours. So we’re going to do as much drills as an offense and wide receivers catching the ball. That thing’s got to be ours. I like DB’s that are smart, I don’t like dumb DB’s in terms of that. Anybody can just go play man. You cover that cat. You’ve got to sit there and understand not only why we’re playing this defense, but where are the weaknesses? So I want my DB’s to be extremely smart. And at the end of the day you’ve got great players, let’s make them play fast. Let’s not try to overdue things.”

Above all though, he says your relationship with the players is more important than the schemes.

“My philosophy as a coach is coach hard, but love them hard. So I’m going to chase them around and get after them when I need to get after them, but I’m going to love them up when I need to.”

Yet another aspect of the game he learned long ago as that motivated ball boy following around the dad who taught him how to win.