PHILADELPHIA -- Getting to St. Joseph’s Prep High School is everything you expect while driving in Philadelphia. Navigating claustrophobic one-way streets with cars parked bumper-to-bumper on each side. Detours around construction and parked trucks. White-knuckling through intersections, cursing the Waze app for directing you to turn left.

Eventually, you end up on West Girard Avenue, riding on the streetcar tracks to 18th street, where, almost out of nowhere, the towering, red brick, white-pillared Church of the Gesu rises above row houses. You don’t immediately notice the school connected to it or even the 2019 football state championship banner adorning the fence next to the intersection.

St. Joseph’s -- or The Prep, as anyone who spends more than a few hours there calls it -- is a football powerhouse, boasting state championships, national rankings and, probably most importantly, plenty of Philadelphia Catholic League (PCL) titles.

John Connors knows all about the tradition of St. Joseph’s and the PCL. Most of his family went to LaSalle, St. Joseph’s rival. He calls himself the black sheep, the one who went to The Prep.

Connors was a sophomore in 1999, starting for the first time on varsity and for the first time as a center. When it came time to take on LaSalle, Connors was amped. On the first play he barrelled into the nose guard.

Except he forgot to snap the ball.

Back in the huddle, waiting for him, was his quarterback, senior Kevin Stefanski, a first-year starter at that position. Stefanski calmed his young center down and The Prep went on to win a tight game.

Connors never considered Stefanski an inexperienced quarterback. He was the clear leader, the team’s QB1.

It’s just who Stefanski is. Calm under pressure. A leader among his peers. Prepared and humble. Tough and competitive. Connors saw all those qualities. So did everyone else. They were obvious to the people who knew Stefanski during his formative years. They’re the qualities the Browns believe they have found in their next leader.

‘Everybody saw how valuable he was’

4 Belmont Plateau, Philadelphia

Back when Stefanski was at St. Joseph’s, the football team practiced at a place called Belmont Plateau. It’s referenced by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince in the track, “Summertime.”

Back in Philly, we be out in the park ... A place called the plateau is where everybody go.

Connors remembers it well, an unimpressive stretch of field wedged between four baseball diamonds. After school, the players would carpool or hop on the bus for the 20-minute ride west across the Schuylkill River. There were no locker rooms or bathrooms, so they’d change out of the trunks of cars while cross country runners ran by on the courses around the field.

Prior to 1999, Stefanski’s quarterback experience was limited to the freshman team. He beat out Joe Judge for that job -- the Joe Judge who would eventually become the New York Giants’ head coach a few days prior to Stefanski joining the Browns. Judge transferred to Lansdale Catholic.

But Stefanski had to wait his turn to play quarterback once he moved up to varsity. Where he really made his mark early was as a safety.

Gil Brooks, Stefanski’s coach in high school, called him a killer. He was the nicest kid you’ll ever meet outside the lines, but he’d take your measure between them. He played the position like a linebacker. Looking back, Brooks compares him to current Vikings safety Harrison Smith.

Stefanski’s senior season was a transition year, said Brooks. The team was talented, but young. Brooks knew he would have to lean heavily on Stefanski to have any success.

Playing both ways, Stefanski won Catholic League MVP. He did it in a year when the league realigned and St. Joseph’s was in the big-school division, when Kevin Jones, on his way to Virginia Tech and a future first-round NFL pick, was in the league.

“Everybody saw and knew how valuable he was to The Prep,” Brooks said. “We wouldn’t have been near where we were without him.”

Kevin Stefanski with teammate John Paul Mantey. (Courtesy of St. Joseph's Prep)

Connors remembers a game against Archbishop Ryan, where nothing was working in a contest so physical he felt like he had been in a car crash the next day. They leaned on Stefanski to run the ball and won a low-scoring affair.

Chris Rupertus, an English teacher and a coach on the freshman team, would watch the varsity games from the sidelines. He remembers watching Stefanski slammed to the ground on third down, his teammates peeling him off the cold, wet turf. Surely he would need some time to catch his breath. Instead, he walked to the bench, got a drink and, after the punt, went out to his free safety spot.

Stefanski carried St. Joseph’s as far as he could before hurting his ankle in the PCL semifinals against Roman Catholic.

“Kevin stays healthy, I think we probably win the championship that year,” Connors said.

Brooks said his coaching staff’s gameplan threw a lot at their players. Stefanski ate it up. Brooks credited Stefanski’s preparation for his ability to lay crushing hits on receivers, understand route concepts and anticipate where players were going.

Those are the skills he brought to Penn when he was thrown on the field right away at safety as a college freshman. Ray Priore, the Quakers’ current head coach, was the defensive coordinator in those days. He was impressed with how quickly Stefanski understood concepts as a freshman and how he applied that knowledge.

Coaches frantically calling in a check or an adjustment simply got an “I’ve got this” wave-off from Stefanski. He knew what they wanted done.

In the meeting rooms? He always had the answer.

“He was the smartest one,” Priore said.

‘Friend to all’

Kevin Stefanski poses with teachers Frank Raffa (left) and Barbara Brown (right) at graduation from St. Joseph's Prep.

Stewart Barbera, a counselor at St. Joseph’s, still tells today’s students a Stefanski anecdote.

Barbera was a chaperone on Stefanski’s sophomore retreat. He noticed at lunchtime one day how one of the kids was shy and unsure where to go. Tables were filling up and the kid was clearly anxious.

Stefanski, unprompted, got up from his table of football players and asked the kid to come sit with them. Barbera brought it up to Stefanski later and he shrugged it off. It was, to Barbera, an example of a student committed to doing the right thing, even when he thought no one was looking.

Tony Braithwaite runs the theater program at St. Joseph’s. Stefanski, as a senior, took Braithwaite’s drama class as an elective. The school decided on a turn-of-the-century performance looking at the institution’s past, present and future. Stefanski helped write the show and was the lead. Braithwaite can still see Stefanski in his tuxedo, turning to deliver his greeting -- “Oh, hello” -- to the audience.

He’s convinced Stefanski could have been a star in the school’s Cape & Sword drama program if he had chosen that route.

James McGlynn taught Stefanski’s senior Systematic Theology course. Stefanski was quiet in McGlynn’s class, but not because he was shy or disengaged. He just never felt the need to speak up to impress. When he said something, it was thoughtful and pertinent. It was often original.

Rupertus, in his 22 years, has taught many bright, ethical, charismatic kids. Stefanski managed to stand out. He was always well-prepared in the classroom, unwilling to be outworked. For Rupertus, he combined so many of those traits and showed them all the time.

Person after person who talked about Stefanski didn’t see the son of an NBA executive from the suburbs or a football star who roamed the hallways like he owned them.

“He worked hard to make sure he didn't come off as an egotistical pain in the ass,” Braithwaite said, “but, in fact, went the other way and was humble and nice and a kind of friend to all.”

It continued at Penn. When Priore first met Stefanski during the recruiting process, he was impressed with his ability to connect with anyone. He had the maturity of a 38-year-old at age 18.

During those years, Stefanski developed a relationship with a man named Dan Staffieri, a 79-year-old assistant football coach and Game-Day Coordinator. Because his last name was hard to pronounce, he simply went by Coach Lake because the last part of his name sounded like Lake Erie.

Stefanski, when he was injured and redshirting one season, took on the job of driving Coach Lake around campus in a cart shaped like a Penn football helmet on Fridays while Coach Lake yelled through his bullhorn to urge students to come to the game. Stefanski’s connection with Coach Lake was so strong, he continued as his driver, even after he was back playing and starting again.

“He does so much for us,” Stefanski said in a story about Coach Lake in the Daily Pennsylvanian, “it’s the least I could do for him.”

A plaque honoring Coach Lake in the Penn home tunnel. (Dan Labbe, cleveland.com)

Staffieri died in 2010. There’s a plaque with his image on it, hand outstretched in the Penn home tunnel which players high five as they run out. Priore and Penn’s Director of Athletic Communications Mike Mahoney recalled the story as just another example of the type of person Stefanski was when he arrived on campus.

St. Joseph’s Prep science teacher Barbara Brown summed up Stefanski in an email:

“He was that kid. The one who is smart, talented, athletic and got along with his peers and with the adults in his life. But the best thing about Kevin was that he was completely oblivious to the fact that he was that kid.”

‘One of the bright lights’

16 St. Joseph's Prep

The people of St. Joseph’s are proud of their school, but there are two things in particular they take great pride in.

First is being in the heart of North Philly. A fire in the 1960s presented an opportunity to move out of the city. The Jesuits decided to stay and rebuild.

Andrew T. Cavacos, the school’s principal, thinks it’s important for the boys who attend, many coming from outside the city, to deal with long commutes into the city for early-morning practices. They have to figure it out, he says, show up and seize the day.

The school also prides itself on producing leaders, and the phrase servant leadership is used often. The last two mayors of Philadelphia both went to The Prep. Parents have told Connors, Stefanski’s former teammate who now helps coach the football team, that they don’t send their boys to be average.

Stefanski was certainly not average. McGlynn believes his decision to shun his family’s long ties to basketball and focus on football was a symbol of his individuality.

Frank Raffa, a longtime Spanish and French teacher, was impressed Stefanski was as interested in school as he was football.

When Stefanski decided to go into coaching, Brooks said he was a wet blanket, asking Stefanski if he was sure he really wanted to do the menial, entry-level tasks it takes to get into coaching. He believes Stefanski could have hit the ground running on the path to becoming a CEO, making real money right away.

During Priore’s interview, a former Penn player who is now a successful businessman popped his head in Priore’s office. The two exchanged greetings. After Priore sat back down, he said, “Kevin could have been him -- going into the private world in business. Went the coaching route.”

Instead, after graduation, Stefanski stayed on at Penn as their version of a graduate assistant, doing the dirty work as a part-time staffer. He eventually joined the Eagles as an operations intern. Brad Childress brought him to the Vikings in 2006.

Priore believes there are people in this world that are interested in being good and there are people that are committed to being good. He saw the latter in Stefanski at Penn and as he climbed the ladder in Minnesota. He believes what will make Stefanski successful is the same approach, a commitment evident in the history of St. Joseph’s and in Stefanski’s time there.

“He understands that, whether it’s The Prep or he’s at Penn or the Vikings, one person doesn’t do it all,” Priore said.

When Stefanski was introduced as Browns head coach on Jan. 14, you better believe The Prep community was paying attention.

Braithwaite called it great casting. He said sometimes kids will surprise you after they leave. Not Stefanski. It has all made perfect sense. A little older, a little more gray, but it was definitely Kevin -- self-possessed, confident, poised, humble.

There are the football stories, but so many at St. Joseph’s were eager to talk about Stefanski the student, the person, the friend to all. He embodied, to them, so many qualities their school teaches.

It’s why it’s so easy for Raffa to call him “one of the bright lights” during his many years teaching at the school.

Many of the qualities the Browns found in Stefanski were already apparent to The Prep. It’s where he learned, as Rupertus put it, that the collective effort is what’s important. Everybody contributes and real success can only occur when you stop worrying about personal glory.

“The Kevin you’re seeing now," Braithwaite said, "is exactly who we knew and loved.”

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