Kody Kasey has his share of fond memories from his time playing on the football field.

If not chief among them, then at least the first to spring to mind for the former Georgetown College standout was a game against Bluefield (Va.) during his junior season when he returned a kick 41 yards and nearly broke clear for a touchdown.

“I had one guy to beat,” said Kasey, now a 23-year-old living in Alabama. “I almost took it to the house. It was my junior year – freshman year I was the starting kickoff returner. Then to go through all that, losing a leg and having the operations, to come back … it felt like I never left. It was just an amazing feeling.”

In Kasey’s case, “all that” was a remarkable journey of recovery after a grueling rehabilitation from a devastating football injury that eventually cost him his right leg below the knee.

Kasey will be the featured speaker Tuesday during the second annual Kentucky Super Preps presented by Med Center Health awards program at SKyPAC from 5:30-8:30 p.m.

Kentucky Super Preps is an awards program and celebration reserved for a very special group of high school student-athletes. The recognition is not just for what they may have accomplished on their fields and courts of play, but for the way they thrive in the classroom, in school and in their communities.

More than 900 people attended last year’s inaugural Super Preps that included 13 schools from the Barren River Area Development District, part of the event that will honor 25 varsity sports and feature nine specialty awards recognizing student-athletes, coaches and athletic directors.

Kasey, who has had steady appearances as a public speaker since his playing days, said he enjoys the opportunity to share his story with others and hopefully provide motivation and inspiration through his experience.

“I share my testimony to clinics, churches, schools,” Kasey said. “It’s my passion to speak – I love to share what’s happened in my life. I talk about my faith and how that’s been a big factor in overcoming this.”

Kasey grew up near Columbus, Ohio, and was a high school teammate of future NFL players Jake Butt and Godwin Igwebuike at Pickerington High School North in Pickerington, Ohio.

College coaches flocked to the school to see his highly-sought teammates, but Kasey drew the notice of Georgetown defensive coordinator Shan Housekeeper. The Tigers, a strong NAIA program that had finished 10-1 the season before, proved a natural fit for Kasey.

As a freshman, he won a starting spot as a cornerback and earned second-team All-Mid-South Conference honors.

Kasey also returned kicks for Georgetown, and it was on a punt return during a game against conference rival Cumberlands that his life was forever changed by the injury – a broken tibia and fibula that required a series of unsuccessful surgeries that eventually came down to this agonizing decision – Kasey could continue to experience pain in what would essentially be “a peg leg,” or he could opt for amputation and the chance to regain his lost mobility.

The choice, in Kasey’s mind, wasn’t about playing football again – it was to improve his quality of life. Kasey had the surgery in 2015, a year after his catastrophic injury.

“There were struggles for sure, but each day I was stumbling forward,” Kasey said. “I just had the mindset each day that I was going to get better.”

Kasey did get better, and eventually returned to the football field two years after his injury. It was in 2017, during his junior season, that Kasey – who’d mastered the balance to run on a blade-style prosthetic leg – ripped off that unforgettable return. He went on to play two seasons for the Tigers, primarily on special teams, where he tallied six returns for 88 yards (14.7 yards per return) and also saw action in nine games as a cornerback.

Kasey earned the Mid-South Conference Bluegrass Champion of Character Award during a senior season that saw the Tigers again reach the NAIA playoffs and finish with a 9-2 record.

Along the way, Kasey was featured in publications including Sports Illustrated as his improbable comeback story found a national audience.

On Tuesday, Kasey hopes that story resonates with his audience of up-and-coming athletes in Bowling Green and the surrounding region.

“It’s difficult, of course, but today I’m running, walking, doing everything I used to do before,” Kasey said. “It’s a little different, of course. But it was an opportunity to walk again, and I couldn’t wait to run when I got the opportunity.

“This leg has not slowed me down.”{&end}