Des Kitchings pushed him to SEC honors — what he remembers about USC’s newest coach
Des Kitchings didn’t often get in a player’s face. So when the fire came out, it was something to remember.
“It was definitely, ‘Oh, we definitely need to pay attention and see what’s going on see what we’re doing here,’” former Vanderbilt running back Warren Norman said.
Norman was only a freshman when one such moment occurred. Kitchings had played a key role in his recruitment, drawing him from Georgia to Nashville.
The young back was running inside zone plays and wasn’t doing them as his position coach, now South Carolina’s running backs coach, wanted.
“I was just busting them outside for no good reason at all,” Norman said. “I just remember coach Kitchings kind of getting my face two times in that practice, saying, ‘Stick a foot in the ground and get vertical.’”
In the midst of games that season, the words stuck and he consciously tried to get out of that habit.
Norman is one of Kitchings’ more interesting pupils. The 5-foot-10, 205-pounder burst onto the scene out of Stone Mountain, Georgia. He won SEC freshman of the year in 2009 but saw an array of injuries ultimately derail things.
But in that first season on campus, he finished eight among rushers in the conference with 783 yards. Among backs with at least 100 carries, he was fifth in yards per carry (one of his better games came against South Carolina and included a 99-yard kickoff return).
Looking back, Norman remembered the calm demeanor Kitchings brought.
“I’ve always just really appreciated his even-keeled attitude,” Norman said. “Just regardless of what was going on, whether it’s on the field or off the field, he was just always calm and collected. He was still just really capable and did a great job of motivating me and the rest of the running backs.”
Kitchings was the first coach to visit Norman’s high school to see him and left a lasting positive impression.
That 2009 season was Kitchings’ second on campus and first in the SEC. The team went through an array of struggles, falling from the first bowl game since 1982 to 2-10, with coach Bobby Johnson retiring the next summer.
Norman never left Nashville. He now works for a Christian youth organization in the city. Kitchings moved on a year after Johnson, spending one season at Air Force before a run of eight years at N.C. State. This year, he returned to his home state of South Carolina.
He’ll inherit a running back room with only one upperclassman, a junior college transfer, and a player in MarShawn Lloyd who could perhaps be a freshman star.
Norman wasn’t surprised when he saw his former coach had landed in a good spot and could only look back at that demeanor and what it meant to an 18-year-old.
“I know athletes who kind of take care of their own and do a good job of just kind of managing themselves will appreciate somebody like coach Kitchings,” Norman said.
