“He was a great guy”: Hundreds attend visitation for former EKU head football coach Roy Kidd

RICHMOND, Ky (WTVQ)- Hundreds of family, friends, and community members came to say some final goodbyes to former EKU head football coach Roy Kidd Sunday afternoon in Richmond.

The Hall-of-Famer passed away Tuesday at the age of 91.

“He was a great guy, he was a great guy,” says Ann Turpin, who attended the visitation.

Turpin says she and her husband came to be neighbors with the Kidds.

“They were really good friends and good friends of my family and me, my husband and I,” says Turpin.

“He was a wonderful coach, very influential and very instrumental in helping develop myself as well as a lot of guys out here into the men we are today,” says Richard Johnson, who played under Kidd from ’84-’89.

Charles Tinsley is a former outside line backer under coach Kidd. Tinsley says the coach made an impact on his life both on and off the field.

In fact, he says he once needed a reference for a job. He asked Kidd, who gladly agreed.

“A lot of people know him as a football coach, but for us it was completely different. We went to play football, but it was almost like we gained a parent because he was more than just football to us at the end of the day. We had our practices and games, but he was always somebody that if we needed to call, he would always answer the phone,” says Tinsley.

Now Tinsley’s hope is that Kidd’s impact will live on through future coaches.

“We can only hope that the next generation and generations to come have the opportunity to, especially athletes to have the opportunity to be coached by somebody like Coach Kidd. But not only coach, the impact he will make in your life outside the football field. I cannot stress it enough, he was a great coach, but he was an even better person.”

Coach Kidd’s funeral is set for Monday beginning at 11 A.M. at the EKU Center for the Arts. It will be followed by a private burial at Richmond Cemetery.