About Us

The Jeff Kennard Scholarship was established to provide senior athletes who display strong leadership attributes with the opportunity to further their education after graduating high school. The scholarship winner will be someone who shows support for teammates and includes all of them in activities and training. A person who will help the younger teammates get acclimated to the High school level of sports and the understanding that the team is greater than the individual. This individual will display professionalism on and off the field, and sportsmanship to the competition in victory or defeat.

Jeff understood the challenges of being an athlete and going to school, and the balance needed to be successful. The scholarship will hopefully give students the desire and drive to succeed on the field and school in honor of the memory that Jeff left. Whether you train at Beyond the Game, or Elevate sports, you will see a banner that signifies what Jeff believed: “Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard.”

You might ask what is the Jeff Kennard Memorial Scholarship?

This scholarship can be interpreted multiple ways; a grant in aid to a student or maybe acknowledges the character, qualities, activity, or attainments of a student. The Jeff Kennard Memorial Scholarship encompasses all of this and much more. The scholarship represents a leader on and off the field, a consummate teammate, sportsmanship, and displaying that the team is greater than the individual. For those that knew Jeff knew this is what he represented and expected out of his teammates and athletes he trained. We were fortunate enough to be friends with Jeff for over 20 years. We witnessed these attributes first hand being close friends and a teammate.

After his professional career he dedicated his next phase of his career to coaching and training thousands of young athletes within the community. These were the lessons and skills he instilled into the athletes he trained. Jeff will be remembered as the friend who would do anything to lend a hand, the pitching and hitting coach who would stay late to make sure the kids had extra time to practice, the ballplayer who was the first to arrive at the park without fail, and the last one each night signing baseball cards and balls for every little kid after games, making sure no one was left out. This scholarship is an opportunity to continue his legacy and what he represented as a friend, teammate, coach, son, brother, father, and husband.

This scholarship will acknowledge a player, like Jeff, who truly goes Beyond The Game.

– Nick Redlin, Andrew Hazenfield, Matt Winters