Myles Mooyoung waited as long as he could.
The senior defensive back, a three-star prospect, was one of the top uncommitted players in his class in Illinois, behind only Oak Park-River Forest quarterback Jaden McGill.
Mooyoung wanted to finish what he and his classmates had started at Kenwood. When they came to the school as freshmen for coach Sinque Tiurner’s debut season in 2017, the Broncos had two IHSA playoff berths ever and the program record for wins was seven.
Now Kenwood is among the Public League’s elite programs, with back-to-back trips to the state playoffs and consecutive 8-2 finishes.
This season was supposed to be the best of all, with a senior-heavy roster highlighted by a pair of Boston College recruits: all-purpose back Lewis Bond and receiver Dante Reynolds.
Mooyoung is another Power Five prospect, with offers from BC and Washington State among others. But prep football is on hold in Illinois until February at the earliest, and Mooyoung needed to figure out how to get some game film now.
“A lot of (college) coaches, they had videos of me working out and stuff, but it always comes down to seeing someone in pads,” Mooyoung said. “Everyone can play in T-shirts and shorts.”
Mooyoung spoke at a Let Them Play rally downtown on Sept. 19, part of the campaign to try to persuade Illinois Gov. J.B Pritzker to allow contact sports this fall.
With those efforts going nowhere, Mooyoung and two of his Kenwood teammates made a tough decision. Mooyoung, senior quarterback Kaleb Garner and junior defensive back Diego Oliver transferred to Groves High School in Beverly Hills, Mich.
Mooyoung has played two games, while Garner — who is committed to rising Division I program St. Thomas (Minn.) — and Oliver each made their debuts last weekend.
Mooyoung’s father works in Michigan, making the logistics easier. But like Illinois, that state also initially planned to push football to the spring.
“Once the verdict was decided that we weren’t having a season, I talked to my family and they thought it was best for me to move to Michigan,” Mooyoung said. “When they said they weren’t going to have a season, I was (thinking), ‘Oh well.’
“Once they reinstated (football), I was like, ‘Dad, I’ve got to go.’”
Garner felt the same way when it became clear that fall football was happening in Michigan but not in Illinois.
“When we stepped on the Groves campus, it was like home,” he said. “It just came down to a family decision.”
Which doesn’t mean it was easy for Mooyoung or Garner to walk away from Kenwood.
“It was very heartbreaking to leave what coach (Turner) had built,” Garner said.
“If someone was going to tell me this was going to happen — I couldn’t imagine myself leaving Kenwood at all, just because it was such a great school,” Mooyoung said.
Turner has no hard feelings for the players who left, much as he would have liked to have coached them one more season.
“I’m not sour,” he said. “I’m a hundred percent in support.”
Even with the players who are gone, the Broncos have plenty of talent left, especially in the junior and sophomore classes.
“I’m super optimistic we’re going to play in the spring and I’ve got a good team coming back,” Turner said.
Garner agrees.
“I just shake my head and think about what could have been,” he said. “We had all the guys, all the tools. I feel like I could write a book about this, or make a movie.”
