CHARLOTTE — It’s been more than six years since Luke Kuechly suited up with the Carolina Panthers, but the news of his retirement sent shockwaves through the sports world when it was published.
Channel 9 Sports is taking a look back at how the jaw-dropping announcement video came together, and how the team worked to honor Kuechly’s contributions to the Carolinas.
“Tuesday, January 14, 2020, a day I won’t forget. I got a call early afternoon from Marty Hurney to come down to Coach [Matt] Rhule’s office,” said Steven Drummond, the former Vice President of Football Operations with the Carolina Panthers. “Rhule is sitting behind his desk; Marty kind of has his back to me looking out the window, and [Luke] Kuechly is sitting at the table, and I wasn’t expecting to see Luke in the room. He had a look on his face that I had never seen before and there were some tears in his eyes, so I’m thinking what in the world could this be?”
Drummond said, “[Luke] stood up and said, ‘Drum I can’t do it anymore,’ and in my mind I’m thinking can’t do what anymore?”
Drummond recalled Kuechly not wanting any fanfare. “He’s like, I’m going to go home, I’m going to get my thoughts together, and then we’ll come up with a plan.”
Ryan Anderson, former PR staffer with the Carolina Panthers: “When you have something that’s going to be big news operationally, you’ve got to bring in the people that have to execute it. So it was a tight group; the PR team, obviously the football staff knows what’s going on to some extent. And then you start talking to the content team how are we going to do this, what does he want to do? You want to meet his wishes somewhere, but how do we get this out in a way that matches what he has in mind while also doing our jobs of sharing this important news and doing it in a respectful way?”
Chris Sabo, former Carolina Panthers senior media producer: “The season had just finished up but it had been a long season. My wife was 6 months pregnant maybe a little bit more with our first child, and I had told her hey no worries, everything should be normal. I didn’t see anything crazy happening. Then it was like just hold on, let’s just hang out don’t leave yet. [Stephen] Manderville, my boss, was like just stay.”
Stephen Manderville, creative production leader: “We got notified that hey Luke has something he wants to do with our content team on camera. Immediately, we weren’t really told what that thing was but you can feel the tension around the room that it was something big.”
Bill Voth, former senior director of content with the Carolina Panthers: “Obviously this was going to be a massive story and Stephen was like he’s written something down, well can we have him say that on camera? Stephen said he’ll go talk to him, and he was like OK, sure.”
Sabo: “He was such a presence in the league for so long, it was like this was happening and we were like ok how are we how do we figure into it and it was like he’s going to give a message so then it was like ok we started putting everything together
Manderville: “An hour was our time window so with that time window basically we decided to just do one camera, two lights we chose a location the team meeting the defensive team meeting room moved a couple tables cover up a couple schemes and things on the back board set it up as quickly as we could. During this time in the hallway and he’s pacing back and forth the pr staff the production team we all gave him time to just get himself together but while we felt that tension there was the added tension on top of that because I believe at that time I overheard ryan anderson with steven drummond kind of discussing that hey this announcement might have been compromised.”
Anderson: “I remember someone saying yeah some random guy on Twitter has it but it’s just some random guy he had just put out hey i hear Luke Kuechly is going to retire and you don’t know if you’re looking to take it seriously but that was an indication that maybe more people knew than we had anticipated.”
Voth: “We wanted Luke to be able to say it in his words because of course, when it gets out there especially something as shocking as this theres going to be narratives made so let the person who’s actually making the decision say it first
Drummond: “It was important for him to have his moment we as a digital team we did talk about how we would respond if it were to leak because he left the building wanted to go home get his thoughts together and if that were to get out there early i’m not sure we would have made a total adjustment we probably would have adjusted some parts of that.”
Voth: “You couldn’t really rush Luke. [He] had written something down it was a lot of words. It’s not like he had them memorized and so he’s clearly emotional he didn’t have it memorized.”
Sabo: “It was tough to hear him do it. He knew what he wanted to say; actually articulating the words was something that, you know, even when you’re practicing by yourself when you’re actually saying the words there is a different weight to that and I feel like he could feel that.”
Voth: “It wasn’t perfect it wasn’t exactly what he wrote down but that was great you wanted some ad libbing from the heart and things like that and so that’s what made it unique.”
Manderville: “He controlled that narrative it wasn’t something that just came out and everybody had their take on it no he came out he was able to get it on camera first and kind of put it in his own words of his decision of walking away and for him to have that and kind of walk away gracefully and us being able to help provide that was it was big.”
Anderson: “I thought it was true to who he was thanking fans, talking about how great Charlotte was and how people made him feel welcome but acknowledging he just didn’t think he was playing up to his standard anymore and if he couldn’t do that then he wasn’t going to play anymore.
That was his decision and he says it I saw this he looks at the guy and is like was that ok and he said yeah it was great and he says do I have to do another one? And we were like no you don’t have to do another one."
Drummond: “This is a guy who practiced sick this is a guy who practiced hurt this is a guy who played hurt played sick he was always a guy you could count on dependable and he was going to be there for his team his organization his city his state he was going to be there and represent that so when you deal with people like that they almost become invincible to you in a certain way so you never i didn’t want to see the end and i could never imagine the end so thats what made that one tough and i knew how much he loved the game few people i can’t think of another guy that i’ve been around and worked with that loved the game and i know everybody says that about Kuechly and his study habits but just a true genuine love for the game i haven’t seen it like he had it.”