Lots of kids dream of flying. Kevin Rogers can say he has. Before the 6’4”, 185-pound midfielder carved up defenses on his way to becoming the 2020 Inside Lacrosse DIII player of the year at the University of Lynchburg, he navigated a single propeller Cessna plane high above his hometown of Leesburg (Va.) with an instructor by his side. 

Rogers described the 45-minute flight as “very relaxing,” except when it came to the takeoff and landing or when the instructor guided him through some 3G maneuvers. 

“It felt like I was sinking into my seat,” said Rogers, whose favorite movie is “Top Gun.” “Sweat [was] dripping down my face. It was definitely a ‘whoa’ kind of moment because I’ve never felt anything like that before.”

Rogers proved he was more than capable transitioning his game to new heights earlier this month in his Division I debut. The High Point graduate transfer needed the ball in his stick for only seven seconds to announce his presence. On his first touch against Robert Morris, Rogers dodged down the right alley, then forced his way back to the middle and scored the game’s opening goal. He celebrated with an emphatic fist pump before his teammates swarmed him. 

“It was surreal and I was speechless,” Rogers said. “But that was something I’ll always remember.”

The moment wasn’t too big for him. Rogers scored three more goals and added two assists in the 21-15 win. He backed up the performance three days later with three goals and two assists in a 17-15 loss to North Carolina despite a rousing comeback effort. In another quirk of the 2021 season, the No. 19 Panthers (1-1) will travel to Chapel Hill tomorrow to take on the No. 4 Tar Heels (4-0) for the second time in 11 days. 

Rogers got some extra TV time during the ACC Network broadcast of the first UNC matchup because of his long red locks, which he did away with last summer before he got to High Point. ESPN play-by-play announcer Anish Shroff compared Rogers’ Lynchburg roster photos to three-time Olympic snowboarding gold medalist Shaun White, aka “The Flying Tomato.” (For the record, Rogers doesn’t snowboard. He skis.)

“I was planning on getting it cut anyway because I was either going to go back to school to get my master’s or I’m going to have to get a job,” Rogers said. 

Beyond the new look, which Shroff called “corporate,” Rogers’ play has offered plenty to talk about. He’s registered the second most points on High Point’s roster behind star attackman Asher Nolting, and he made the USILA Team of the Week for Feb. 17. Through two games, he’s shot 63.6 percent and has scored as many goals per game (3.50) as UNC’s Chris Gray.

“We had high expectations of what we were going to see out of him, but honestly he even exceeded our expectations,” Robert Morris head coach Andrew McMinn said of Rogers. “He’s extremely athletic and has all the tools. When you look at his size, athleticism, stick work and finishing ability, it’s really like a prototypical ACC-type midfielder.

“There’s always a guessing game of how a DIII guy will transfer over, but it’s not just a DIII guy, it’s the DIII player of the year.”

Besides Rogers’ early impact, several DIII standouts made the leap to DI with the extra year of eligibility granted to spring sport athletes in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thomas Martello, who won a national championship with Wesleyan in 2018, delivered the winning assist in overtime in St. John’s’ 19-18 victory over Hofstra two weekends ago. Former Gettysburg defenseman Mitch Wykoff should be active for the first time this season when Syracuse takes on Virginia Saturday in the Carrier Dome. Matt Chalastawa, the all-time leading scorer in Bates men’s lacrosse history, will debut with Fairfield next month. 

“That’s what makes lacrosse at our level so unique,” Lynchburg head coach Steve Koudelka said. “There’s a lot of great players on a lot of great DIII teams that could make that jump.” 

It’s also not a new phenomenon. Koudelka coached Joe Lisicky, the 2013 preseason DIII player of the year, who started at LSM for Virginia in 2014 after a series of foot injuries sidelined him for most of his senior season at Lynchburg. At Gettysburg, Koudelka coached Dave Curry, who turned into a first team All-American at Virginia and played on the 1998 World Championship gold medal winning U.S. national team. 

Rogers took a recruiting visit to Fairfield, but received few DI looks despite starting all four years at Loudoun County high school and earning first team all-district honors three times. He believes the lack of attention stemmed somewhat from his style of play that eschews flashiness for fundamentals. 

He tallied 183 points at Lynchburg through 65 games and helped the Hornets to an ODAC tournament championship title in 2018. For the first two years of his collegiate career, he competed against his older brother, Sean, an All-American attackman at Franklin & Marshall. For the next two, he played with his younger brother, Brett, who’s now a junior attackman at Lynchburg. In their final game together — a 16-8 win over Bridgewater (Va.) — the Rogers brothers combined for six goals and four assists. 

Kevin Rogers credited his entire family for helping him make the decision to chase his highest goal to play DI. “Just keep going,” Brett Rogers told him after they learned of the 2020 season’s cancellation. 

As the sun started to rise on a muggy early summer morning over a practice field at Woodgrove High School, Rogers took a breather from his workout with High Point senior LSM Grant Ammann. He couldn’t hold back the news any longer. He told Ammann he entered the transfer portal. Ammann froze. He then retrieved his cell phone and called High Point head coach Jon Torpey. Rogers visited the campus a couple weeks later. 

“I’ve given my whole life to the sport of lacrosse, and there was no way I was going to let that year be my final year,” Rogers said. “When the opportunity came, I had to do it, especially at a great place like High Point with a very similar culture to Lynchburg. It made it very easy to transition.”

“Obviously we wanted him to stay,” said Koudelka, whose team this spring returns five of its seven seniors from 2020 and is favored to win the ODAC. “I’d be moronic if I didn’t think that. Not just because of how good of a player he is, but these guys are a part of our life … you just want what’s best for these young men.” 

Koudelka and his wife, Amy, broke the news to Rogers over Zoom that he was the IL DIII player of the year. “I’m about to cry,” Rogers told them. 

“As much as he’s a competitor and wants to win at everything, at the end of the day, Kevin’s got a huge heart,” Koudelka said of his former star player who volunteers with the One Love Foundation. “I think that’s why so many people are pulling for him.”

Koudelka got to see that devotion firsthand in how Rogers interacted with Brett. He loved him as a brother, but also allowed him to chart his own path. When Rogers first heard from Torpey that High Point planned to scrimmage Lynchburg on February 6, he immediately thought of his younger brother. “Different” was how he described the experience playing against his former teammates. 

“I loved it because I got to see them, but I wanted to show them that I could compete at the DI level,” Rogers said. “I think I did. I’m forever grateful for the four years I had there.”

After graduation, Rogers would love to make the leap to the PLL. He has also spent more time networking to find a job. For now, though, he’s focused on completing his masters degree in communications and business leadership and helping the Panthers make their first NCAA tournament appearance since 2015. After the way last season ended, he doesn’t want to regret a single second he gets to play the sport he’s not sure what his life would be like without. 

“I’m living my dream,” Rogers said.