Chanhnouvong an unlikely (but not surprising) tackling machine for Airedales’ football team
By Kevin Taylor
Alma Schools
ALMA - Back before Alma coaches Kirk Benson and Chris Smith were helping coach up Alma's sixth-grade football teams in the River Valley Football Travel League, old-school football coaches like Brooks Witherspoon would have preferred their future Airedales to be given their first sets of shoulder pads as seventh graders. No bad habits to clean up.
It might have been that way for Ashton Chanhnouvong, too, had he played cornerback prior to taking the field as a seventh grader.
But the Alma junior, who is quietly putting together a strong season at cornerback, didn’t play in the secondary back in elementary school.
"I was chubby, actually," Chanhnouvong said. "I played center. They had me playing center and right guard. I was on the bigger side, for sure."
Two years later, after he became the first of his mom’s three kids to enroll
in Alma schools as a sixth grader, Chanhnouvong hit a growth spurt. "I thinned out and got faster," he said. "Plus, I worked over this past summer to get faster and faster."
It's paying off.
Through five games, Chanhnouvong was among the team’s leading tacklers on the team; his name is in the same sentence with the likes of Trey Bowen, Noah Ingle, Cash Farris, and Landon Morris, among others. The kid in the No. 2 jersey had 12 tackles alone during the Airedales’ 56-35 win over Farmington on Sept. 29.
Over a two-week stretch, Chanhnouvong had 23 tackles.
“He plays so hard; flies around the field,” Alma defensive coordinator Zach Jones said. “A lot of those tackles he gets on special teams by beating everybody down the field on kickoffs and punts, but he’s probably the best tackler we have. He’s a natural corner. Whatever side he lines up on, we don’t worry about him.”
“I think he's just a natural,” Chanhnuvong’s position coach Joseph Potts said.
Potts has had a front-row seat throughout Chanhnouvong’s career. “I was his seventh-grade coach and the head ninth-grade coach, and when they (players) moved up to senior high is when I actually joined the senior high staff. Needless to say, it’s a pretty special group to me.”
Chanhnouvong, who is 5-foot-10 and 175 pounds soaking wet, isn’t afraid of taking on bigger players.
“Honestly, it’s all mental to me,” he explained. “I’m obviously not going to have the size; I’m not going to be 6-3.
“(But) I’m going to have to get after it and have the heart of a lion.”
In addition to his 12 tackles against Farmington, Chanhnouvong helped set off the fireworks midway through the third quarter with a 51-yard interception return for a touchdown - the team’s fourth defensive TD in three games.
Chanhnouvong may be a ball-hawking cornerback by trade but he tackles like a linebacker.
“We work on tackling and stuff; we have tackling drills every day,” Potts explained. “I can put practice film and game film side-by-side, and he’s doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing.”
Jones flirted with moving Chanhnouvong to safety before the season. The move lasted exactly one game.
“He’s our best cover guy, by far,” Jones said. “In the spring, I wanted him at safety, because he’s a guy that makes so many plays. But after the Van Buren game, we had to make some changes, so we put him back at lock-down corner.”
“I love the way coach Jones coaches us up,” Chanhnouvong said. “He’s chill and funny, but when it gets serious, it gets serious. He always made defense fun to me.”
Chanhnouvong’s defensive play must seem like a million miles from his first football foree back in 2016. In many ways it is.
Chanhnouvong’s dad, Darren Miller, lost his life in a motorcycle accident on Aug. 1, 2010. Young Ashton was just a toddler. He carries his day in his heart every time he suits up.
“Honestly, it pushed me,” Chanhnouvong said. “It always seems like if he were here I would want to impress him. I know he’s looking down on me, and I have to put a show for him every week.”
"I started in like fourth grade; I don't know if that's late or not," Chanhnouvong continued. "I noticed I was a little different from everybody else. At first, I started (playing football) because my uncle (Chance) grew up playing football in Van Buren and he always talked about it. He wanted to get me into it, and ever since my first snap I loved the sport."
Chanhnouvong’s older brother Devlyn helped push him as well.
“My older brother, we would wrestle and he would build up my toughness,” Chanhnouvong said. “He is definitely the one that built up my toughness. He would always tell me to never give up.”
Chanhouvong’s mom, Khoughn, has been the ultimate supporter.
“My mom always had to make sure I had good grades,” Chanhnouvong said. “She would get on to me, but she would always push me to do better. I look up to her because she’s a hard-working single woman. She was a single mom who raised us, so she played both sides. She always worked hard but made sure we had everything.”
Chanhnouvong’s football family has a strong bond, too.
“I feel like the people who are here, we’ve grown a bond together,” Chanhnouvong said. “We do things together after practice to build up that chemistry. We’re always drawn together.
“I feel like we’re growing stronger together every day.”