aconrad@patuxent.com

When Marriotts Ridge visits Oakland Mills for their varsity football game Friday, Sept. 16 at 7 p.m., there will be a noticeable vacancy on each team's sideline.

Ken Hovet, a 1979 Oakland Mills graduate, coached the Scorpions football team from 1993 to 2004, winning a state title in 1998, and Marriotts Ridge from 2005 to 2009. He died of cancer in June of 2010.

"He was such a great presence to athletics and football, his presence is greatly missed," said his wife, Maria Hovet. "Last year was much harder, being the first year that he wasn't around."

On Friday, Maria Hovet and the community will remember the late football coach with a fundraiser to benefit the American Cancer Society.

T-shirts, bearing the words "Crush Cancer" and "Remembering Coach Hovet," will be sold at each school and at the game. In addition, cash donations will be accepted at the game.

Maria Hovet said there were plans for other fundraising activities, but Howard County School System rules limited the options.

She said that back in April she talked to Tom Browne — who played for Hovet, succeeded him as coach at Marriotts Ridge after serving as an assistant, and now is the head coach at Oakland Mills — and they decided to do something at the Sept. 16 game to remember Hovet.

"The community had been really great to us during everything with Ken and we wanted to give back," Maria Hovet said. "I had a lot of help and support after he passed, it was very difficult ... I'm very grateful for all of the support."

Maria Hovet said that the athletics and activities managers at each school, Troy Stevenson (Oakland Mills) and Gene Brown (Marriotts Ridge), were instrumental in organzing the event. Among others, Oakland Mills coaches Paul Duffy, Trevor Shea, Don Shea and Jon Browne, and Marriotts Ridge coaches Marcus Lewis and Paul Courtney, helped Maria Hovet turn the event into a reality.

She added that it gives her solace to see people such as Tom and Jon Browne, who played for her husband and are now coaches themselves, following in her husband's footsteps.

"I'm glad to see some of the other coaches carrying on his legacy," she said. Oakland Mills and Marriotts Ridge "will always be a part of our lives."

Tom Browne, who was the top receiver on Hovet's 1998 state championship team, said that while the memory of the former coach and athletic director is still fresh in the minds of Marriotts Ridge students, he has had to tell some of his younger players who Hovet was.

"The kids know about him mostly from what I've told them this year," he said. "He's the reason I teach social studies and coach football. He was a huge part of my life."

Maria Hovet said there are no plans to make this an annual event, but it is a possibility.

"We're just putting our energy into this game and this time to remember him," she said.

Browne said that he is hoping to have a huge crowd at Oakland Mills to remember Hovet, raise money for cancer research and enjoy a high school football game.

"It's a good cause. Cancer has affected everyone on earth in some way," he said.