Joey Greenstein leads in and out of school

December 10, 2009 • written by Matthew Berry  
Filed under Features, Sports

The mixture of clanking metal and hardcore rock engulf the weightlifting room at Kirkwood High School monday through thursday after school.  Pick any day of the week and Joey Greenstein, senior, will be in there pumping iron with weights that are as heavy as granite boulders.  If he isn’t busy being the DECA president or being a Pep Club Officer.

It was not just fellow classmates that noticed his leadership.  The football coaches and administrators did too.

“I was first noticed by Coach Larry Frost when I worked really hard and didn’t miss a day of offseason training,” Greenstein, senior, captain of the football team, said.

Greenstein was promoted to captain after his junior year.  He didn’t play much junior football as a kid and after three years of playing middle school and underclassman football he became captain.

“I credit it mainly because of my offseason training but also by helping keep the offensive line organized and helped with the seniors.” Greenstein said.

Greenstein was not the first pick for captaincy, so he talked to the coaches about possibly being considered for the position.

“Captaincy is more like a popularity contest,” Greenstein said, “I really had to prove myself to the coaches that I was worthy of being a captain.”

For the first time in more than a few years, the Kirkwood varsity football team had five captains instead of the usual four.

“He worked extremely hard in the weight room,” Jim Woolf, offensive line coach for Greenstein for the past two seasons, said. “He was one of the few guys that tried to lead by example, by playing extremely aggressive, like 110% every play.”

Then last summer, Joey was rocked with the death of his great friend.  Shay Heilman was hit by a drunked driver and killed.

In honor of Heilman before every game, Joey tapes his fingers and writes the initials for his fallen friend on the tape: S.G.H.

“He was able to persevere during that rough time and still worked hard. It really is a shout out to his character.” Woolf said.

“He’s always upbeat, always positive, he’s a great student and one of the few that I have seen helping around some of the younger or more needy kids,” Mike Wade, senior principal, said. “Just a great guy and a natural-born leader.”