UFL Update

The (Washington) D.C. Defenders and Louisville (Kentucky) Kings have advanced to the United Football League championship, scheduled for 3 p.m. Eastern Saturday at Audi Field in Washington. I will be rooting for the Kings, which started their debut season with three straight losses, each of which I watched parts of (I think). I don't think I've seen a live second of the UFL season since, but I do hope to check in on United Bowl 2026 and see if Louisville can punctuate "one of the most remarkable turnarounds in UFL history."

I added the italics in that quote, by the way.

Here (Reportedly) Is How Russellville High School Got Its Alma Mater

From Page 11 of Happy Years ... And Many More by Edward F. Coffman Jr.:

One day in the spring of 1937 our band director, Bill Lukes, told me that we needed to have an alma mater for our school. He asked me if I knew any, and I told him that the only one I knew was Vanderbilt’s. I knew the words quite well since I was already a Vanderbilt fan. He liked the words, and the tune was familiar. He thought that we should use it. We only changed two words, and so we sang, “Hail to thee our alma mater, Russellville, all hail.” To Vanderbilt, Bill Lukes and me, we owe our alma mater.

I enjoyed this 2012 book a great deal.

The Colonel by John Ed Pearce

I'm surprised that I apparently haven't posted anything about this book (Doubleday, 1982) at the HP, and maybe I have. But I'm getting ready to give it away, so I want to make sure I've recorded at least these two sections, which are my favorites.

Harland Sanders in 1937 opened restaurants in Cumberland and Richmond (in addition to the one he already operated in Corbin), and here are two paragraphs about that from Page 71:

Neither of his new restaurants proved successful, and he soon sold both of them. The failures were none too surprising. Harlan County, where Cumberland sat at the end of a long, bad road, twenty-five miles from the county seat, had been shattered by the Depression. The coal market was going from bad to worse, coal prices were down, and as coal operators continued to lay off men and cut wages, the miners went out on a series of bitter strikes that sparked a decade of labor-management warfare. Hungry miners looted stores and begged food for their families. The Red Cross and church organizations shipped in carloads of food that only touched the spreading need. There were not enough people in Cumberland who could afford to eat in a first-class restaurant.

Harland had made another miscalculation in choosing Richmond as the site of his other venture. His location was not on the main traffic route, and he thus missed the trade that kept his Corbin cafe booming. People who could afford to eat out were in the habit of driving to nearby Lexington. And the students at Richmond’s Eastern State Teachers College (now Eastern Kentucky University) could barely afford to eat in the dormitories. Harland had to hire too many people for too little trade. More important, he could not be there all the time to ride herd on the help.

And then there's this from some years later, and from Page 105, which is what you get when a writer as talented as John Ed Pearce sits down and really takes a good stab at capturing a character as rich as Harland Sanders:

He could have quit if he had wanted to. Despite all of his talk about being "broke at sixty-five," he had quite a cushion to fall back on—a home, a car, some saving, insurances, Social Security, and a trickle of income from the franchises he had given out. These thoughts occurred to him at the end of a long day, when his joints ached and when some restaurant owner was too busy to listen to his proposition.

He was, after all, at an age when most men are beginning to spend their days in the sun, dangling a line off the pier. He had led a hard, strenuous life, and the fights and disappointments and long hours of labor were starting to tell. He had to wear his glasses all the time now, and the arthritis that would plague him the rest of his life was hurting, and he had only aspirin for relief, aspirin and pep talks, as he drove along the dreary Midwestern roads, looking for restaurants where the owners would have enough gumption to see the golden future in Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Put yourself in his place for a moment, driving those rain-wet roads, trying to keep accounts in the car seat, worrying about money. It’s hard, toward the end of the day, to convince yourself that you’re not old, that you’re not getting tired. And it’s cold at night when you sleep in the backseat of the car in some deserted parking lot to save the cost of a motel, making yourself think of something else than home and a warm bed. You feel a little sick and your muscles ache when you wake up in the morning, wondering for a moment where you are, with rusty eyes and a dry stubble and the old ache in your hands and your white suit all rumpled.

So you wait for a filling station to open and go into the restroom and shave, and throw cold water on your face and comb your hair. And you stand in front of the mirror and give yourself a silent pep talk, and maybe pray a little, and take a deep breath and get ready to go out there and sell this guy, trying not to notice when he looks at you as if to say: What the hell is this, anyway?

I love this book, and I'm pretty sure I'm the biggest Kentucky Fried Chicken fan in the history of the world.

Cairo Road and Old Cairo Road

My first sentence of this was going to be, "It's weird when the house you grew up in literally no longer exists." But then I rethought the whole thing--it's really not that weird.

I cannot begin to explain to you how much I would've enjoyed growing up across the street from a Rural King.

Comments flow ... 

Oh, Princeton

You hardly ever hear anyone--even anyone from Princeton--call it "kuh-WELL" County anymore. It's almost, absolutely almost always "CALD-well" County. But that changed over the second half of the last century, and, if you don't believe me, would you take the word of the 1960 Caldwell County High School cheerleaders?

I cannot believe that this amazing BBC movie directed by Denis Mitchell exists and that I had not discovered it until an hour ago or so. For Pete's sake, do yourself a favor, stop everything you're doing and watch it in case the internet or you or whatever doesn't exist later this afternoon.

I'm pretty sure that's Princeton Dotson's Dwight Smith shooting jumpers in closeup at about 20:30.

Warning Explicit Content

Girls' Sweet Sixteen, Saturday

Gameday, baby! Hopefully for our McCracken County High School Lady Mustangs: Gamesday!

— KHSAA RPI No. 4 Louisville Sacred Heart vs. No. 9 Winchester George Rogers Clark at 10 a.m. Central

— No. 3 McCracken County vs. No. 14 Henderson County at 12:30 p.m.

— State championship at 6 p.m. 

As you can see, it's going to be hard to maintain focus at West Area Workshops ...

Comments flow ...

Girls' Sweet Sixteen, Friday

Today's quarterfinals in Rupp Arena with KHSAA RPI rankings:

-- No. 34 Owensboro Catholic vs. No. 4 Louisville Sacred Heart at 10 a.m. Central
-- No. 9 Winchester George Rogers Clark vs. No. 7 London North Laurel at 12:30 p.m.

-- No. 19 Ashland Paul Blazer vs. No. 3 McCracken County at 5 p.m.

-- No. 24 Louisville Mercy vs. No. 14 Henderson County at 7:30 p.m.

Comments flow ...

Girls' Sweet Sixteen, Thursday

Oh, my ...

Comments flow.

Kentucky Minute: Second Region Boys' Basketball Championship

 

Comments flow ...

Oh, Kentucky

 

Oh, Kentucky

 

My Favorite 10 Songs of the Last Seven Days

Mayfield High School's marching band is running around western Kentucky playing a chipper show called "Sunny," and let that sink in for a moment.

1. Rocketman, Madisonville-North Hopkins Marching Maroons at Hopkinsville festival Oct. 15
2. Sunny, Mayfield High School marching band at Hopkinsville festival Oct. 15
3. I Saw the Light, Patti York live at the 1975 Jerry Lewis MDA telethon
4. Damn It All, Staves
5. Fisherman’s Blues, Waterboys live in Dublin 2015
6. Weekend Groove, Jesse “JTJazz” Thomas featuring Althea René
7. Hello Sunday Hello Road, Gil Scott-Heron
8. Every Ghetto Every City, Lauryn Hill
9. When the Going Gets Tough, Billy Ocean
10. Kennedy & Monroe, Hot Pink Hangover

Oh, Letcher County

U.S. 41

I adore U.S. 60, U.S. 1 and a zillion other roads, but--#hottake--U.S. 41 is my favorite. 

This map of U.S. 41 is from 1929. So much personal history layered on this road for me. Written in my cells, I imagine.

My dad was 4 when the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (or whatever it was called then) published this map. He was living in Madisonville, on U.S. 41, then with his parents and older sister.

My mom was 1 when the map was published. She and her family lived in Evansville, Indiana, and they frequently were down and up U.S. 41 on Sunday afternoons because her dad's parents lived in Earlington.

In 1941, Dad and his family were living in Henderson, on U.S. 41, when, on their walk downtown to church, they got the news that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. (They canceled worship that morning, and everybody just walked back to their homes, he remembered.)

In 1947, my mom's parents sold their grocery in Evansville, Indiana, and took Mom and her best friend on a giant road trip that started down U.S. 41 and eventually went to Atlanta, New Orleans, Mexico City, the Painted Desert, etc. They spent so much money that my grandfather, who had delivered milk to the grocery before he bought it, went back to delivering milk to the grocery after he sold it.

Hopkinsville, on U.S. 41, is what brought you guys as little boys to Kentucky.

The first place I lived after college was in Henderson. I hated it. It wasn't Henderson's fault. It's a great town that extended warm hospitality to me in every way, but my being there was too engineered in the confines of my head, with little input from my heart. Under a tree on the downtown square (on concrete sidewalks my dad's construction company poured 40 years before), I decided to blow up my first career and move out of town.

My car broke down in Tennessee the night of one of my birthdays in my late 20s, and I ended up riding a Greyhound bus up U.S. 41 to Evansville to visit my mom, who had moved back there after Dad died. The bus took an extended break at a ratty former Holiday Inn at Madisonville, and I stood on the parking lot with everyone who had gotten off to smoke. I remember I kept hearing John Facenda narrating the stark (but not awful) scene in my head: "A good, hard look."

I ended up getting married in Madisonville (to a younger woman who was still living with her parents about two miles from that bus stop when I was there on my birthday), and our honeymoon started with a trip down U.S. 41 until its intersection with U.S. 68/Ky. 80 (another fantastic road that I adore) at Hopkinsville.

In 2011, I had probably the favorite pizza of my whole life at Crofton, on U.S. 41. 

I play basketball at the church on Thursday nights with several people who work for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, and a few of them now attend the Sunday-school class I lead. (#TWISS: Acts 2!) I sure appreciate their work. Gosh, I love to drive, and I love to look at maps of roads I might drive or have driven. 

KHSAA Boys' Basketball Is Under Way

In the first game of the KHSAA Boys' State Basketball Tournament, the Lincoln County Patriots defeated the Jeffersontown Chargers 45-41.  Next up, the Muhlenberg County Mustangs will play the North Oldham Mustangs.

Lincoln County High School opened in August 1974.  According to Wikipedia, it resulted from a merger of the the following schools:  Stanford, Crab Orchard, Hustonville, McKinney, and King Mountain.

KHSFB98 Update

I love driving, and I love AM radio:

Nov. 20, 1998

Enjoyed a good bit of success following various high-school football playoffs on the car radio Friday night.

At 870 AM, I picked up a terrific show out of Louisiana. The format was similar to the NFL Gameday show One-on-One Sports puts together. This station had reporters at 12 games around Louisiana, and the studio hosts went rapid-fire game to game to game with updates.

The most interesting reports were coming in from a lopsided game that was being played, I believe, in Baton Rouge: Jolanga at West St. John’s. (Of course, all of these spellings are my best guesses based on my interpretation of the pronunciations; in fact, there are probably any number of errors here, but, Kornheiserstyle, the gist is on the mark.) The final update, at about 11:30 p.m. Eastern, had West St. John’s up, 22-9, in the third quarter. It was running so late because of multiple play stoppages: twice for passing trains, the noise of which apparently drowned out any play-calling the coaches or players were doing; twice for fights, and four times in the third quarter alone because of power outages which darkened the stadium. According to the last report, the opposing coaches had agreed that if the lights shut down again, both teams would load up on school buses and resume the game that night at East St. John’s High School “across the river.” Imagine that scene.

During breaks in this show, I picked up a similar program out of Raleigh, N.C., as well as Iowa City North vs. Des Moines Dowling out of Iowa.

About 30 miles from the state line, at about 9:30 p.m., I picked up the fuzzy call of the only Kentucky game I’d hear all evening: Sheldon Clark at Belfry, for a Class 3A regional championship.

According to the visiting radio crew from Inez, Sheldon Clark came into the game with a short football history of little note. This team had gone deeper into the 3A playoffs than any Sheldon Clark team ever had, but even that—with a 6-4 regular-season record—had been something of a disappointment until the postseason. One of the losses had come in the second-to-last week, decisively, against Belfry.

And yet Sheldon Clark held an 8-0 lead when, with 1:42 to play Friday, Belfry’s junior quarterback Wright, who completed 19 of 30 passes for about 250 yards, threw a touchdown pass (and then a two-point pass) to tie the game. Sheldon Clark’s coach, Jim Matney, elected to run out the clock when his team took over at its own 30 or so.

Sheldon Clark won the coin toss and elected to play defense in the opening possession of overtime. Wright completed a touchdown pass on first down, and Belfry kicked the extra point for a 15-8 advantage. As the Belfry fans’ cheered, it was announced in the stadium that Fort Thomas Highlands, the state’s top-ranked 3A team, had won its regional and would visit this winner in next week’s state semifinal.

On Sheldon Clark’s first down, a back named Moe Stradlin ran nine yards. On second, he plunged in for a touchdown to make it 15-14. Here roughly is the call of the two-point attempt by Jack Ward, a graduate of the old Inez High School, one of two Martin County high schools consolidated to form Sheldon Clark:

“The handoff is to Stradlin. … He’s in trouble. He’s not going to … YES! HE STRETCHES! YES! YES! YES!”

In the post-game show, Sheldon Clark’s coach, Matney, explained that “almost 22 years ago to the day” his high-school team had lost to Belfry, on this same field, for a chance to play in the state championship. Back then, Matney said, the high schools in Martin County were too small to field football teams, and he had moved in with a family in the next county so he would have an opportunity to play. (“They were poor and black, and I was poor and white. So we were the same.”)

“This win tonight is for all of the Sheldon Clark boys who built the foundation for this team and for all of the Martin County boys who never had a chance to play football,” said Matney, hoarse from the game and the on-field celebration immediately following it. “We’ve got so many people out of work, so many people having hard times in Martin County. Well, tonight, back home in Martin County, you hold your heads up high. Tonight, we’re the regional champions.”

Oh, Bardstown

I love church, and I also love the artifacts and periphery of church. Here are some pictures from Bardstown First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) on Saturday, July 13, 2019 ...

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, In Florida ...

  

Hilltoppers kick off against Appalachian State in Florida in about 25 minutes. Touch and go back here in Kentucky, but I'm hoping to watch and putter around in the comments. We'll see ...

KHSAA Football Finals

Here is the schedule for the KHSAA Football Finals, with all games being played at UK's stadium in Lexington.  All times are Central, and numbers in parentheses are MaxPrep rankings:

Friday, December 3, 2021:

11 A.M.:  (39) Russellville v. (13) Pikeville (1A Final)

3 P.M.:  (4) Lex. Christian v. (11) Beechwood (2A Final)

7 P.M.:  (5) Boyle Co. v. (7) Johnson Cent. (4A Final)

Saturday, December 4, 2021:

11 A.M.:  (28) Paducah Tilghman v. (41) Belfry (3A Final)

3 P.M.:  (6) S. Warren v. (3) Lex. Douglass (5A Final)

7 P.M.:  (1) Lou. Male v. (2) Lou. St. Xavier (6A Final)

It makes me very happy to know that the finals feature four top-11 matchups, that Tilghman has a decent chance to win it all, and that the last high school game of the year in Kentucky will feature the number 1 and number 2 teams in the Commonwealth.

Kentucky High-School Marching Band 2021, Finals

The 2021 Kentucky Music Educators Association high-school state champions were Owensboro Catholic in Class A, Fort Mitchell Beechwood in Class 2A, Murray in Class 3A, Anderson County in Class 4A and Lexington Lafayette in Class 5A. The finals took place a couple of Saturdays ago at Kroger Field in Lexington, and it really was quite a thrilling affair.

 

As a first-year band dad, I was pretty much a newcomer to this whole culture. I mean, I was on the periphery of it when we were kids, and I feel confident I've read more Funky Winkerbean than a large majority of Americans have in the last 50 years, and I married into a marching-band family, and I've now lived in a town for 13 years where it quickly became clear that marching band is more of the town's identity than, say, football or basketball. But being ushered through the season by my own kid, selling the hamburgers, starting to understand what "phasing" is, answering the questions at church the next morning about how they did at some out-of-town competition on a Saturday, helplessly riding the ups and downs in the stands with my own wife sharing a pride that we, of course, uniquely in this whole world share ... wow, it's a whole-new experience, baby.

And I've still got a lot to learn. Lot about how the judging works. Lot about the history (the Wikipedia page and KYBAND.com are great). Fortunately, it appears as though I'm going to have some time to learn that stuff. I pray so. My daughter got invited, along with a lot of other eighth-graders, to join the varsity marching-band, and, after some long consideration of the tremendous commitment, she decided to give it a go because she said she felt she needed something new in her life and an additional pocket of friends. Thank God she loved it. Thank God she's healthy. Thank God my wife and I are. Please, God ... more of all of this, please.

The Madisonville-North Hopkins Marching Maroons made it as far as the Class 4A semifinals, which were contested at Bourbon County High in Paris the morning of Oct. 30. They were one of 12 bands in the state that advanced to that cold and rainy competition, and, with my whole heart and brain, I know theirs was absolutely the best performance.

 

The Marching Maroons finished 11th. 

I then sat through the entire colder and rainier Class 4A finals at Kroger Field that same night, and I believe the judges were absolutely correct in their rankings of the six bands that performed there and then. 

Isn't it sweet that we are made that way?