[HCS]

Boys
Players
Wah Wah Jones —*Harlan
Phil Cox — Cawood
Charles Thomas —*Harlan
Larry Pursiful – Lone Jack, Bell County
Richie Farmer — Clay County
Nick Sanford — Cawood
Lawrence Buell —*Middlesboro
Frank Selvy — Corbin
Tony Pietrowski — Corbin
Terry Mills —*Knox Central
Rodney Woods —*Lone Jack
Ray Mills — Clay County
Fred Bishop — Pineville
Bobby McWIlliams — Barbourville
Larry Gritton Jr. — Oneida Baptist

Coaches
Bobby Keith — Clay County
Joe Gilley — Harlan
Mike Jones — Cawood, Jackson County, Harlan, Harlan County
Billy Hicks — Evarts, Harlan, Corbin
John D. Wilson — Cawood, Red Bird
Dinky Phipps — Barbourville, Lynn Camp
Harold Combs — Bell County
J.D. Strange — Bell County, Knox Central, Pineville
Nick Denes — Corbin
Don Bingham — Knox Central

[ArJay]

Whoa. Impressive list. On the Bell County front Harold Combs could coach! Is Billy Hicks and Bobby Keith still 1 and 2 ok all time wins list?

[roundball247]

Didn't MiKe Jones also coach at Clay County for while?

[HCS]

Yes, and Todd Central.

[Van Hagar]

Any list without Russ Chadwell is incomplete.

[insideinfo]

Great list, how about Dink on the player side?

[zaga_fan]

Good stuff

[four quarters]

How come the asterisk in the list?

[walterwhite]

Spider Thurman- coach, Clay County

[HCS]

How come the asterisk in the list?

It doesn't mean anything - something on my computer, I guess. Sorry about that.

[BellCOUNTYfaithfull]

Coach Whitaker should be on this list to for bell

[HCS]

Coach Whitaker should be on this list to for bell

Good coach, but he didn't coach nearly long enough.

[JerryGarcia]

Spider Thurman- coach, Clay County

Spider I believe was an all-American in football at EKU. Played 3 sports in college. Played football with my uncle at EKU. I believe he may be in Ky High School athletic hall of fame as well. From everything my uncle had told me he was an amazing athlete.

[four quarters]

Whitaker was a good coach, but only had 1 13th region title.

[Sportsfanatic2015]

How could Ben Franklin be left off list?

[JustThinking]

What happened to Larry Gritton as a Coach he won over 400 games at Oneida Baptist.

[HCS]

Whitaker was a good coach, but only had 1 13th region title.

I'm drawing a blank - what year? Morris won in 2011.

[HCS]

What happened to Larry Gritton as a Coach he won over 400 games at Oneida Baptist.

Great coach but probably not enough postseason success for making it the first year.

[HCS]

How could Ben Franklin be left off list?

I think he made all-state in 80 - you could make a case for him being the best at OBI. Very little postseason success though. Where did he play in college?

[Superfly]

Got to go back into the late 80’s. Missing several outstanding players in the 13th. Knox Central -Tony Patterson-David Mills-Corbin-Tommy Stewart-Brent Barton-Bo Roaden. Williamsburg-Tim and James Cornett-Wilson kid that went to ETSUWhitley Co-Halcomb Williamsburg coach Prewitt -Dinky Phipps -Broughton at Knox Central. There have been a lot of great coaches and players in the 13th. Russ Chadwell,Farmers

[rojas]

PplOne player that was omitted that most definitely should have been included was Bobby Slusher of Lone Jack. Slusher was a scoring machine, scoring as many as 80 in some games. He led Lone Jack to at least one, maybe two Sweet 16s in the very early 60s. He played for Adolf Rupp at UK before being kicked out of school for bad behavior. Slusher transferred to Cincinnati before ending his career at Cumberland College. Old timers that actually saw Slusher play said he was the best pure talent ever in the 13th region. Also, Jerry Bird from Corbin must have been pretty good to star at UK and play 11 years for the Knicks in the NBA. Did the selection committee include anyone over 70 years old that would have known about these old timers? The list seems to be weighted heavily with players from the last 40 years.

[HCS]

The schools were asked to nominate players/coaches and then asked to vote. There are always a few guys missed in something like this, but most of the top guys are there. Others will be added in future years.

[rojas]

Bobby Slusher was also on the Parade All American team in 1957. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parade_All...#8211;1959

[rojas]

The schools were asked to nominate players/coaches and then asked to vote. There are always a few guys missed in something like this, but most of the top guys are there. Others will be added in future years.

I suspect that a lot of the people currently working at the high schools don't know about these guys.

[HCS]

Yeah, true. I brought up Slusher, mainly from what you and some others have said. I think some of the other issues might have hurt there. I think of the Birds as football first. We missed that one. I think the first 11 or 12 on the list are locks.

[rojas]

I think he made all-state in 80 - you could make a case for him being the best at OBI. Very little postseason success though. Where did he play in college?

Ben Franklin played at Cumberland College. I had a class under EKU coach Ed Byer. I asked if he knew about Ben Franklin. He kind of bristled and said, "We have tried our best to recruit Franklin and he won't even talk to us. He is dead set on going to Cumberland."

[HCS]

I remember talking to Max Good in a class at EKU about Nick Sanford.

[footballfever]

Roger Richardson Whitley and Ryan Wilson Williamsburg.