[Hoot Gibson]

In post 93 and before I asked a question regarding the number of D1 Players out of the past from Pville and JCHS. First of all would it be safe to say that Paintsville had more in this catagory? If they did what would the reason be?:Talent? Coaching? Fruit from the Central tree? What in fact say ye?:biggrin:

Paintsville has had more D1 recruits mainly for two reasons, IMO.

1) Johnson Central has only existed since 1968 or 1969 I believe, and did not even field a team for the first few years of its existence. Not only that, none of the schools that consolidated to form Johnson Central fielded football teams. (Some of the Paintsville D1 players that were listed played before Johnson Central even came into being. A school cannot produce football players without a football team.)

2) Bad coaching and political meddling by the Johnson County Board because of squabbles between factions from the schools that consolidated to form the new high school hindered the development of its football program/ This did not change until JC finally hired Bill Musick and gave him time to build the program. (H/T to Steve Trimble.) Johnson Central had some competent coaches before Musick arrived on the scene but they were not given time to build a program before being fired.

Johnson Central received a big boost academically and athletically when Johnson County Middle School was built. That was the big turning point for JC football. Even during the Humphrey-Ross years, JCMS' program remained very successful. When Matney took over, he had some underutilized talent at the high school and the pipeline was full of good 7th and 8th grade players excited about playing for him.

Every player living in the Paintsville school district is within walking distance of the football field. That is a huge advantage that Paintsville enjoys. Some kids live 30 minutes from JC by car and who knows how long it takes them to ride the bus to school in the morning. That is one of the reason so many great elementary players never play their first down when they arrive at JCMS. Transportation issues effectively reduce the pool of boys available to play for JC, so the enrollment advantage has not been quite as large as the numbers indicate.

Paintsville and Johnson Central draw players from the same gene pool and most kids in one system have cousins attending the other system. There is nothing magic about Paintsville's water supply that produces D1 football players. Johnson Central has a larger enrollment, therefore it has more potentially outstanding football players.