[Hoot Gibson]

I'm kind of dating myself here but Johnson Central was in our district when I was in high school. We also played Paintsville. We beat both by the way. Sorry had to throw that in there. Paintsville was led by Joey Couch. They had Minix who kind of grew up around the Russell/Ashland area. They had some really talented teams for a 1A school. Johnson Central had some size but not near the talent.

The schools are about what? Maybe a mile apart. You bring up Coaching and that is part of the equation. Matney now and Music before him got the players to come to JC. I have no bias here. That's just the way I see it.

There is more natural talent in the Johnson County system than in the Paintsville system and there always has been. You just did not always see it displayed on the field because of years of poor coaching at all levels. There were some decent head coaches who had very short tenures before Bill Musick, but Musick put the program on the right track, not only at the high school level but also at the middle and elementary school levels.

Paintsville has had excellent football coaches throughout most of Johnson Central's existence they were able to put better football players on the field for many years but the potential has always been there for Johnson Central.

I have said it before but since Matney took over at JC, there is not longer the incentive for kids living in the county school district to attend Paintsville just to play football. Paintsville's success in basketball and other sports, along with the trend of kids to specialize in a single sport has also hurt the program, IMO. In Walter Brugh's day, the best athletes at Paintsville played football with very few exceptions and Brugh and his staff had the ability to shape that talent into some great football players.