[Backwoods]

It's all very sweet, but the truth is most of those teams were barely surviving and not very good when the end came. Many of them couldn't even a field a team now if the school was still open.Consolidation didn't take anything away from the communities that wasn't already dying or dead.
There's a lot more excitement at Harlan County than there was the last 20 years when the teams were too small to compete on a high level.

I'm not so sure that's completely true,HDE,about the schools fielding a team only 4 years out from consolidation but it could be true if the population continues to dwindle. If it does,don't you have to ask,why build such a large,multi million dollar school,that in only 4 years has lost more than a third of it's enrollment? If the present trend continues,and all indicators say it will,10 years from now the halls will look empty in such a large building. That's even if Harlan High School were to join the ranks. But I don't see that happening anytime soon. I think HHS will survive in one form or another,football or no football. Their enrollment,although down somewhat, doesn't seem to have suffered such a dip.