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TheTimesTribune.com, Corbin, KY
http://thetimestribune.com/sports/x15706...-His-Dream

Living His Dream
Phil Russell named head football coach at Lynn Camp
By Tim Branstetter/Staff Writer

The next time you go to a Lynn Camp football game you might see an unfamiliar face on the sidelines. He will be wearing a visor, chewing on a straw and full of Red Bull.

Phil Russell wore his orange tie to interview for the head coaching position at Lynn Camp, but it wasn’t his appearance that helped him become the first guy to take over the “Hitmen” in 34 years.

“We have a high energy guy that has seen a lot of different offensive and defensive schemes and I think he has taken the best of both worlds and put it all together,” Lynn Camp Athletic Director Danny Green said. “The interview was great. His enthusiasm is non-ending. What put him over the top was that he wanted it more than anybody else.”

Russell played high school football at Corbin and went on to play for Union College. He was an assistant coach for the Bulldogs before taking the head coaching position at Lynn Camp. He worked mainly with the receivers and he is not afraid to put the ball in the air.

“To be able to throw the football you have to have guys that can catch it and guys that can throw it,” he said. “Don’t be surprised if we throw it 60 times a game against a certain opponent and run it 50 times a game against someone else. I want to be very balanced, but it takes a lot of work to throw the football.”

Russell hopes to put a lot of points on the board and he has an idea of how to do that.

“I played receiver in college and I’ve coached receivers everywhere I’ve been,” he said. “That’s the area I feel most comfortable with. If you give me a quarterback and a couple of receivers I feel like we can put up at least 14 points a game.”

Lynn Camp will not be the same without former coach David Mitchell on the sidelines, but Green hopes that Russell will bring back the excitement that Mitchell once brought to the field on Friday nights.

“The first half of my career I was on the field with David,” Green said. “I never foreseen a coaching change before I retired. I just thought he would always be here. Coach Russell has huge shoes to fill. The kind of energy you see out of him was the David that I knew back when I coached with him. But as you get older things change. There was nothing wrong with his philosophy and his style of football, but things have evolved. Kids have evolved and they want different things. They want a faster game and I think this guy is going to give it to them.”

Russell knows how much his new players and their fans want to get back on the winning path and he plans on making it fun.

“It’s going to be a show on Friday night,” Russell said. “I have a lot of vision for this program. On Friday nights I want the whole community to be here. I know when we win our first game it’s going to be like we won the Super Bowl, but that’s OK. That’s the way it should be.”

Russell has always wanted to coach football and just a few days after his twins were born, he was able to start living his dream.

“I’ve known all my life that coaching is what I wanted to do,” he said. “I’m lucky that I get to fulfill my dream. I’m a father of three now, but I actually just became the father of about 150. I want to be coaching my son in 18 years.”

Russell feels fortunate to have the opportunity to coach the Wildcats and it would take more than money to get him to leave Lynn Camp.

“I don’t care if someone offered me a million dollars right now to go do anything, I would probably decline it,” he said. “This is my dream. How many people get to fulfill their dream?”