[Hoot Gibson]

I saw that game. It was '73 or '74 and was played at Paintsville. That was before we ever even had our own field.

Wasn't that game forfeited after the 3rd quarter too, Bob? I think that I was at the game as well, but my memory is not what it once was. It is nice to attend a JC these days and be seated around fans who understand football. Back then, very few adult JC fans new anything about the game.

I don't think many people appreciate how difficult it was to consolidate several high schools that had never fielded a football team into one large high school with competing political factions and build a football program from scratch.

JC's early head football coaches like Bruce Howard had some coaches on their staffs who had never played high school football. Looking back on those days, it is amazing that JC was able to compete as well as it did - but that Pikeville game was a case of bad scheduling at its worst.

JC was not even ready to compete with the good 1A teams in the area before '75 or '76 and what Teeny Vanhoose did in '77 was amazing...and then he was gone and the program took several steps backward.