[Hoot Gibson]

I don't agree with the enrollment disparity. Class A teams like Mayfield and Beechwood who have 60+ players on their rosters and guys only playing on one side of the ball compete and beat bigger schools every year. Beechwood beat Cov Cath this year, beat 2A State Champion NCC, and they gave 6A Dixie Heights a decent game. Mayfield beat 5A Runner-Up Graves County. If you have the numbers and athletes, I don't think enrollment matters.

Mayfield and Beechwood are two of the largest 1A schools in the state and Mayfield will be moving up to 2A next season. NCC's enrollment is not much larger than either Beechwood's or Mayfield's.

Paintsville is and will remain a very small 1A team. Johnson Central has about a 528 to 103 edge in boys' enrollment. Paintsville has the sixth smallest boys' enrollment in the state. Even if Paintsville managed to get every male student to play football, it would not negate the enrollment advantage because top athletes tend to play sports. The students at Johnson Central are drawn from the same gene pool, so there are about five times as many potentially great male athletes at Johnson Central as there is at Paintsville.

Historically, Paintsville has managed to have a much better participation rate than JC has and there are fewer hurdles to playing football at Paintsville, such as transportation issues. Coach Brugh was great at persuading boys to play football. So, the 5 to 1 edge is a little misleading, but JC still enjoys a large advantage in the number of available athletes in each class.

I am not saying that Paintsville will never again have a team capable of beating a well-coached Johnson Central team, but it will be an extremely rare season when it happens. If Coach Matney retires and the Johnson Central administration fumbles the selection of his successor (as they fumbled hiring Musick's successor), then Paintsville may once again become consistently competitive with JC. A 5 to 1 enrollment advantage is huge, all else being equal.

IMO, one of the main reasons that Paintsville has never won a state title is its relatively small enrollment compared to other 1A schools. Back in the days when Kentucky had only three or four classes, that was an even greater disadvantage than it is today.

I know that Walter Brugh did not win any state titles at Paintsville, but he fielded teams that were competitive with teams from much larger schools and is near the top of the list in career wins. For that reason, I would put Paintsville on the list and I would put Brugh on the list of great coaches who have never won a state title.