[Boomer_Sooner]

The last thing I want is to come off as disparaging, disrespecting, or give the appearance that I’m questioning the character of any player, coaches or communities!! That being said, for some reason unknown to me, mountain players are viewed as being less athletic, and less talented over all than players from the rest of the state!! They think we have a few isolated kids, here & there who can really play, but we can’t field an entire team of talented athletes!! Even the dominant performances this’s weekend are viewed as something that can’t be done year in & year out. J.C., Pikeville, & Belfry are in contention year in & year out, & are among the most recognizable mountain teams. These teams are looked at as teams who don’t have a lot of athletes or talent, but teams who are just big, strong, & more physical than their competition. As many athletes as Pikeville put on the field this season, many down State think this is an isolated example of collectively athletic kids on one team. After the 4A championship I heard one guy (who clearly doesn’t live east of the parkway) say that, more or less, J.C didn’t have the best team, but they were just more physical & outlasted B.C. To an extent these people are right. Yes, there are MORE athletes west of Lexington, but there are also A LOT MORE KIDS east of Lexington!! It’s a simple numbers game. If we have 10 random kids & they have 60, odds are, they’ll have more athletes than us!!

The run heavy offensive styles of most mountain teams, give those on the outside looking in the false impression that these offenses are only ran because we don’t have the athletes to complete if we opened things up. Like another poster said in the previous comments, for various reasons, mountain kids are down right tougher & possesses more grit than our flat land living friends to the west. And let’s be honest here, we just down right produce a lot of big ol’ youngens who are glad to get down & dirty in the trenches with a “you or me” kind of attitude & knock the snot out of each other till someone either quits or gets hurt!! And not all of those kids are slow & uncoordinated!! A lot of those kids move pretty dad gum good!! Throw in our “best athletes” with those kids & that “whip or get whipped” mindset & we got a football team!!

I’ll wrap this up with one more underrated asset we possess; Coaching that is SECOND TO NONE!! The guys like Phillip Heywood, Dudley Hilton, Chris Mcnamee, Jim Matney, & Joe Chirico are just the big names!! There are several more top notch head coaches around here to go along with those men!! They need not think that the assistant coaching staff is second rate, because it is far from it!! Pikeville’s D.C for example, Coach Paul Sullivan would be a very welcome addition to a many of programs!! All of these coaches are good C’s & O’s guys, but what makes them great is how they get the absolute most out of their team!! The way these guys improve their ball clubs from July till November is down right impressive!! The rest of the state has NO IDEA The capability of mountain coaching!!

Oh, before I forget, one thing that separates us not just from the rest of the state, but the rest of the dad gun country, is that our boys are raised right!! That’s all I’ll say, & I’ll leave it at that!!