[Chuck Taylor]

ADL, the reason Pikeville even has Coach Jackson right now, is because the Pikeville administration and some fans were tired of "just winning District Championships and making the playoffs."

Jackson's predecessor, Chris McNamee, made the playoffs every year and won his fair share of District Championships, as well as having a Regional Championship under his belt from 2000, and this was NOT good enough to keep him on as the head coach.

He was pressured out because Pikeville was not making the state semi-finals or winning state championships, so yes, the expectations at Pikeville are VERY high. Is that fair? Probably not, Pikeville hasn't won a state championship in a long time, but you still have a lot of people at Pikeville that cannot get over those previous years when Pikeville was super-dominant and they believe that Pikeville should still be the dominant force in the mountains. Part of the problem with that is, Belfry is the school to be going to right now. If a kid wants to be part of a winning team, that has a chance to make it to state....right now they would sure like to be at Belfry.

Also, I've heard from a couple different people that Jackson is really pushing the kids hard in the offseason. Making them lift weights non-stop and hardly ever giving the kids a day off. Just from what I've heard football is zero-fun right now at Pikeville.

I understand that it's not "all about fun" (save me the corny Remember the Titans quotes) but these are 14, 15, 16, 17, maybe 18 year old kids. They aren't being motivated by money, they aren't being motivated by a scholarship, they are playing because they WANT to play and if it's become so unenjoyable at Pikeville that no one wants to play, it's going to be hard to dress a full team in the future.

Keno and the principal dropped the ball on this hire. McNamee was following an icon. Not a good situation for anyone. So when he jumped ship Pikeville did not really go after anyone. They posted the job and expected everyone to come running to them. Why not post the position on the KHSAA website (it was only posted on the department of education website)? Why not post in the Herald Leader and Courier Journal? They flat blew it.