8 hours ago, 24Rocks said:

Mr. Barnett, from that team, was my principal at Porter Hopkins Elementary School at Somerset in the 60’s. 

The new street made for Meece Middle School was named for Mr. Barnett as well.

Covington Catholic vs. Boone County - August 29, 1975

Cov Cath's 8-year old football team was really floundering in the fall of 1975, with Coach Rudy Tassini's last few seasons as skipper going very poorly and then Coach Fred Bernier's two-year tenure only being marginally better. In 1975 Bernier assistant Lynn Ray took over the program as head coach, with only 25 players on the football team, and a single starter - Ken Wulfeck - returning from the 1974 team. This is a picture from Coach Ray's first game as head coach, with the Colonels heading to Florence for the season opener, taking on the Boone County Rebels in their 3rd season under Coach Owen Hauck (Hauck's coaching staff also happened to include former Cov Cath head coach Fred Bernier.) The Rebels sent the Colonels home with a 41-0 shutout loss, their first of ten-straight losses that season, Cov Cath's only winless football season in 58 years of varsity football.

Cov Cath's #82 Kevin Grant shown tackling Boone County quarterback Mike Mahan.

Here is KHSAA Hall of Fame football coach Owen Hauck in his first year as football coach. He was the one and only coach for the 1953 Eagles six-man football team at Burlington High School in Boone County.








HEAD COACHING RECORD (35 Years)
Burlington (Six-Man): 3-4
Highlands: 48-8-1
Mt. Healthy, OH: 26-21-3
Boone County: 210-101
KY Record: 261-113-1
OH Record: 26-21-3
Career Record: 287-134-4

-Played high school football at Ludlow High School, where he is a member of their Athletic Hall of Fame.

-Began his career as head football coach in 1953 at Burlington High School, coaching 6-man football. Burlington High School consolidated into Boone County High School the following year, and Hauck moved to Highlands High School as an assistant coach to Homer Rice coaching 11-man football.

-Hauck got his first job head coaching job in 11-man football in 1963 at Highlands after Homer Rice left for a NCAA coaching career. Coach Hauck had a 48-8-1 record at Highlands, including the 1964 Kentucky Class AA state title.

-Left Highlands in 1967 to coach for one year as Defensive Line coach at the University of Cincinnati under Homer Rice.

-Left UC in 1968 to coach high school again, becoming Mount Healthy's head coach, where he turned a team with two consecutive 0-10 seasons into the 1971 Hamilton County American League Champion. Coach Hauck's overall record with the Mt. Healthy Owls was 26-21-3.

-Left Mt. Healthy to take over as AD and head football coach at Boone County High School in 1973. He was the Boone County Head Coach for 25 years, where he went 210-101, with 14 district titles, 11 regional championships, and made 4 trips to the Kentucky AAAA state championship game.

-As head coach, Coach Hauck won 1 state championship, in 1964 at Highlands. He has also taken teams to win state runner-up trophies 6 times: Highlands (1963, 1966) and Boone County (1986, 1987, 1992, 1994). As an assistant coach, Hauck won 2 more state championships at Highlands (1960, 1961) and 1 more runner-up (1959).

-Over the years, Coach Hauck assembled an impressive list of assistants who went on to become head coaches themselves: Fred Bernier (Cov Cath, Bellevue), Bob Berta (Turpin), Dave Eckstein (Ryle, Carroll Co, Bellevue), Charlie Frederick (New Cath, Greenhills), Bill Fridman (Mt. Healthy), Steve Klonne (Moeller), Mike Murphy (Highlands, Newport).

-Coach Hauck is in the NKY Sports Hall Of Fame, the NKY Athletic Directors Hall Of Fame, the LaRosa's Greater Cincinnati High School Sports Hall Of Fame, the KHSAA Hall Of Fame, and had the Boone County High School football stadium named in his honor in 2003.

1975 Ludlow Panthers - Class A State Champions

Head Coach Randy Reese with team captains: #15 Nick Scharf (QB), #65 Matt Jones (OL), and #22 Jim Lokesak (HB).


1975 Ludlow Football Seniors


1975 Ludlow Panthers

Been having a blast with Grok adding color to these old pictures that were black and white. Have also used Chat GPT, but prefer Grok.  The more complex the picture gets, the less successful in getting the color correct. But, have really enjoyed this. Like jumping in a time machine!

1982 CKC Gridarama  w/ Coach Larry French, Coach Johnnie Slone 

 

Boyle Co. 1973

 

My Dad, London HS's 1st football team, 1958

 

1982 Boyle at Mercer 

 

1994 Paris HS w/ QB Cory Dumphord, now Greyhound HFC

JCB (my 3 year old son) - water boy, Mason County, August 1999.

 

1986 Mercer Staff. Larry French in front. Back row: Chuck Smith, Dick Straten, Jack Robertson, myself

1982 Mercer at Wayne Co. 

On 4/8/2026 at 10:50 AM, ChiefSmoke said:

Been having a blast with Grok adding color to these old pictures that were black and white. Have also used Chat GPT, but prefer Grok.  The more complex the picture gets, the less successful in getting the color correct. But, have really enjoyed this. Like jumping in a time machine!

Agreed...I definitely prefer Grok over Chat GPT for black and white photo colorization. Here are a few of the many I've messed around with colorizing.

Covington Catholic football 1967 - year 1 for Cov Cath varsity football. Head coach Steve Rasso shown talking to quarterback John Corbett before the start of a game. Rasso, who had previously been an assistant coach at Elder, left after the 1967 season to head back across the river as head coach at LaSalle, then he moved on to Mariemont, and he finally landed at St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati. Among his claims to fame, Rasso gave Urban Meyer his first ever coaching gig as a defensive backs coach at St. X. 



Covington Catholic vs. Flaget 1969. All-state fullback Rick Hornsby shown running the ball for the Colonels. Hornsby ended up with a football scholarship to the University of Louisville. He came back to teach at Cov Cath for about 30 years, where he spent time as an assistant football coach, assistant track coach, and head golf coach. He also spent the final years of his career teaching at Ludlow high school where he was also the Panthers' head football coach.



Covington Catholic vs. Trinity 1970. Trinity quarterback Joe Pierce (#10) also shown playing for the Rocks. I really dig the T's on Trinity's socks. Senior OT/DT Keith Stowers (#75) shown playing for the Colonels. Stowers had several D1 scholarship offers, and was leaning towards committing to Marshall, but he died tragically in January of his senior year after being shot through the neck in the midst of trying to break up a fight outside of his friend's house.




Covington Catholic football 1987. Senior FB/LB Mike Woolf, a team captain and the eventual MVP of the 1987 3A football state finals, shown after scoring a touchdown during a regular season game at Covington Catholic's Wooton Field. Woolf played college football at the University of Toledo and Thomas More College before going into a career as an educator. He spent time as an assistant coach briefly at Cov Cath, then New Cath, Campbell County, and Ryle before returning to Campbell County as head coach. He is currently the AD at Ryle, and will be joining the faculty and football coaching staff back at Cov Cath next year.




Covington Catholic vs. Highlands 1988. Cov Cath tight end Brian Williams (#81) shown running the ball for a touchdown in Cov Cath's 33-8 win over Highlands in the second round of the 3A playoffs. He would go on to attend Columbia University where he played football for the Lions. After college Willie took a job at Cantor Fitzgerald where he worked as a bond trader on the 104th floor of the north tower at the World Trade Center, and he died tragically in the September 11th attacks. As the recipient of the NFL Foundation's Northern Kentucky That's My Boy Award in is senior year, the award has since been renamed to bear his name.

2 hours ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

Agreed...I definitely prefer Grok over Chat GPT for black and white photo colorization. Here are a few of the many I've messed around with colorizing.

Covington Catholic football 1967 - year 1 for Cov Cath varsity football. Head coach Steve Rasso shown talking to quarterback John Corbett before the start of a game. Rasso, who had previously been an assistant coach at Elder, left after the 1967 season to head back across the river as head coach at LaSalle, then he moved on to Mariemont, and he finally landed at St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati. Among his claims to fame, Rasso gave Urban Meyer his first ever coaching gig as a defensive backs coach at St. X. 



Covington Catholic vs. Flaget 1969. All-state fullback Rick Hornsby shown running the ball for the Colonels. Hornsby ended up with a football scholarship to the University of Louisville. He came back to teach at Cov Cath for about 30 years, where he spent time as an assistant football coach, assistant track coach, and head golf coach. He also spent the final years of his career teaching at Ludlow high school where he was also the Panthers' head football coach.



Covington Catholic vs. Trinity 1970. Trinity quarterback Joe Pierce (#10) also shown playing for the Rocks. I really dig the T's on Trinity's socks. Senior OT/DT Keith Stowers (#75) shown playing for the Colonels. Stowers had several D1 scholarship offers, and was leaning towards committing to Marshall, but he died tragically in January of his senior year after being shot through the neck in the midst of trying to break up a fight outside of his friend's house.




Covington Catholic football 1987. Senior FB/LB Mike Woolf, a team captain and the eventual MVP of the 1987 3A football state finals, shown after scoring a touchdown during a regular season game at Covington Catholic's Wooton Field. Woolf played college football at the University of Toledo and Thomas More College before going into a career as an educator. He spent time as an assistant coach briefly at Cov Cath, then New Cath, Campbell County, and Ryle before returning to Campbell County as head coach. He is currently the AD at Ryle, and will be joining the faculty and football coaching staff back at Cov Cath next year.




Covington Catholic vs. Highlands 1988. Cov Cath tight end Brian Williams (#81) shown running the ball for a touchdown in Cov Cath's 33-8 win over Highlands in the second round of the 3A playoffs. He would go on to attend Columbia University where he played football for the Lions. After college Willie took a job at Cantor Fitzgerald where he worked as a bond trader on the 104th floor of the north tower at the World Trade Center, and he died tragically in the September 11th attacks. As the recipient of the NFL Foundation's Northern Kentucky That's My Boy Award in is senior year, the award has since been renamed to bear his name.

You did a super job with those. Grok is like a time machine. After a week like this and losing Coach French, it has been comforting to go back and remember those times. Thanks for sharing these. 

12 hours ago, ChiefSmoke said:

You did a super job with those. Grok is like a time machine. After a week like this and losing Coach French, it has been comforting to go back and remember those times. Thanks for sharing these. 

I'm amazed how much the AI is able to repair in the photos without any real instruction to do so. Like here are a couple of original to colorized comparisons, for those who may not quite understand the extent here....

23 hours ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

I'm amazed how much the AI is able to repair in the photos without any real instruction to do so. Like here are a couple of original to colorized comparisons, for those who may not quite understand the extent here....

Other than the red stripe on the helmet, pretty dead on accurate.

20 minutes ago, Tranquility Base said:

Other than the red stripe on the helmet, pretty dead on accurate.

So I went back and forth and back and forth with myself about that stripe when I was prompting the AI about what colors to put where. If you take a close look at the black & white originals I was working from for both of those, there is a definite tape stripe down the center of Woolf's helmet. I went back through all of the pictures I have from that season, plus a couple seasons before/after, and no one except for Mike Woolf had any kind of stripe down the center of their helmets - at least not noticeable in the pictures.

I was personally given a couple of helmet design prototype's that Coach Hobbs & Coach Ray mocked up on old out-of-service helmets in the 80's, and both of those prototypes have a red stripe down the center...one also had a red facemask.

Anyway, I have no idea why Woolf had the stripe down the center of his helmet, but there's definitely one noticeable there - even in the black & white originals. I was able to dig up this one color photo from 1987 that also appears to show a stripe down the middle of Woof's helmet. It's a blow-up of a really small photo from the 1988 yearbook, so the color isn't the clearest for the stripe - it may not be bright red - but it's definitely there.

One thing that also annoyed me when I was colorizing those was that the helmets were definitely a darker tint of navy blue than was shown in the colorized versions, and as many alternate ways as I tried to describe the navy blue helmet color...."deep navy blue," "deep navy," "dark deep navy," "dark deep navy blue," "very dark navy blue," "dark Prussian blue," "very dark Prussian blue," etc....the color the AI was outputting still wasn't quite dark enough to match the real color of the helmets from the 80s/90s.

21 minutes ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

So I went back and forth and back and forth with myself about that stripe when I was prompting the AI about what colors to put where. If you take a close look at the black & white originals I was working from for both of those, there is a definite tape stripe down the center of Woolf's helmet. I went back through all of the pictures I have from that season, plus a couple seasons before/after, and no one except for Mike Woolf had any kind of stripe down the center of their helmets - at least not noticeable in the pictures.

I was personally given a couple of helmet design prototype's that Coach Hobbs & Coach Ray mocked up on old out-of-service helmets in the 80's, and both of those prototypes have a red stripe down the center...one also had a red facemask.

Anyway, I have no idea why Woolf had the stripe down the center of his helmet, but there's definitely one noticeable there - even in the black & white originals. I was able to dig up this one color photo from 1987 that also appears to show a stripe down the middle of Woof's helmet. It's a blow-up of a really small photo from the 1988 yearbook, so the color isn't the clearest for the stripe - it may not be bright red - but it's definitely there.

One thing that also annoyed me when I was colorizing those was that the helmets were definitely a darker tint of navy blue than was shown in the colorized versions, and as many alternate ways as I tried to describe the navy blue helmet color...."deep navy blue," "deep navy," "dark deep navy," "dark deep navy blue," "very dark navy blue," "dark Prussian blue," "very dark Prussian blue," etc....the color the AI was outputting still wasn't quite dark enough to match the real color of the helmets from the 80s/90s.

These were the old Ridell helmets that had a raised section down the middle.  It was covered with clear tape, which throughout the season would begin to wear and break off, especially when you hit guys like Mike did.  In real color photos it would look dull white or gray.  It is even more noticeable in B&W photos. 

Edited April 14Apr 14 by Tranquility Base

8 minutes ago, Tranquility Base said:

These were the old Ridell helmets that had a raised section down the middle.  It was covered with clear tape, which throughout the season would begin to wear and break off, especially when you hit guys like Mike did.  In real color photos it would look dull white or gray.  It is even more noticeable in B&W photos. 

Ahhhhhhh, okay. Haha, by the time the Riddell helmets made their way being handed down to guys in my classes in the 90s there wasn't any clear tape on them ?

On 4/12/2026 at 9:36 PM, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

1 hour ago, Tranquility Base said:

Other than the red stripe on the helmet, pretty dead on accurate.

1 hour ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

So I went back and forth and back and forth with myself about that stripe when I was prompting the AI about what colors to put where. If you take a close look at the black & white originals I was working from for both of those, there is a definite tape stripe down the center of Woolf's helmet. I went back through all of the pictures I have from that season, plus a couple seasons before/after, and no one except for Mike Woolf had any kind of stripe down the center of their helmets - at least not noticeable in the pictures.

I was personally given a couple of helmet design prototype's that Coach Hobbs & Coach Ray mocked up on old out-of-service helmets in the 80's, and both of those prototypes have a red stripe down the center...one also had a red facemask.

Anyway, I have no idea why Woolf had the stripe down the center of his helmet, but there's definitely one noticeable there - even in the black & white originals. I was able to dig up this one color photo from 1987 that also appears to show a stripe down the middle of Woof's helmet. It's a blow-up of a really small photo from the 1988 yearbook, so the color isn't the clearest for the stripe - it may not be bright red - but it's definitely there.

One thing that also annoyed me when I was colorizing those was that the helmets were definitely a darker tint of navy blue than was shown in the colorized versions, and as many alternate ways as I tried to describe the navy blue helmet color...."deep navy blue," "deep navy," "dark deep navy," "dark deep navy blue," "very dark navy blue," "dark Prussian blue," "very dark Prussian blue," etc....the color the AI was outputting still wasn't quite dark enough to match the real color of the helmets from the 80s/90s.

42 minutes ago, Tranquility Base said:

These were the old Ridell helmets that had a raised section down the middle.  It was covered with clear tape, which throughout the season would begin to wear and break off, especially when you hit guys like Mike did.  In real color photos it would look dull white or gray.  It is even more noticeable in B&W photos. 

Boom.

Covington Catholic vs. St. Xavier 1969

2 hours ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

Covington Catholic vs. St. Xavier 1969

This looks great! I believe these two were playing in the old end-of-season Rec Bowl at Mount Sterling High School.

Any idea when teams moved away from long sleeve jerseys? I only go back to the 1980s and don't remember them.