Remembering a Great Greyhound, Wildcat, Tiger, Dolphin & American..... Bill Arnsparger

**ChiefSmoke** · July 4, 2021

This is a reprint from 2015. One of the greatest honors for our family was when my son, John Combs, got to play the piano for Coach Arnsparger's funeral. Pretty cool.... a 1st Team Courier Journal All State Linebacker getting to be a part of the funeral for the greatest defensive football coach, ever... and both a couple KY boys.

Before he was the greatest defensive coach in the history of football, he was a Marine in the Pacific, fighting WW 2.

Remembering Bill Arnsparger.... great Greyhound, UK Wildcat, LSU Tiger, Miami Dolphin, husband, father, & AMERICAN.

#4thofJuly

#ThankYouCoach

23 years ago it was the summer of 1992. I was a first year head football coach at Paris HS. Stephanie and I had just been married that May. Our summer days were to get up and leave Lexington every morning and drive to Paris. I would work til dark and she would look for a house. I was replacing a very popular head coach and my former boss in Roger Gruneisen who had just become the head coach at our rival, Bourbon County HS. We had around 25-29 kids in grades 9-12. To say I was on edge would be an understatement.

In late July/early August we were getting ready for the Greyhound Hall of Fame Banquet. Bill Arnsparger was in town and I got to meet him for the first time. During those few days, he came by our fieldhouse and practices. I had the incredible opportunity to visit and talk with the greatest defensive coach of all time.

I can't remember all that we talked about, but I do know this.... I was in a much better frame of mind after our time together. It was a couple things. One was that the way Coach Arnsparger treated others, he could inspire confidence. He certainly did that for me. The other thing it did for me was it reinforced how special it was to be a Paris Greyhound. Coach Arnsparger being around our kids those few days helped all of us appreciate even more that we wore the orange and black. For lack of a better term, the positive vibe he brought to the fieldhouse and our football program right before the season was a difference maker for all of us. Bill Arnsparger was a Greyhound. We were Greyhounds.

After a 1991 season of 2-8, the 1992 Greyhounds were 7-4. We had some big victories with a team of mainly sophomores and juniors. We had very good teams in 93 & 94 as well.

I can't imagine how the past 23 years would have gone without the start we had in 1992. Coach Arnsparger was a huge part of helping me and our program believe we could do it. I think he had that kind of effect on most everyone that came into contact with him.

In the summer of 2015, I am in my first year as the head coach, back home, at Mercer County HS. Stephanie and I , and this time along with John Combs, Emma, Trosper & Wennie (our dog) have just moved into a house in Harrodsburg. It seems like it was a blink of an eye that it was 1992 and I was visiting with Coach Arnsparger. How did this happen so fast?

Coach Arnsparger has gone on to be with His heavenly Father, who he loved and served on this earth. To think this weekend will be his funeral is something my brain can't really process at this point. But, one thing that I am 100% sure of..... the postive impact and the way he touched the lives of others will live on and cannot be measured because of it's magnitude.

I thank God that I was one of those people that crossed paths with Coach Arnsparger. Thank you coach and God Bless the Arnspargers.

Colossians 3:23