When all you know is winning, it can be hard to maintain perspective. You're in the soup, so to speak. And everything looks different from inside the pot. 

Highlands football was the most award winning soup on the menu for half a century. Several coaching greats seamlessly passed the baton, creating an unbroken stream of success. But that last successful baton hand-off may have done them in, producing a peak from which there was nowhere to go but down. The air too thin to breathe for long. The Mueller years were perhaps a little too good.

Sound familiar? Re-read that paragraph, substituting Trinity for Highlands and Bob Beatty for Mueller.

Did the last one do Trinity in? Were the Beatty years too good?

Of course, being "done in" is entirely relative here. I can't see Trinity sliding as far as Highlands did. At worst, they're still a top five team in 6A and probably always will be. They'll reach the summit again - I wouldn't even rule out this year. But will it ever be as good as it was? Will the dominance ever be heavy handed again? Will there even be dominance of any degree any time soon? Or have we entered an era of parity?

Mueller and Beatty will never be duplicated at their schools. A tough pill to swallow for fans of those programs who expect it to last forever.

I still think both schools COULD regain some amount of dominance in their perspective regions, but Trinity will have a much tougher go of it IMO.

3 minutes ago, DevilMayCare said:

When all you know is winning, it can be hard to maintain perspective. You're in the soup, so to speak. And everything looks different from inside the pot. 

Highlands football was the most award winning soup on the menu for half a century. Several coaching greats seamlessly passed the baton, creating an unbroken stream of success. But that last successful baton hand-off may have done them in, producing a peak from which there was nowhere to go but down. The air too thin to breathe for long. The Mueller years were perhaps a little too good.

Sound familiar? Re-read that paragraph, substituting Trinity for Highlands and Bob Beatty for Mueller.

Did the last one do Trinity in? Were the Beatty years too good?

Of course, being "done in" is entirely relative here. I can't see Trinity sliding as far as Highlands did. At worst, they're still a top five team in 6A and probably always will be. They'll reach the summit again - I wouldn't even rule out this year. But will it ever be as good as it was? Will the dominance ever be heavy handed again? Will there even be dominance of any degree any time soon? Or have we entered an era of parity?

It is nearly impossible for any new coach to follow a Legend and Coach Beatty and Coach Mueller will be Kentucky High School Football coaching legends until the end of time.  To add "legend context" using other teams/great programs, Boyle dropped off after Coach Smith left and Beechwood dropped off after Coach Yeagle left.  It just happens.  And if you inject Boyle and Beechwood into this comparison it is good news for Trinity and Highlands because Boyle is mostly back and Beechwood gets better all the time under Coach Rash.

7 minutes ago, TheDeuce said:

Mueller and Beatty will never be duplicated at their schools. A tough pill to swallow for fans of those programs who expect it to last forever.

I still think both schools COULD regain some amount of dominance in their perspective regions, but Trinity will have a much tougher go of it IMO.

I agree, 6A usually has at least three teams that are very, very good and the lower classes are hit and miss on elite competition.

42 minutes ago, TheDeuce said:

Mueller and Beatty will never be duplicated at their schools. A tough pill to swallow for fans of those programs who expect it to last forever.

I still think both schools COULD regain some amount of dominance in their perspective regions, but Trinity will have a much tougher go of it IMO.

Generally speaking - not just in sports.... We like to think the best is yet to come. It can be sobering or even depressing to think the best is behind you. 

You have to put the smaller things under a microscope. Rediscover how to appreciate beating your rival or winning your district. That's hard to do when you've been where Trinity and Highlands have been. More so for the Rocks. The smaller things become afterthoughts and no one wants to lower the bar.

 

Great observations in this thread.  This goes at all levels.  The job you want is to be the guy that follows the guy that followed the legend.  

19 minutes ago, DevilMayCare said:

Generally speaking - not just in sports.... We like to think the best is yet to come. It can be sobering or even depressing to think the best is behind you. 

You have to put the smaller things under a microscope. Rediscover how to appreciate beating your rival or winning your district. That's hard to do when you've been where Trinity and Highlands have been. More so for the Rocks. The smaller things become afterthoughts and no one wants to lower the bar.

At certain points in your life I think many of us look around and wonder, if this is it, meaning your best is behind you.  Fortunately for high school football teams there are always new players and new coaches so you have to throw type of mindset out and push forward. 

3 minutes ago, cincyswords said:

Great observations in this thread.  This goes at all levels.  The job you want is to be the guy that follows the guy that followed the legend.  

That is Bob Sphire at Highlands.

I wonder who it will be at Trinity? @NLTanker1

Just maybe they don't have as good of players at Highlands and Trinity as they have had before.

4 minutes ago, snakesnot_2000 said:

Just maybe they don't have as good of players at Highlands and Trinity as they have had before.

"Highlands People" swear up and down the talent is and has been there.  I do think the talent has been down a little but the future looks bright.

Trinity may not have a super player on the roster but they have a lot of talent.  However, Trinity does not look as polished as they have been in the past and that is the difference at the level they play at. 

It's  all about the "Jimmys and the Joes".

I think the biggest difference in Trinity and Highlands is Trinity will have somewhere close to 1,200 boys in the school while Highlands will have around 500. Both schools have decades of success so the level of interest will always be high. However, you're more likely to have better players in a pool of 1,200 than 500.

In almost four decades of watching high school football, two things stood out to me about Highlands with Dale Mueller and Trinity with Bob Beatty:

• Mueller emphasized speed at every single position. They were quick everywhere. It hasn't seemed like that is the case in recent years. But I have seen that become more of a focus at other schools. With improved weight training and speed training it isn't such a novel concept as it once was.
• Beatty's offense was ahead of the game. We weren't all still "three yards and a cloud of dust" when he came to Trinity, but watching his teams play was akin to seeing small college football. The offensive strategy was just on another level. Since that time, however, we've seen Male/Wolfe and St. X/Wallace start to implement some similar styles. Manual and Ballard aren't as far behind as they once were either. And in general, the type of offense Beatty brought to Trinity can be seen, at least in part, in numerous schools today.

So perhaps the two things both programs were known for have been molded into something manageable for other programs. The question now is can Trinity and/or Highlands once again be at the forefront of high school football? If so, they'll be challenging for titles annually. If not, they'll just be good, solid football teams.

Not sure about Trinity's program, but it always amazed me how many high school coaches and college coaches that would stop by to pick Dale's brain. He made time for them as long as it didn't interrupt his practice. That was a big No No! 

This thread just highlights what a great job X has done in nabbing Coach Wallace who has taken them to that next level again.