Open Job: Mayfield

[55RedDog]

2 hours ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

Well if you want to be technical about it, Jack Morris wasn't an "inside hire". He had previously been an assistant at Mayfield under Virgil Rains from 1960-1967 but then he left to join the Ralph Colby's coaching staff at Paducah-Tilghman for the 1968 season before being hired to succeed Rains at Mayfield. So he was hired from Paducah-Tilghman, but came with a primarily Mayfield resume.

Virgil Rains was a complete outside hire back in April of 1958. Rains was a 26 year old Tennessee native and was head coach at Dyersburg High School the year prior. He had three years football coaching experience, total, when he was hired as head coach at Mayfield. Two years as an assistant at DuPont Manual, and then one year as head coach at Dyerburg.

Prior to Rains, Bill Tucker was head coach for a year, 1957. He came from the head coaching job at Corbin along with his fellow UK football teammate Duke Curnette as assistant coach. Tucker, who had previously become a Major in the Army during WWII, resigned at Mayfield after a 3-5-2 season and took take a job AD and football coach at Mitchell Air Force Base in New York.

James "Jess" Crawford also coached for one season, 1956. He was an assistant for 4 years under the previous coach, Ray Mills, so he was an inside hire. Crawford and his staff were all dismissed after they finished the season with a 4-6 record and ending it with a 26-7 loss in their rivalry game against Paducah Tilghman.

Ray Mills coached for 5 seasons, 1951-1955. Mills was an assistant coach for one year under the previous coach, Red Herndon. So that makes Mills another inside hire.

Red Herndon was an outside hire. He coached at Mayfield from 1947-1950. He was hired in August of 1947...was introduced to his team on August 28th, so it was late-August, at that. He was the head coach at Georgetown College the year prior, and had been head coach at Frankfort HS from 1942-1946, head coach at Cumberland HS from 1938-1942, and was an assistant at Loyall High School from 1934-1937.

Henry Cochran (see below).

Dick Bacon was an outside hire for his 1944-1945 tenure. He had coached at Owensboro High School and was head coach at Union College before being hired on at Mayfield. After head coach Ual Killebrew stepped down, Mayfield initially named Grove High School (TN) head coach Kenneth Sidwell as their new coach, but then after learning that he would have to potentially compete with Henry Cochran for the job once Cochran got back from his term in the Navy, Sidwell accepted the head coaching job at Glasgow High School instead, leaving the door open for Bacon.

Ual Killebrew was an inside hire. He was an assistant for a season and a half under Henry Cochran and was promoted towards the end of the 1942 season when Cochran was called up to the Navy, and stayed on to coach the following season. He had previously been head football coach at Fulton High School (while simultaneously serving as an assistant basketball coach at Mayfield) for several seasons, and returned there in 1944 to finish out his teaching and coaching career.

Henry Cochran had two stints as Mayfield's head coach, but originally came in as an outside hire. He was head coach from 1939-1942, then he was drafted into the Navy during WWII, and came back to serve as head coach again. Cochran was given an indefinite leave of absence in 1942 after being drafted, and then returned to reassume the job for one more season in 1946. When he was initially hired in 1939, he was a 25 year old who had played fullback at Paducah High School and then fullback and quarterback at the University of Alabama. He had one year of football coaching experience when he came to Mayfield, having previously been head coach at Huntersville High School in Alabama.

Ray Ross was an outside hire. He had been the AD and football coach at Owensboro High School for four years prior to being hired to replace Carlisle Cutchin. Ross coached Mayfield from 1925-1938.

Carlisle Cutchin was head coach of Mayfield from 1919-1924. Outside hire. He had taught and been an assistant football and basketball coach at Murray High School before being hired at Mayfield, and then would head to Murray State to run their athletic department in addition to serving as head coach of their football, basketball, and baseball teams.

I can't, for the life of me, find any information on who served as head coach prior to Carlisle Cutchin for any of the seasons between 1911 and 1918.

This is a pretty incredible history lesson

[RMRed]

Now that would be interesting 🤔 

[RMRed]

15 hours ago, Tracy House said:

Another name that keeps coming up in the circles that I run with is Tony Franklin.

Now that would be interesting.

[Tracy House]

22 hours ago, RMRed said:

Now that would be interesting.

A few back, they held a coaches banquet,in Mayfield,the keynote speaker was Tony Franklin, Franklin did not say what level he might be interested in coaching, but he did say he was interested.After all, that is w the type of offense Mayfield run,the Franklin spread.

[TimeWillTell]

On 5/11/2024 at 8:40 PM, Tracy House said:

A few back, they held a coaches banquet,in Mayfield,the keynote speaker was Tony Franklin, Franklin did not say what level he might be interested in coaching, but he did say he was interested.After all, that is w the type of offense Mayfield run,the Franklin spread.

If true, it will definitely be a great hire. 

[VF111]

Tony Franklin has never stayed anywhere very long. I don't think that's what Mayfield is looking for. 

[Bud_Kilmer]

Yeah Tony is 66 years old, I don think that is gonna happen. I've heard Rush Propst is available lol! No Mayfield will find the right guy and I assume it comes from within or somebody with very strong ties to the program. Would They have hired Mike Rogers? I wonder if he would have taken the Nelson County job had he known this was coming, surley Morris let him know.

[gchs_uk9]

On 5/10/2024 at 8:23 PM, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

Red Herndon was an outside hire. He coached at Mayfield from 1947-1950. He was hired in August of 1947...was introduced to his team on August 28th, so it was late-August, at that. He was the head coach at Georgetown College the year prior, and had been head coach at Frankfort HS from 1942-1946, head coach at Cumberland HS from 1938-1942, and was an assistant at Loyall High School from 1934-1937.

Whatever the 1947 version of Bluegrasspreps was would have been absolutely bonkers with a team no having a coach until late August!

[BobbyKnight]

Tony Franklin is headed to South Gwinnett in Georgia to coach as of now. 

[RMRed]

It would be a storybook ending for Tony. To finish his career where he got his career revived and took off. Be a good story.

[ChiefSmoke]

Tony Franklin did a super job on our podcast and would be an excellent hire for Mayfield HS. He kicked off the Offseason in Season 1 for us. Listen here!  :

 

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/coaches-office-offseason-episode-1--52363461

[Stepchild68]

On 5/10/2024 at 1:30 AM, Astro Domino said:

If I was to guess Hatchell will get the head coaching job. But there is a wrench to throw in there. Hatchell has been the assistant principal the past few years and the superintendent just retired also and the current principal got that job, so what I am getting at is Hatchell is also definitely in the running for principal which I would guess pays more than head football coach. In my understanding you cannot be principal and head coach. So in that case, which do you choose if you have both options? The legacy as head football coach at Mayfield? (who has only had 3 different head coaches in the past 54 years) or do you take the better paying job as principal? I have been told Dew does not want the head job (don’t know whether that is true or not). Other candidates in my mind would be Jay Burgett who was a senior on the undefeated 2002 state championship team who was head coach at Madisonville-NH and is currently a principal in Paducah or maybe Nick Kemp who was in the same graduating class on the 2002 team who is the former head coach at Graves County. Any way I look at it I think they keep the head coaching job in house whether it be a current member of the coaching staff or a former player with head coaching experience elsewhere. No matter which way they go it will be a new era as they transition from a head coach who had been there 25 years!

Matt McMain has been named new principal at Mayfield High School! Matt was an assistant basketball coach and history teacher a few years ago and most recently held the same position at Murray High School . His wife Toree taught at the middle school as well as being Head softball coach at Trigg County a few years ago. Matt and Toree are the proud parents of 2 sons and are expecting their 3 rd son in a few months. Congratulations to the McMain family. 🎉

[Stepchild68]

But the principal being named and it not being Hatchell does this make him the frontrunner for the job?

[TylerDurden]

This situation seems a little more odd than Corbin does if you ask me. Mayfield just went through the process of Morris retiring and then listing the job and hiring Morris back as a double dipper after the 2021 season. And he was both coach and AD. So all of that dog and pony show hoop jumping two years ago was done for Morris to be able to double dip for only two years and then retire again completely? I realize things come up in life that can change situations in a hurry, but this just seems fishy to me.

Mayfield hasn't updated their KHSAA directory listing yet so it still shows Morris as both AD and HFC. The Mayfield school district employment page has been updated with new job listings since Morris' retirement was announced but they're yet to list the AD or HFC jobs at the high school. No idea what that means, if anything, but they were right quick about listing the HFC job two years ago when it was being done in order to set up Morris' double dipping.

Heard some rumors about some questionable circumstances around all of this. They didn't come from anyone in the Mayfield community though, so they could be baloney. All the same, feels like the Mayfield crowd has been conspicuously quiet about everything since Morris retired. I'dve expected that the first head coaching change for Mayfield football in a quarter century would have the red helmet fans blowing this thread up with discussion. But instead they're very suspiciously hush hush.

Odd. Seems odd.

[Voice of Reason]

On page 3 and the thread isn't even a week old. How much activity should there be?