Pure class from Belfry's blood rival. They're feeling this one deep, too, I would imagine. 

 

When I interviewed w/ Coach Roy Walton at Tates Creek, November of 1987, one of his selling points was that the best schools from all over KY called him, looking for head coaches. He mentioned Coach Haywood by name. He was very proud of him. Coach Walton continued to be a mentor for Coach Haywood throughout his career until Coach Walton passed away. 

Sidestory.... Coach Walton drove to Paris one night when I was an assistant. Was surprised to see him. He was driving over to get a scouting report from Coach Ben Pumphrey. Ben had brought Mason County to Paris for a JV game.... it was our freshmen versus their JV.

 ? Found out later, Ben had told the Mason kids , "We are driving to Paris to put a whooping on those puppies." It was a tough one, but our freshmen won that game.  

I am not a fan of getting old, but I am thankful that my time included Coach Walton, Coach Haywood, Coach Pumphrey, Mike Yeagle, Bob Schneider, Alvis Johnson & Ivan McGlone. I sure miss those guys but beyond thankful that my path crossed with theirs. 

 

 

From East Carter Football in honor of Coach Haywood. 

Made the trip this past Sat to Belfry to pay our respects to one of the Greatest to ever do it. We got there right at 3 and were fortunate enough to meet with Family and Friends. It was very crowded! The outpouring Love Coach Haywood blessed on so many People was truly evident. The Belfry community was very blessed to have such a Great Coach/Mentor to all of his Players of the years.

Coach Haywood was Highlands Coach Bob Sphire's OC at Meade Co when he QB'd back in the day as one of his very 1st gigs. Coach Haywood has seen it all over the years that's for sure.

He will be truly missed so many.

On 1/26/2025 at 8:31 PM, ChiefSmoke said:

When I interviewed w/ Coach Roy Walton at Tates Creek, November of 1987, one of his selling points was that the best schools from all over KY called him, looking for head coaches. He mentioned Coach Haywood by name. He was very proud of him. Coach Walton continued to be a mentor for Coach Haywood throughout his career until Coach Walton passed away. 

Sidestory.... Coach Walton drove to Paris one night when I was an assistant. Was surprised to see him. He was driving over to get a scouting report from Coach Ben Pumphrey. Ben had brought Mason County to Paris for a JV game.... it was our freshmen versus their JV.

 ? Found out later, Ben had told the Mason kids , "We are driving to Paris to put a whooping on those puppies." It was a tough one, but our freshmen won that game.  

I am not a fan of getting old, but I am thankful that my time included Coach Walton, Coach Haywood, Coach Pumphrey, Mike Yeagle, Bob Schneider, Alvis Johnson & Ivan McGlone. I sure miss those guys but beyond thankful that my path crossed with theirs. 

 

 

Thank you for sharing that Coach.  Although I just talked with Coach Haywood a few days before his accident, it is really good to hear his voice and listen to him talk about life and the humanistic side of coaching.  He is going to leave a really big void.

I did not know this until after he passed away, but Coach Haywood inspired the podcast that Chuck Smith and I host. It came from a conversation in November of 2018, the week after Boyle won at Belfry. 

An earlier November, I was at the end of my rope. Coach Haywood coached for 29 years before his first state title in 2003, Belfry(David Jones) over Etown (Zipp Duncan, Brandon Deaderick, Chris Todd).  Coach did NOT forget the days that were tough. He helped me a lot when we talked about it that evening.

He never forgot what it was like to struggle. He made time for others. He will continue to inspire others and make an impact for a long time. 

 

 

On 2/11/2025 at 5:54 PM, ChiefSmoke said:

I did not know this until after he passed away, but Coach Haywood inspired the podcast that Chuck Smith and I host. It came from a conversation in November of 2018, the week after Boyle won at Belfry. 

An earlier November, I was at the end of my rope. Coach Haywood coached for 29 years before his first state title in 2003, Belfry(David Jones) over Etown (Zipp Duncan, Brandon Deaderick, Chris Todd).  Coach did NOT forget the days that were tough. He helped me a lot when we talked about it that evening.

He never forgot what it was like to struggle. He made time for others. He will continue to inspire others and make an impact for a long time. 

 

 

A wonderful tribute to Coach Haywood by two of the best! 

"If you needed him, and he could help somebody, he's dropping what he's got going on to talk." That couldn't be more true and here is a story I would like to share on that. I plan to dive deeper into this in a project, but it was a Thursday afternoon, I was off work and making a quick drop by the office to print off some stat sheets for three full days worth of calling basketball games. It was going to be a long trip for back to back weekends.  I pulled into the office and received a text message that one of the leaders at the office passed away during the day which was totally unexpected. Although he was diagnosed with cancer earlier in the year, I felt optimistic because it was caught early but also know that he had a couple of stays in the hospital prior to when that happened so it may have spread more rapidly than initially thought.

If you go to the weight loss thread in the BGP Break Room you'll see some of my background on that end. At the time I dropped 33 pounds, I felt unstoppable and working with Philip had me going in the best route that I had ever gone. I have perfectionst personality and if I had one item in a meal that was off plan, I would get frustrated and fall back. Philip taught me how to overcome that. We had a great conversation that week, maybe even the night before. When I found that out about my work teammate, I didn't waste any time going back out to eat and gorging.

I was close with this leader. When I first started at this place in 2012 he was one of the, if not the key person that was a mentor to me and we would go to lunch a lot, usually celebrating events like birthdays and such. Once I gathered myself I called Philip that evening on the way up to the basketball event. The memory is a blur somewhat but he had a passing scrimmage coming up shortly. It was in the summer. Philip dropped what he was doing and was able to help me get re-focused on the trip and, most importantly, being there for this coworker's family. My eating habits worsened for some time although we would work on that more down the line, but on the trip I was able to keep focused and ended up broadcasting the games, even 11 on one of the days and was able to make some contacts at the event. Part of what was so inspiring from that talk with Philip was just the gesture that he took, with how busy he was. I'm looking back at one of the e-mails right now (Albeit over my exercise program) where he closed saying, "You can do this. Get a plan together. I'm in your corner." Those last four words especially, when he said it, he meant it.