20 minutes ago, Oldercoach said:

Rec Bowl in Mt. Sterling to kickoff week #1 in the season.  4 Teams, little schools  like Ed Miracle’s Lynch Bulldogs (Joe Washington), Madison Model, Pineville and big schools like Madisonville (Alfred Collin’s), and Ft. Thomas Highlands.  Fantastic 2 game bowl atmosphere with all coaches in attendance walking to a local doc’s backyard for a cookout.  As a really young coach this was an annual kickoff to the season with always two great games.

Glasgow played in the rec bowl years ago and lost to Montgomery Co 28-0. I’m assuming those were better times for Montgomery.

2 hours ago, Tkinslow said:

Glasgow played in the rec bowl years ago and lost to Montgomery Co 28-0. I’m assuming those were better times for Montgomery.

I am not sure when Mt. Sterling merged with Montgomery Co., but Mt. Sterling was a powerhouse with a handful of jet backs annually.

We played in the Death Valley bowl at Lincoln Co. The hottest game I was ever apart of. The best was they had just spray painted the end zones so all the fumes in 90 weather made it worse while warming up. I think every team should play in a bowl game to open the first or second weekend of the season.

11 hours ago, Oldercoach said:

Rec Bowl in Mt. Sterling to kickoff week #1 in the season.  4 Teams, little schools  like Ed Miracle’s Lynch Bulldogs (Joe Washington), Madison Model, Pineville and big schools like Madisonville (Alfred Collin’s), and Ft. Thomas Highlands.  Fantastic 2 game bowl atmosphere with all coaches in attendance walking to a local doc’s backyard for a cookout.  As a really young coach this was an annual kickoff to the season with always two great games.

2003 Recreation Bowl, Mason County vs. Breathitt Co.(defending 2A State Champs) QB Dustin Grutza who went on to start at UC.

 

16 hours ago, Tigerpride94 said:

Practicing on grass and the smell of grass. With turf fields everywhere that is dwindling. I still to this day get a whiff of grass and instantly reminds me of football practice.

 

Come be a Bearcat for a day!

1 hour ago, ChiefSmoke said:

2003 Recreation Bowl, Mason County vs. Breathitt Co.(defending 2A State Champs) QB Dustin Grutza who went on to start at UC.

 

The Rec Bowl committee seemed to annually match up great teams and the Star of the Game selection was always a who’s who of Ky high school football.  Paul Hornung (even before my time), Alfred Sonny Collin’s, Tim Couch, Freddie Ballou and now I perhaps ought to do a little research.

19 hours ago, ATLCat said:

Speaking from when I was a kid in the late 80's and 90's before the internet age.

I couldn't wait to get the newspaper(s) every day during football season.

Between Saturday and Sunday you could piece together a scoreboard.

...seeing Caldwell County and pulling out the ole Rand McNally road atlas to see where Caldwell County even was. 

This... I learned more about Kentucky geography from seeing school names in the score sections of the paper than I did from any other source. 

I can remember seeing momentum build through the scores each week for some teams. This was before the KHSAA Scoreboard so you had to keep inventory as the season went along mentally. I can remember thinking to myself things like "Sheesh, Hoptown is really, really good.", "How is Leslie Co. scoring all those points?", and "Man, Fern Creek may have a shot this year to come out of Louisville."

I feel the exact same way. I got pretty good at Counties and schools. It was the same for me with the USA Today top 25 poll. Our school always got USA Today for the library. Tallk about some exotic locations.

23 hours ago, Tigerpride94 said:

Practicing on grass and the smell of grass. With turf fields everywhere that is dwindling. I still to this day get a whiff of grass and instantly reminds me of football practice.

This is the one, from a players perspective, I definitely remember seeing our coaches put in the work on our field to make it decent, it was sentimental, and gave them an extra notch of respect throughout the locker room. Very appreciative, especially when you would travel to other schools and see how unfortunate others had it even when you didn’t have much either. 

4 hours ago, TheBallCoach said:

This is the one, from a players perspective, I definitely remember seeing our coaches put in the work on our field to make it decent, it was sentimental, and gave them an extra notch of respect throughout the locker room. Very appreciative, especially when you would travel to other schools and see how unfortunate others had it even when you didn’t have much either. 

We are fortunate at Anderson. The school keeps it mowed and the parents mark the field. We are very appreciative that we get to coach. And... the parents do the postgame laundry as well.

This community has been super on supporting Bearcat football and our young men. 

These past 3 days have been rough on the grass with all of the rain. An absolute mess. But, we fought through it and a little adversity/discomfort to deal with while you are being pushed, even yelled at a little bit is good.

Thank goodness it is bermuda. That stuff is resilient. 

On 7/22/2025 at 12:48 PM, ATLCat said:

I vaguely remember Allen Central and Paintsville games where the cheerleaders were louder than the play by play guy and you could hear every momma in the fans lighting up the ref over calls or yelling at their own coaches LOL.

 

5 hours ago, ChiefSmoke said:

We are fortunate at Anderson. The school keeps it mowed and the parents mark the field.

I'm putting these two posts together to tell a quick story: As many of you know, I've made an effort to see a game at every stadium in Kentucky. At this point we've been to 160 with 65 still to visit. There are 5-10 other schools that we've been to for a game that have since closed. One is Allen Central.

We went to a game at Allen Central during their last season. They hosted Leslie County and had a pretty solid club. If you ever went to a game there, you'll remember that their lights weren't exactly positioned at the 20-yard lines on both sides. Two were at about the 35 and the other two seemed beyond the endzone. The field was mowed but wasn't great, the track looked rough - essentially the school was closing and it appeared the field budget had been scrapped.

We sat at midfield on the home side and immediately noticed the yard lines had a whole lot of wiggle in them! Behind us, one man said to another, "boy, that 50-yard line sure is crooked." The other man responded in all seriousness, "you should have seen it before I painted it this afternoon!" The whole place doubled over in laughter.

Lots of schools have no idea the blessing it is to have plenty of folks working behind the scenes like those at Anderson County and many other places.

On 7/22/2025 at 12:48 PM, ATLCat said:

Speaking from when I was a kid in the late 80's and 90's before the internet age.

I couldn't wait to get the newspaper(s) every day during football season.

Between Saturday and Sunday you could piece together a scoreboard.

You had the Cantrall Ratings in the LHL and the AP Poll. Mike Fields always was talking football and doing a great job of giving people love across the State and not just in his backyard.

I met @ATLCat once before. If I hadn't, I'd almost guarantee that he and I are the exact same person!

During my Sr. year at Boyle Co., we made the switch from film to video tape. Literally right in the middle of the season.  While watching the very first game that video was used in the first couple of minutes there was a very loud, very shrill womans screaming telling us to tackle, to block, and to run etc..  It was hard to listen to and was very annoying.  Coach Ed Rall stated that he hadn't thought the sound being captured and wondered aloud if it was possible in the coming games to record without the sound so we wouldn't have to listen to this woman.  After a couple of minutes of discussion some little sophomore who would never see the field except in scrub time, for his entire career, simply got up and walked to the big TV and turned the volume down.  Coach Rall after saying how embarrassed he was to not think of that told the young man he would be skipping sprints for the next week.  

The shrill voice btw, was my mother.  I knew from the first scream exactly who it was but only confessed to Coach Rall about it after the season.  

On 7/23/2025 at 6:45 AM, Oldercoach said:

The Rec Bowl committee seemed to annually match up great teams and the Star of the Game selection was always a who’s who of Ky high school football.  Paul Hornung (even before my time), Alfred Sonny Collin’s, Tim Couch, Freddie Ballou and now I perhaps ought to do a little research.

Forgot to suggest that the entire atmosphere of the Rec Bowl probably changed when Mt. Sterling merged with Montgomery Co. and the bowl left the nostalgic atmosphere behind MSHS and the between game walk to the Dr.’s (maybe Dr. Raisor????) for the wonderful cookout no longer happened for all coaches in attendance.  Either Freddie Ballou or Talbott Todd of Madison Model won one of the first Rec Bowls Star of Stars I can remember.

On 7/24/2025 at 5:18 PM, BEChargers said:

During my Sr. year at Boyle Co., we made the switch from film to video tape. Literally right in the middle of the season.  While watching the very first game that video was used in the first couple of minutes there was a very loud, very shrill womans screaming telling us to tackle, to block, and to run etc..  It was hard to listen to and was very annoying.  Coach Ed Rall stated that he hadn't thought the sound being captured and wondered aloud if it was possible in the coming games to record without the sound so we wouldn't have to listen to this woman.  After a couple of minutes of discussion some little sophomore who would never see the field except in scrub time, for his entire career, simply got up and walked to the big TV and turned the volume down.  Coach Rall after saying how embarrassed he was to not think of that told the young man he would be skipping sprints for the next week.  

The shrill voice btw, was my mother.  I knew from the first scream exactly who it was but only confessed to Coach Rall about it after the season.  

Your Mom has never been loud and shrill at any game.  You are making this up.  LOL