Bluebird Cardinal

I always admired what Coach Ed Miracle accomplished in the 1960's at Lynch High School. That was when I was in school. It must have been hard work to get and keep a small school in Harlan County at the top. They won championships in 1959 and 1960. Coach Miracle had them in the finals in '59, '60, '61, '62, '70 and '71. So, if I had to change schools, I would have loved to have been a part of his program at Lynch.

Although, I do not necessarily care for the generic bird on Option 2, I think that option 2 gets my vote because of the size of the video screen (11’1” high x 19’6“ wide in option 2 vs 9’11” high x 17’1“ wide in option 1). Also, it gives a larger area for the sponsor panels on the bottom. BTW, my wife, also a Highlands grad likes the bird idea over the H, just use the football bird, after all it is the FOOTBALL scoreboard to most people. I am sure that the years of the championships will be shown somewhere in an appropriate manner. After all, it is Highlands tradition that we are talking about there. If you look at the cost figures from the board meeting, you will notice that the cost is $123,206 for the scoreboard, plus $3,115 for shipping, making the Total Price Excluding Sales Tax: $126,411.

Actually his Ohio teams include the Colerain Cardinals.

There was a Military Academy and Louisville Country Day that were in class A. Their programs were not of significance. But the public schools in both the Jefferson County Public Schools and the Louisville Independent Schools as well as the other private schools in Jefferson County were all Class AAA. The remainder of the state was divided into Classes A and AA according to their enrollment. A good reference for the history of the KHSAA playoffs can be found at 8. Football: across the Commonwealth

You need to add Thomas Jefferson to that list. In 1971, Flaget and Thomas Jefferson tied in the championship game 7-7 and were declared co-champions. Also, if you check, not ALL schools in Jefferson County were in the top class in the early days. There were exceptions.

Yes, and he did not make much of an impact at either school.

That may or may not be true, however, I know of at least one former Highlands player who transferred to and played at Moeller.

So with the 6 I listed and 3 you listed that makes 9, so their schedule is close to being full. Nine is all they had last year, so they could be finished.

So, back to the original topic. What is Trinity's schedule? As I look at last year's schedule and this thread, they have the St. X Tigers, Manual, Male, Cathedral, Colerain and Moeller. Are their any that I have missed? Have they tried to get into the Cincinnati Skyline Showdown? How about Lakewood St. Eds or Cleveland St I? Steubenville, OH, has trouble scheduling Ohio schools and usually schedules a lot of OOS teams. How about teams from Texas or Florida?

Yes, 8 teams per region is better than the 4 of years ago, or the original 1 per region as in the late 1970's and early 1980's, but there are lots of flaws. The Harbin System has several flaws. BlueBomber94 has three good examples, but many more can be listed. The one that I usually point out is that the Steubenville HS Big Red, a division 3 region 11 team in Ohio, made the Ohio playoffs in 2010 as a #2 seed in their region by going 8-2 (0-2 vs OHIO) teams. They got all their Harbin point by beating teams from out of the state of Ohio. Many Ohio teams such as Colerain cannot do that because they have to play 7 of their games in their 10 team conference. If you are independent like Steubenville or in a small conference such as the GCL-S (St. X, Moe, Elder and LaSalle) you can go out of conference to get teams that may give you many Harbin points. BTW, Steubenville lost their first round Home game in the 2010 playoffs. IMO, the Harbin system needs to be tweaked to take into effect the number of games that a school plays out of conference.

That looks like six home games and only 4 away, same as 2012. Shouldn't the CovCath game be on Sept 28, not 27? On paper, it looks like a rough schedule, i.e. no many cupcakes. Dale usually likes to do bus trips when they play in Louisville and BG on the day of the game, so I suppose that will be the same with the John Hardin game, but what about the PT game?

I find it hard to believe that the Fort Thomas school district is paying Dale Mueller around $100k. As a former teacher and a teacher's association negotiator in a school district in Ohio, where the salaries are usually higher than in Kentucky, even the head coach at the school where I worked, which has one of top programs in Ohio public schools, did not make that kind of money from the school district. Notice I highlighted parts because income from outside sources such as speaking, consulting, etc. could be extra. Further checking the Fort Thomas Independent Schools website for the salary schedule, and calculating the highest possible values for Coach Mueller, you will find it at least $17500 below the $100k value. Coaches do not make as much money as many of us think. High school coaching with the salary and long hours (most of the summer, afternoons, evenings, Saturdays, weight room times during the off season, etc) is really a labor of love for the game as well as the students.

I did not say that the present coaches are not good/great, I said that the situation makes the coach look better. How would Bob Beatty or Dale Mueller do with a program such as Jenkins (2 winning seasons since 1990) or Clinton County (a 6 year old program)? If he had the same results at a program such as that as they have seen at Trinity or Highlands, then I would consider them for the Greatest, but they did not have to build a program, they many have had to restore the program from a few down years and take it to a new level, but Homer Rice took a program and underlying youth program on a path to a that has resulted in fifty plus year (so far) of success. BTW, Dale Mueller is a product of the Fort Thomas Junior Football League and a Highlands graduate. Dale Mueller's coaching record was not that spectacular at Sycamore before he moved to Highlands.

Most of us do not remember the coaches of "yesteryear." We tend to think of the coaches of today, without remembering those who preceded them in their programs. Two of the ones mentioned are active coaches who have taken their schools to new heights, but they have built on programs that were successful before they arrived. Bob Beatty is a good/great coach, but where would the Trinity program of today be if it were not for coaches Jim Kennedy (won two state AAA championships at Trinity and one at Flaget), Dave Moore (Trinity won two AAA titles and one 4A championship under his leadership) and Dennis Lampley (during his time, Trinity had a 50 game win streak and won 5 4A championships)? Dale Mueller is a good/great coach, but where would the Highlands program be without coaches Homer Rice (won one mythical and two AA championships during his years, he helped found the Fort Thomas Junior League and was the last coach at Highlands with a losing season on his record in 1955 [4-5-1]), Owen Hauck (under his leadership, Highlands went 1-1 in state championship games [he also took Boone County to 4 times]), Mike Murphy (his teams won two AA championships), Roger Walz (a player under Rice, won one AAA championship at Highlands), Bill Herrmann (an assistant with each of the previous mentioned Highlands coaches, Bill won three AAA titles), and Tom Duffy (Dale's immediate predecessor who won two AAA championships at HHS [plus two at Danville])? Eddie Eviston may have won two championships in his three years at NCC, but would he have been able to do that without the program built by Bob Schneider (three state championships, one AA and two AA)? More schools and coaches come to mind, like Mayfield, Murray, BG, and Danville that have multiple championships with multiple coaches. I would say that maybe these coaches are good/great, but they had a lot of help from the past. My choice for "Greatest Head Coach in KY history" is a coach that did not have a program in place, but helped start a dynasty that has lasted for over 55 years without out a losing season. A coach that did many things during his career besides coach High School football. My "Greatest Head Coach in KY History" is Homer Rice. Not only did he have a successful career in Kentucky, but he coached an undefeated team at Wartburg, TN, HS, before his stint at Highlands. As a high school coach in the 1950's, he compiled a record of 101-9-7 and was named "Winningest Football Coach in America 1961". He invented the (veer) triple-option offense, which is still used today by many coaches in KY and nationwide. He is an author read widely by other coaches. He also served as assistant coach at the Univ of KY and the Univ of Oklahoma. He was head coach at the University of Cincinnati and Rice University. He served as Head Coach of the Cincinnati Bengals. He later became the AD at both the Univ of North Carolina and Georgia Tech.

All parties may be telling their version of the truth. I have no doubt that Trinity tried to keep the two Cincinnati schools on their schedule, they need games as it seems that they are having a hard time filling a 10 game schedule. I will refer to Cincinnati St. X as the Bombers in an attempt to eliminate the problem of St. X vs St. X and which one I am mean. If what is reported above is correct (and I have no reason to doubt it) the Bombers, do not seem to have needed to keep Trinity on their schedule, as they have a full schedule. The Bombers, realizing that Trinity is having a problem with filling a 10 game schedule may have seen this as their advantage and made demands for money, date or other perks that Trinity was not willing to meet, thus, in the mind of the Bombers' AD, they did not drop Trinity, the deal just could not be made. As for Elder, after the thumping that the Panthers took at the Pit in 2011, they may have actually dropped Trinity as they may have felt that it was not to their advantage to continue the series. No one on here has said otherwise. Because of the Harbin System, ALL games played by Ohio teams count toward their making and seeding in the playoffs. There are around 32 teams in the OHSAA Region 4 with only eight making the playoffs. Thus, the Ohio teams need games against teams that they feel they have a good chance to beat and earn Harbin points as a loss does not do them any good. If Elder does not feel that they have a chance to win against Trinity in 2013 or 2014, then they may choose to look elsewhere. On the other hand, in Kentucky, Trinity is already in the KHSAA playoffs, even if they go winless.