Dino

I pity whoever takes the helm if all of Indiana's players decide to play this year. Oden is a monster in the middle. Last year's Indiana junior team was about equal to its senior team. The games could get ugly early this year.

I am sure that the mighty Paintsville Tigers could play with them on their magic home court.

Thank you. :thumb:

Nobody has accused you of dishonesty, stick. Only of running an issue into the ground that was put to rest months ago and repeatedly raising the issue - even in football threads. At least try to limit your rants about Les Trimble's firing to the basketball forum. Please.

Everybody who knows anything about Johnson Central's athletic program knows what "double standard" you were referring to. Not all of us agree that there is a "double standard," but you have made it very, very, very clear on many occasions that you believe that Les Trimble got a raw deal. Many of us do not agree and get tired of your determination to bash the administration at every opportunity. You are entitled to your opinion, but this is a football thread in a Football forum, and your transparent references to Les' fate are out of place.

Paintsville swept the regular season games last season, before falling to JC in the district by two at Sheldon Clark. Of the Tigers' 15 losses last season, only 4 were on their home court.

Sorry, I will not participate in turning this into another "Les was done wrong" threads. As you well know, it is much more difficult turning around a football program than a basketball program. Paintsville will be lucky to win 10% of its games against JC as long as Matney is there. Size counts in football, much more than it does in basketball. The rebuilding of Johnson Central's football program is right on schedule. Paintsville and other 1A teams in Johnson Central's district and region will continue to put competitive teams on the court in basketball, but they will not compete on any consistent basis with the Golden Eagles on the football field. That is how it should be, and as long as it is that way, Matney will have nothing to worry about.

You are stuck in the past, stick1. Let it go. Paintsville was a freshman team last season.

Will you ever tire of bashing the Johnson County administration? They made a great decision when they hired Coach Starnes, just as they made the right decision when they recruited Jim Matney for the head football job. Accept it and move on.

Somebody needs to check their "sources." Johnson Central alumni, including those who vote for school board members, are very happy to have Jim Matney at Johnson Central. Steve Trimble worked hard to see that Matney was hired. There is no way that Matney is on any thin ice with Superintendent Trimble or his supporters.

Off topic, but Paintsville's home court advantage is legendary. I don't think that Johnson Central will need any excuses if they lose at Paintsville. The Tigers are a powerhouse at home. I believe that they are still undefeated there.

Almost zero. A merger has been discussed several times over the years during periods of financial crisis at Paintsville, but Paintsville has always scraped up the money to pay the light bill.

I believe that UK's defense is holding opponents to the lowest 3 point FG percentage in the SEC. Defense is not the Cats' problem, as Lofton will undoubtedly discover for himself. Lofton posted some good numbers, but I don't think a "hands down" case can be made for him being the best 3 point shooter in Kentucky HS history.

The point that you missed is, and the one which I was enforcing is that many great high school shooters do not go on to become great college shooters. In addition, many great shootes such as Adkins and Tackett played on talented, balanced teams and only took a fraction of the shots that others such as Stepp, who was the Phelps offense, took. Thank you for asking me to tie my post into the thread topic in such a polite manner. You are obviously a great moderator prospect. If you have any more questions, please do not hesitate to bring them to my attention. :thumb:

Todd Tackett was another great high school shooter who couldn't throw the ball into the ocean after putting on the blue and white. An even better high school shooter was Paintsville's Keith Adkins, who signed with Notre Dame and then transferred to NC-Wilmington.

I don't remember Stepp being a prolific long range shooter. He was a great scorer who got good elevation on his jumpshot and hit a great percentage of his shots. As weak as Phelps' competition was, I don't think that Stepp took as many shots that would now be three pointers as people would expect because he could get a 15-18 footer almost at will. If the three point shot had been available, he undoubtedly would have taken more long range shots than he did. Stepp was the best high school scorer that I ever saw play in Kentucky. I don't think he was close to being the best pure shooter. Lofton, Houston, Farmer, and Draud would be near the top of my list.

Thanks for correcting me and setting the record straight. I had forgotten that the Highlanders were the first Appy team in Paintsville, but I knew that the Yankees were not the first. Some improvements were made during the years that the Rookie League teams called Johnson County home, but the field was among the nicest around before Paintsville landed a minor league team. The playing surface was among the best that I played on, and that was due mainly to the hard work of Paul Setser. Before the new Pikeville field was built, the only field in eastern Kentucky that rivaled the JC field was Morehead State's. Portsmouth had a great field as well. At the time, UK's field was awful in comparison to those three. One of my favorite places to play was Morristown, TN. Morristown had to have had more softball players per capita than any town in the country. Softball fields, baseball fields, and players in uniform were everywhere. I don't remember how the field was that we played on, but I remember all of those uniforms and Morristown's "double-decker" downtown.

I may be off by a year or two, but I think that the Brewers sponsored a team on the field around 1977. I don't remember any of the players, but Darryl Strawberry played for another team in the league at one time.

The Yankees did not build Johnson Central's field. Local businessmen, most notably Paul Fyffe, and a former Johnson Central principal, Paul Setser deserve most of the credit for JC having one of the nicest fields in the state. Part of the motivation for the improvements that were made was to attract an Appalachian League team to Paintsville. I am sure that the Yankees put some money into the field while they used it, but the field is what attracted the Yankees to Paintsville. (I may be mistaken, but I believe that the first Appalachian League team to use the field was affiliated with the Brewers.) Mr. Fyffe also promoted the area for a minor league team by organizing and raising funds to equip one of the top American Legion teams in the state for three years that immediately preceded the Brewers' decision to locate a team in Paintsville. The AL team spent a week playing teams in the Knoxville, Morristown, and Tri-City areas of Tennessee. That gave Mr. Fyffe and others an opportunity to lobby league officials to locate a team in Johnson County.

It's hard to see how you missed junior fullback Blake Johnson's strong performance against the Tomcats. Johnson and Michael Tackett will also be the best tandem of linebackers in the mountains next season. Ian Welch, whose carries were limited last season because of Blume's presence is an outstanding running back and was part of the young secondary who held the Tomcats' passing game in check last season. A controversial field goal is all that separated JC and Ashland this past season. Ashland loses Holbrook, who accounted for a bigger share of its offense in the game with the Golden Eagles than Blume did for JC. Johnson Central's running game will be stronger next season and losing Music will not hurt them as much as the Tomcats' loss of Holbrook. I am not so sure that Lawrence County will not slip past the Tomcats next season, and Mason County should also be a contender. Ashland will be good next season, but the district will be more balanced than it was last season. Ashland will have to beat Johnson Central on the road if it expects to win the district title and I don't see that happening.

Ashland does not return more talent than Johnson Central and the battle for the district title will probably be played in Johnson County this season. Johnson Central will be stronger overall than it was last seasonn, with a deep and balanced running attack and one of the top defenses in the mountains.

Corky is too young to retire! I remember playing American Legion baseball against him and I am too young to retire. Corky was a great all around athlete and an outstanding catcher.

AA - and it has not even been close. Look at any rating system in any state in any year and almost without exception, classes containing larger schools are stronger. Although not perfect, these ranking systems take into account inter-class competition. Another factor that makes 1A particularly weak is that at the low enrollment end of the spectrum, schools often struggle just to come up with enough players to field a team. Although that sometimes happens at larger schools, it never happens because the enrollment is too small to feed a football program. On a year-in-year-out basis, once you get below the top five in each class, there is a large disparity between the strength of !A teams versus 2A teams, and the gap grows the further down the list you go.

There was a large gap between Lexington Catholic and the field in 3A this season. It is amazing to see so many people still penciling in Highlands and CovCath in the top two or three after their playoff performances. They did nothing to establish that they were any better than a half dozen other teams, IMO. 1. LexCath 2. Rockcastle 3. Bowling Green 4-10 Pick 'em

Trinity St.X Lex Cath Russell NCC Bowling Green Ocath Maysfield