By Coach Stoney

Some of these were tough to put into words, but I will share some of the toughest things I have dealt with in my 7 years as GCHS head coach. These are in no particular order on exception of the last one, which was, by far, the toughest. I will get this out of the way as there have been many more good times than bad. Over the course of the next few days I will count down 100 great memories of the seven years in which I have been at GCHS. I am one who knows that you have to take the good with the bad, so I will share both here.

Stephen Debord’s 2006 Injury

As a junior and 2^nd year starter, Stephen shattered his ankle against Frankfort in our 6^th game of the year. It took away our experienced QB with the ability to make adjustments on the fly during games. It greatly hurt our team in district play.

Being put in a district with Casey County

I hated seeing the Rebels placed in our district before the 2003 season. I greatly enjoyed my two years at Casey and with my former defensive coordinator, Andy Stephens, as head coach of Casey I did not want to have to compete against them. My first year as a head coach at Casey the only assistant that I had was Andy. I never liked having to play them and wanted to be able to pull for Andy and the Rebs to win every game. The brotherly competitiveness got the best of us in the first game in 2003, but we learned to deal with it better after that. But, that doesn’t mean we have enjoyed it.

Player Recruitment

*No, not illegal recruitment. Just recruiting in the hallways. We have had a lot of success getting new kids to come out and begin practice with us. We just haven’t been able to get them to stay. We have been able to keep most of the key players that have grown up in our youth and middle school system. We have had a very tough time getting kids who have not previously played football to stick it out through practices. Due to this we have kind of changed our focus in the last couple of years to working more with younger kids to try to get them started in football early. We now have more kids playing in the middle school than ever before.

2005 loss to Wayne County

*Senior WR/DB Jonathan McCullough passed away on Tuesday of the week of our district game with Wayne County in 2005. The game also marked our Senior Night for 05.Our kids played their hearts out and made a tremendous comeback to take a one-point lead on Wayne after converting a two-point attempt after a TD. Unfortunately, we couldn’t hold on and lost the game. I will never forget the effort our kids played with that night and will always wish we could have pulled that one out.

Jerry Compton’s death

*Jerry was a former assistant coach to Jerry Perry and was the bus driver for the Junior/Senior bus that I rode on to and from games. Jerry had the uncanny ability to make a coach feel better after a loss when all he could think about was what went wrong and he kept kicking himself. Jerry greatly enjoyed watching our kids play and was someone who always wanted to see them succeed. Because of his passion and commitment we now have an award in his honor called the Jerry Compton Spirit Award. Those bus rides haven’t been the same since the middle of the 2004 season.

Player suspensions in 2007

*Due to some off-the field incidents we had to suspend and/or dismiss some players from the team just before the playoffs. It was tough on the coaching staff because of the stock that we had put in these kids. We did have kids to refocus and with determination and solid play were able to pull out a victory in the first round of the playoffs without a few starters. But, as a coach, those things are never enjoyable to deal with.

Decision to change offenses in the middle of 2002 season

In 2002, we were in the tough circumstance of having to start 3 first-year starters on the OL who weighed less that 185 lbs. We were not getting much out of ouroption running attack or play-action passing game. Since it was very unlikely that we would make the playoffs; much less win a playoff game, I had to make the very difficult decision to change offenses and try to implement something that may better fit our personnel (which turned out to be a spread offense) even though we may have some on-field growing pains. The Seniors who were starting remained in those positions and it fit many of them even better. I wished I would have been smart enough to make this change in the pre-season for those 7 Seniors, but it did pay off for the many young guys we had as we went 9-3 the next year and broke many school records.

2004 loss to E’town in 2^nd round of playoffs

*A tough end to a great run with a talented group of Seniors. We can always say that it took a team with 3 SEC players to knock us out of the playoffs. But, it was difficult for a group that gave me their heart and soul. The night was made worse by the fact that I was ejected from the game in the 2^nd quarter (although, I was immediately reinstated because my argument was the correct one—I will leave it at that). I just wanted those guys to be the first GCHS team to win a region title (after we couldn’t do it in 03) that this one has always been sour.

2003 Loss to E’town in 2^nd round of playoffs

*Do you sense a pattern here? This was our breakthrough year, but it was the same for E’town. The Panthers ended up going to state this season and we struggled to play with them in the 2^nd round. A great season for 9 fabulous Seniors who bought into everything that I sold them ended with tears. E’town posed many matchup problems for us and we were never really in the game following an early 2^nd quarter turnover. As a coach, you just hate to lose those special groups of kids that you enjoy being around so much.

Spencer Crutchfield’s hip injury in 2003

*With about 5:00 to go in our 2003 game with Casey, Spencer was hurt on a play when we had a 3 TD lead. It turned out to be a season ending hip injury that greatly hampered our chances to win a region title. Spencer accounted for about 80% of our offense and without him we weren’t the same offensively. What made it worse is the fact that we had already begun to get our JV together to go into the game after we got the ball off a turnover. I will always regret not calling a timeout and getting them in. That was a tough lesson for me to learn.

2004 Loss to Corbin in district championship

*This home season finale was to be for the district championship and home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Not only that, but since there had been an upset in our sister district the 2^nd best team over there (Lou. Western) would actually be the 3 seed and the loser of this game would have a very tough playoff opener. The winner would not only get a good first round matchup, but a very favorable 2^nd round matchup. There was a lot at stake and home field advantage would go a long way to giving one of us a shot to upset E’town on our home field in the region final. Despite almost 600 yards of total offense and a fabulous defensive effort from the 2^nd quarter on we lost 21-14 after falling into a 21-0 hole. We turned the ball over 7 times with 3 coming inside the 5 yard line!! With the win, Corbin earned home field advantage and did knock off E’town in the region final. Still to this day I feel that our game plan for this game was our best ever.

Decision to start Freshmen in 2006 season

*Early in the 2006 season we had some veteran guys not playing as well as I thought they could and were facing a gauntlet of a schedule. We only had 5 juniors and 5 sophomores on the roster with some promising Freshmen. As a coach, it is never the first option to play Freshmen in varsity games. However, with our schedule and where we were at I knew that it would be tough for us to win so I decided to try to get a few Freshmen ready and give them the opportunity to play. There were many growing pains for the Freshmen who were playing and there were many who did not like my decision. However, the experienced they gained helped them to understand varsity play much quicker and play a bigger role as sophomores this past season when we only had 10 upperclassmen. More wins came this year and more should come next season as this group continues to grow.

Negativity affecting players

*As a coach you are always going to have to deal with some negativity and that is expected. It becomes difficult when it gets to the kids and it starts to affect `them. We went through a time where we saw this and we had to work hard to refocus our team on what they should be focused on. Honestly, this wasn’t as difficult as many would think, but as a coach you just hate to see some of those outside influences affect your players. I am just glad that I had a group of players that could come back and work to make themselves better and see some better fruits of their labor.

Removal of players from the team in 2005 pre-season

*Just two weeks before our first game of the 2005 season I had to remove 4 players from out team for an off-the field incident. Included, were the two best athletes that we had in the junior class and on the team in general. This was something that had to be done, but obviously affected our team. I am very proud of one, however, who remained in high school and graduated even though he had to attend a 2^nd semester. I just have always wondered what could have been had these guys been able to be with us in 2005 and 2006. I know these things are going to happen sometimes with kids, but it gives you a lot of sleepless nights as a coach when you think you have turned the corner in helping a kid and something like this happens.

Death of Jonathan McCullough

Without a doubt this is the toughest situation I have ever dealt with as a head coach. When Jonny passed, due to a car wreck in 2005 it left us all with a void. He was a great kid to be around and I loved watching him play. He was also a great teammate. It was difficult to get through the rest of that season as football seemed to be a whole lot less important as things were really put into perspective. The football part of things may have meant less, but the Bible Studies and time together with the team meant a whole lot more after this tragedy.