Looking Back

The dog days of basketball have arrived. The time between the excitement of Christmas tournaments and the district, regional and state tournaments. In college basketball it is the beginning of conference play and seeing the same old schedules year in and year out.
It is a good time to assess the teams and the progress or lack thereof in our favorite teams. My favorite team is the Corbin Redhounds and I feel they are moving in the right direction.
Josh Crawford is so physically strong for a freshman and he is gaining even more valuable experience each game. Josh is a good jumper and gets on the boards extremely well. His outside shot needs some work, but he does have good form and it will come around.
Ryan Tate has improved immensely and is a strong scorer inside and out. Ryan gives the Redhounds a legitimate outside threat to compliment Crawford and Ryan Swim and Kyle French inside.
Both Swim and French offer an inside presence, and off the bench, Deke Barley continues to get better each time out. Josh Hemline has assumed point guard responsibilities and shows flashes of excellent quickness. Josh Smith continues to show me he has great potential and Devon Rogers has come on lately and shows lots of promise.
South Laurel is coming up on Tuesday and the Redhounds of coach Tony Pietrowski have a big task in front of them, but I believe they will rise to the occasion and perform well.
My good friend Jerry Smith’s mother, Mrs. Dorothy Brooks passed away on Friday and I had many thoughts of Jerry’s mom and how nice she was to all the neighborhood kids on Carbon’s east side. Jerry, his brother, Terry and I always had cookies and kick apoo joy juice available as we played together on Christian Street.
Jerry Smith was an all-time great basketball player at Corbin High School. Jerry was a charter member of the Redhound Varsity Club Hall of Fame, as well as a member of the Furman University Hall of Fame. Jerry was an all-state player as a Redhound and an All-American player at Furman University, Jerry was drafted by the Detroit Pistons.
Danny Reasor has said I have alzheimers in reverse, in that I cannot remember anything after 1975.
One reason that the decade of the 50’s always comes forward is the incredible coaches and players of that decade.
Former Redhound Curtis Burgan passes away last week, and Curt happened to have been one of my former players, when I coached the Little League team of the Central Falcons. Curt was always very spunky and full of life.
He and his best buddy, Jeff Litteral were always ready to go and give their full effort every time on the floor. Jeff and yet another teammate, Tim Dudley, passed away a few years ago. Curt served as a football official for several year ago.
Curt served as a football official for several years and was very well in that regard.
Are the woes of the Kentucky Wildcats over? possibly. The ‘Cats seem to be playing better with Randolph Morris in the lineup. The fact of the matter, however, is that the overpowering talent of a Kentucky basketball team is just not there.
Recruiting over the past few years has gone straight down hill and until it get better, we will find overselves hoping Rajon Rondo will hit a three pointer at the buzzer to pull out a win over South Carolina in Rupp Arena.
There was a wise old owl that live in an Oak,
the more heard the less h spoke, the less he spoke
the less he spoke the more he heard
This was indeed a wise old bird.
For the city of Corbin it might be a good time,
to adhere to this little rhyme.