Best of Bill Crook: ‘Leaders and outstanding performances’

The Corbin Redhounds football program is celebrating its centennial anniversary in 2023. Leading up to the kickoff of their 100th season, and the unveiling of a newly remodeled Campbell Field this fall, the News Journal will publish a series of former columns by Bill Crook.

For years, Crook’s “Looking Back” columns revisited some of the most important events in Redhound history. We hope you will enjoy these trips down memory lane, and that they will serve to excite you for the centennial celebration to take place later this year.

From August 9, 2000:

In Redhounds lore, those who stepped forward to lead in critical situations are many. Those who have exhibited that leadership in victory are seldom forgotten.

Only those with great character, courage, inexhaustible energy, and extreme loyalty to their teammates can maintain that leadership in the face of certain defeat.

In the season of 1957, the Redhounds visited Louisville and took on the mighty squad of St. Xavier High School. The setting was the Exposition Bowl at Louisville Fairgrounds. St. X was tanked No. 1 in the state by Dr. Litkenhous, who decided the fate of all in the high school football in that era.

The Redhounds of Corbin High School were undefeated and ranked No. 2 in the Commonwealth. The Hounds were coming off a big win over Pikeville, also the owner of a top five ranking.

The stage was set as the Redhounds were poised to claim their second state football title in a three-year period.

There were 10 seniors on the Redhound squad of 1957 – Harold Queary, Curtis Bailey, Mel Chandler, Gary Goins, Ronnie Hodge, Tony Lanham, Larry Ramey, Terry Smith, Donnie Williams, and Charles “Chalk” Alsip.

The Hounds rode into the fairgrounds that evening as Custer had rode into Little Big Horn about 100 years earlier; expecting victory with little idea what was lying in wait.

The Tigers of St. X were loaded for bear with at least 12 players on their roster that were destined to play Division I college football.

It was not a pretty sight that evening as the Tigers ripped and tore through the Hounds for a convincing 40-point win.

Occasionally, in times filled with adversity, you find out a great deal about people.

I will never forget the valiant effort and courage shown by two Redhounds that evening.

Mel Chandler never gave up, never slacked up, never backed off, and to this day has never conceded that the Tigers were a better team. Chandler exhibited leadership his entire career at Corbin, but that particular game in Louisville convinced me he was indeed a very special football player and the ultimate in foxhole material.

Harold Queary ran very hard the entire game and, like Chandler, never conceded an inch to the Tigers. In the Courier-Journal the next morning, a sports writer quoted a college scout saying that Queary was the best back in the game.

The 1957 Redhounds squad was a great ball club that perhaps suffered a case of culture shock at playing in the big city.

Chandler went on to star at the University of Kentucky, while Queary received a scholarship to Georgia Tech. Donnie Williams also received a scholarship to UK, while Tony Lanham became a star quarterback at Eastern Kentucky University.

Crook ended this column encouraging fans to follow the Redhounds to Danville for that year’s season opener. “This rivalry really began in 1955,” Crook said. “When the Hounds snapped a long win streak for the Admirals by a score of 34-20.”

“We played the big blue twice in 1962. Remember ‘two over blue in ’62?’ It didn’t work out to our liking that year as the Hounds went down 13-6 in the 2A state championship, but who could forget Corey Reeves’ performance as he annihilated the Admirals, eliminating them from the playoffs?”