Best of Bill Crook: ‘Undefeated and Untied’

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 23, 2000:

The Redhound squad of 1960 was the last of only three Redhound teams to complete their schedule with a perfect record. Only in 1939 and the great state championship season of 1955 were the Redhounds able to finish their season undefeated prior to 1960. No team since has been able to duplicate this feat.

Their quarterback that great season of 1960 was a small, bow-legged little guy with a penchant for winning. Phillip Ray Henderlight may have weighed 140 and stood all of 5-foot-7, but there was nothing small about his heart. He was somewhat slow of foot, but his mind was as quick as a hiccup. The bigger the game, the bigger Phillip Ray would play.

It didn’t hurt that he had the best running backs in the state to hand the ball off to.

Rodger Bird was a two-time first team all-state running back who was later named an All-American at the University of Kentucky. Bird was the number one draft pick of the Oakland Raiders, where he was named defensive rookie of the year in the NFL in 1965.

The other running back was an outstanding broken field runner named Barry Brooks. Brooks was intelligent, quick, hard running, a great team player, and maybe the second best running back in the state behind only Bird.

Joe Gambrell was a backup running back that could have been a star on any other team in the state. E.R. Hooper was a thin young man who had great hands and could catch the ball over the middle. Sammy Don Harrel and Scotty Russell got a lot of playing time at the tight end slot as underclassmen.

The tackles were Jim “Benny” Taylor, Ralph Hodge, Jerry Steward, and Russell Willis. This group of tackles were not a large group by today’s standards, but were very aggressive and were very sound in technique.

The guards were a dynamic duo in big Jesse Grant, who was named to the first team All-State squad two consecutive years. C.S. Frederick was the other guard, and an outstanding kickoff and punt return man on coverage. Artie Morrison was the center, and performed very well in that position.

The coaching staff was led by Coach Walt Green and his outstanding line coach, Carl Oakley.

Coach Green likes to tell the story of when the Redhounds were preparing for the final game of the season against the mighty Crimson of Louisville Dupont Manual, a team which had crushed the Redhounds in Louisville the year before, 47-7.

Coach Green had his mind set on the way he wanted his blocking scheme to go. The only problem was Coach Oakley had his mind set on how he thought the blocking scheme should be, and they were not in agreement. They finally agreed, after nearly coming to blows, to allow the little bow-legged quarterback to call the blocking schemes.

It was a task that Henderlight performed flawlessly as the Redhounds scored on each and every possession while only attempting two forward passes the entire game. Barry Brooks raced through the Crimson that evening for over 250 yards, and Rodger Bird scored five touchdowns as the Hounds completed their last undefeated season with a 46-34 win over mighty Louisville Dupont Manual.

The Redhounds have had more than their share of great coaches going all the way back to H.B. McGregor, Dick Bacon, the legendary Nick Denes, Ozzie Burch, Bill Tucker and the tremendous coaching jobs of Archie Powers, but it is difficult for me to place any ahead of Walt Green.

I am sure Coach Green would give much of the credit for his success to assistant coaches Carl Oakley and Bobby Cathers, though.

Coach Archie Powers came to Corbin in the late 60s and coached brilliantly for what was perhaps the longest tenure of any head coach in Redhound history, winning two state AA championships, and was runner-up on another occasion. Coach Powers’ longtime assistant, Larry “Cotton” Adams took over in the early 80s, and added another AA championship in 1982.