Everybody gets excited when your hometown team goes to state

Don Estep is Publisher Emeritus of The News Journal.

You may have not attended a football game this year. You may not know the team’s record. But you do know when your hometown team is playing for a state championship. That is when everybody gets excited.

Corbin will be playing for the state 3-A championship against Boyle Co. this Friday night at 7 p.m. at Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington.
It has been a while, but it is not uncommon for the Redhounds to be playing in the state finals. This will be the eighth time they have been there since the playoffs began in 1962.

I was there for that game. It was against Danville, a team they had beaten during the regular season, but unfortunately on this day they lost.
The game was played at Stoll Field , UK’s home field, in Lexington. It was my first championship game as a broadcaster for WCTT. I had started doing the play-by-play in 1961.

It was very cold that day and if you were not sitting on the sunny side of the field you nearly froze to death.

I had to wait until 1980 to get the biggest thrill in football that I had as a broadcaster. That is when Corbin won its first state championship in the modern era. Fortunately, two years later the Redhounds were there to do it again.

It is common to get caught up in the championship frenzy. As a broadcaster I have done it several times.

I had almost given up on ever going back to the state in basketball until that wonderful night in 1991 when Corbin, after 39 years, beat Bell Co. for the 13th Regional championship. Corbin’s present coach, Tony Pietrowski, was a freshman standout on that team.

What an exciting time it was when Paul Estes, owner of WEZJ in Williamsburg, had me broadcast the games of the Lady Colonels of Whitley County when they won the state championship in Bowling Green.

And I will never forget the first time the Cumberland College Indians, coached by Randy Vernon, won the KIAC tournament and earned the right to play in the national finals in Kansas City.

And how about recently when the Williamsburg Yellow Jackets won the 13 Regional in basketball and played in the state finals in football.

The thrills have kept coming ever since and now the football Redhounds are keeping up the tradition. Congratulations! GO, WIN AGAIN!

In closing, please be aware that the speaking appearance of Gary West, which was scheduled for this Friday night at the Corbin Center, has be rescheduled for Friday, Dec. 8th. at 6pm. He will be featured at the “Hometown Teams” exhibit to talk about how Corbin became “America’s Greatest Little Sports Town.” Plan to attend.