LOOKING BACK

 As football season nears the mid point of the year I received great news out of Richmond and Eastern Kentucky University. Steve Bird, a former Redhound all-stater and Eastern Kentucky All-American has been named to the Eastern Kentucky University All-Century team. Players who played from 1909-2009 were named by position, and Bird was named as a wide receiver. This is a tremendous honor for Steve who also went on to play in the National Football League for the then-St Louis Cardinals.

Roy Kidd, another Corbin native was named the Coach of the Century for the same 1909-2009 period. Kidd coached high school football at Richmond Madison-Model High School before being named head coach at Eastern in the late fifties.

This year’s Corbin Redhounds continued their domination of district opponents by running over Leslie County, 44-8 behind Caleb Watkins, Ryan Fritts, Matthew Taylor and sophomore Vinny Hoover.

Hoover is an all-around athlete playing basketball and baseball as well as football. Vinny shows good speed and quickness.

The Redhounds of Coach Steve Jewell have the Middlesboro Yellow Jackets coming up Friday night and Coach Kenny Roark’s team showed some signs of life last week by slamming Knott Central, 56-14.

Middlesboro may be down a little this year from their glory days of the past. But beware; they are always dangerous when playing Corbin.

You can revert to the great games when Archie Powers was the head coach at Corbin and Tom “Chalk” Stapleton was the headman for the Jackets and the games were very hard fought. It is a great rivalry.

The Kentucky Wildcats had me worried from time to time Saturday against Auburn, but actually dominated Auburn for the most part. The Wildcats offensive line was outstanding as well as the defense. Randall Cobb was once again the take-charge guy and both quarterbacks, Morgan Newton and Will Fidler acquitted themselves very well. I feel Kentucky will turn this into a banner year by running the table. I am predicting wins over Vandy, Georgia and Tennessee to accompany non-conference wins over the non-conferences foes for a 9-3 record preceding their fourth consecutive Bowl win. Have I lost my mind? Maybe.

I just received a copy of the 2009-2010 Redhound basketball schedule. I am impressed. It is a very demanding schedule that should prepare the ‘Hounds for post season play.

The big exhibition session November 21^st will find the Redhounds playing a Wayne County team that returns all their starters from last year.

The regular season schedule will include Bell County, Lexington Sayre, Rowan County, Knox Central, South Laurel, Lone Oak, Louisville DeSales, Clay County, Whitley County, Scott County, North Laurel and Harlan County. This is not the order of play, but you must admit these are competitive teams.

I am very optimistic about the Redhounds team for 2009-2010 season.

As I browsed through scrapbooks from the 50’s and 60’s I came across numerous columns written by Jim Lee Crawford. The columns came under the heading of Press Box Paragraphs and Crawford’s insight into the local sports scene was very keene. I always found Jim Lee’s comments to be very accurate and very fair.

Jim’s son, John, is an assistant coach on Coach Tony Pietrowski’s staff, and his grandson was an important cog on last year’s state tournament team.

The Kentucky Wildcat basketball team is entering what could be the most exciting era of its illustrious history.

John Calipari is a perfect fit for the program at this time.