As a good friend of mine told me recently, “I wouldn’t even try to rate the best”.
However, I feel as though someone must undertake this endeavor so that many years from now, people will look back and hopefully, not forget so many of those that have been so good.
As always, I hope that I receive input on those not listed that should be.
This is merely a sort-of master list in hopes that one day there will be a Montgomery County Sports Hall of Fame and the people that put that together will have somewhere to start.
I’ll give you my idea of a Top Ten and then list several others.
1. Bain “Tiny” Jones — Why is he at the top of the list? He did so much for so many. As a coach and teacher and as a second father to many.
Tiny coached four basketball teams to the state tournament and had one unbeaten football team that allowed only six points in 10 games. Easy choice in my mind.
2. Charles “Chili” Ishmael —Maybe a little bit of a sentimental pick on my part. He was as good as it gets in preparing a football team for a big game and calling the right plays at the right time.
He’s the only coach in a so-called major sport to win a state
championship from this county.
3. Bart Rison —With almost 1,000 wins as a basketball and softball coach, boys basketball, he set a high standard for the school in how you develop players and build programs.
4. Jeff Lendon — The Doctor of Soccer in this area, Jeff began the program here and elevated it into a statewide power, coaching two teams to state title games.
Lendon also helped develop the sport throughout this area of state by helping other coaches with other programs. He integrated a sport that was sort of an unknown into a major sports entity in Montgomery County.
5. John High — High came here via Whitesburg and Breathitt County, took an MCHS girls’ basketball program that was already well established and moved it to another level. His volleyball teams also excelled. In one season both his volleyball and girls’ basketball teams won 30 games.
6. Julian Cunningham — He never coached Montgomery County to a state tournament but directed other schools to that level and he had some outstanding teams at both Camargo and Montgomery County.
His teams won over 500 games during his career.
7. Arthur Hawkins — At Mt. Sterling Dubois he had many outstanding athletes and excelled in coaching both football and track and field.
8. Paul Rains — Durng the 1990’s Rains coached two teams that went to the KHSAA Final Four. He elevated the MCHS football program to a high level during his short stay and later coached a Lexington Christian team to the state championship.
9. Mike Kindred — Kindred took the reigns of the MCHS girls basketball program and developed the Lady Indians into a well-known entity across Kentucky, guiding the team to the state championship game. During his tenure Montgomery County girls’ basketball won many tournaments, had many all-state players and annually competed for the 10th Region
championship.
10. Janie Robinson — After serving as an MCHS assistant girls’
basketball coach, Robinson took over the head position and guided the Lady Indians to four regional championships and two regional runner-up seasons in seven years.
There are so many different directions in which to go when naming the top coaches in Montgomery County history.
I’ve tried to be both thorough and fair but that’s neither easy or doable.
How about cheerleading coach Chris Shaw?
Has anyone worked harder and been more successful in their coaching career?
Cheerleading is a different sport, so I’m not sure exactly how you compare it to most of the others.
I can name a number of assistant coaches that have been outstanding in helping Montgomery County teams and student athletes successful.
In terms of success, Pat Dale is the winningest football coach in MCHS history, James McAfee, in my personal opinion, was on par with everyone in the basketball arena, but didn’t coach for long.
We’ve had coaches that were on the scene for short periods of time here that had outstanding coaching careers at other places.
Lea Prewitt has impacted basketball here in a significant way, even though she was never a head coach here.
A few others, but not an exhaustive list would include Nick Pannell, Phil “Duke” Owen, Dan Gooch, Kevin Miles, Temple Donaldson, Hopey Newkirk, Jerry Weir, Howard Reynolds, Juan Walters, Gene Combs, Lainey Neal, Kevin Lawson, Mike Baskey, Chris Spoonamore, John Vice, J.B. Cunningham, Don Lane, Happy Osborne and Jayson Mays. Others?
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