Please explain.
Union – population 7,500 — will have two teams in back-to-back Kentucky state championship football games Saturday in the two largest school classes – 5A and 6A.
Louisville, actually Jefferson County, will have two teams as well, in the finals although not both in the two largest classes, representing 772,144 people.
Shayne Beckett, former outstanding running back for Owen Hauck at Boone County from 1981 through 1983 when neither Ryle nor Cooper – where Shayne is director of football operations – existed, has a theory. Or several of them.
“A great conversation to have,” he says. Start with a pair of coaching geniuses – “Bob Lewis and Owen Hauck.” Lewis, a Hall of Fame Ohio coach at Cincinnati’s Wyoming, retired there, then came to Conner where he won a state title in the blink of an eye for the fledgling Hebron program.
And Hauck, whose teams made it to the 4A state championship (the largest class then) four times and for whom Beckett’s son carries the middle name Owen, set the standard at Boone County with players like former Alabama and NFL MVP Shaun Alexander.
“The county just grew,” Beckett says, with a nod to “the Greater Cincinnati Airport and the Triple Crown (development) effect” that got people moving farther south in Boone County.
But other counties in Northern Kentucky have seen that sort of suburban and exurban population growth. And they’re not in the state football championship games Saturday.
“Lewis was a genius and kids would run through a wall for Owen,” says Beckett who ran one for 99 yards in the 1983 playoffs against Boyd County. “And then Ryle came along and had to compete with Boone. And then Cooper came along and had to compete with Ryle.”
There’s the key word – in the spirit of Lewis and Hauck – “compete.” “Without doubt,” Beckett says, “compete.”
“Our Union Leaders’ Program the last five to 10 years has made a big difference,” Ryle coach Mike Engler says. “These kids start in kindergarten and have been playing together since the third grade. They really know and like one another by the time they get to high school.”
“We both have excellent youth programs,” says Beckett, a volunteer coach whose full-time gig is sales rep for BG Products where they encourage him to be a part of the community.
Which is exactly what Cooper coach and AD Randy Borchers wants. As the only coach in Cooper’s 17 football seasons, “we pride ourselves on being a part of this community,” Beckett says of the Cooper community that extends into Burlington and Florence.
“We started with 120 kids and now have 300,” Beckett says of the Cooper youth program. “We want them to have fun and learn the game, not necessarily be on the exact same page as our high school program.” But they want more than that.
“Boone County games were an event,” Beckett recalls, “everybody wanted to be around them.” A media only section in the press box and a pregame meal provided by local businesses is just a small part of that.
Engler says that Ryle has the benefit of “a principal (Matthew Shafer) dedicated to the value of athletics,” and a staff with “seven full-time assistants in school with me.”
And a police-escorted parade out to US 42 Saturday at 11:30. Cooper’s police escort sendoff will be at 3 p.m.
Cooper’s outreach to the community includes a Monday Night get-together for fans and guests from the team at Barleycorn’s Florence for a podcast hosted by “Crosstown Shootout” creator/sports marketer Tom Gamble, who connected Shayne with the Cooper job. The podcast is then broadcast on you-tube on Wednesdays.
But if people around the state are surprised by the success of the two Union schools, it’s not just the rest of Kentucky that’s finally getting to know them.
“I’ll go to a meeting downstate in my Cooper gear,” Borchers says, “and someone will ask me ‘Where’s that at?’ “ Or maybe “I’ve never even heard of that.”
Borchers can understand where they’re coming from. On the day he brought his resume and supporting materials to apply for the job 17 years ago, he met at Camp Ernst. Then he decided to go see the under-construction campus.
“I’m from Ft. Thomas,” Borchers, a Newport Central Catholic grad who got his coaching start at Ludlow, says with a laugh. “And I get there and I’m in the middle of nowhere,” in this place past suburban developments like Ballyshannon on one side, old Union on another and next to pasture land right past the football stadium where on game night, it’s completely dark because there’s nothing out there but wide open spaces.
“How is it ever going to grow?” Borchers remembers asking himself.
But grow it has. Grow and grow and grow.
And for the second straight year, an all grown-up Cooper is in the Class 5A championship game against Bowling Green Saturday.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @dweber3440.