By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
At David Trosper’s “Celebration of Life” at Conner High School, his widow, Ginny, made it clear: Her husband, gone much too soon of a heart attack at the age of 55 after 18 years as that one-of-a-kind difference-making football coach and teacher at the Hebron school, would still be coaching.
“Just from a different sideline,” she said.
And now we know. As former Boone County coach Bryson Warner said, this past fall’s team wasn’t David Trosper’s final squad, this year’s team will be.
And to make sure, you can see Trosper’s hand in the naming of his good friend and fellow top-of-the-line coach/teacher to carry on at Conner.
Noel Rash will be back doing what he does best. And the folks out Hebron way will get the perfect person to carry on for David Trosper.
“I’m here to steer the ship for a year until they have the time to hire the right person for this job,” Rash says of his limited time as head coach. “I’m not going to come in and change everything and say we’re going to do it the way we did at Beechwood. It wouldn’t be fair to these young men” as close as it is to the start of summer workouts.
But Rash is here to do this one thing that he and David spent a good deal of time talking about. “David and I were very similar in coaching 14-to-18-year-old young men, both of us would talk about what a great experience we had in high school football as players, how it was life-changing for us, and we want the same thing for them,”
The goal here is a simple one, Rash says: “It’s about honoring Dave and having a great season,” but not to become a Boone County version of his Beechwood program. “I’m not here to do that.”
So this will not be about the 200 games and eight state championships Rash’s teams won at Beechwood in his 17 years as head coach there since the former Lloyd Memorial and Thomas More football player took over in 2006. But it’s about the person who, on the day he retired in 2023 before two post-coaching-retirement years at Holmes High as assistant principal, I could write this:
“Noel was – and will remain more than anything — a teacher after announcing his coaching retirement Monday.
He taught young men how to be men. How to be responsible. How to be a part of a team. How to care for one another. How to treat opponents as rivals, not enemies. How to conduct themselves with class. How to compete. How to work hard. And how to win.
That he survived 17 years while leading a program at the very highest level of high school football is a tremendous tribute . . . and we say that with the personal certitude of someone who managed to coach high school football for all of six seasons.
It’s tough and demanding and challenges every fiber of your ability to commit yourself without reservation – when you do it the way Noel did.”
And the way David Trosper did.
That day two years ago made the former football coach in me realize it was time for Noel to say goodbye to the game, as much as I didn’t want him to.
“The kindness, the graciousness, not exactly words often associated with football, that were an everyday part of Noel’s life, will be missed,” I wrote then.
If he couldn’t tell you something, or didn’t think he should, well, he probably would because you had asked him and then just ask you not to tell anyone else until it was time.
That trust was so much in line with how Noel treated his coaches and players. He trusted them to do the right thing. But only after they’d been prepared to do just that.
This won’t be the only time Noel has reversed field and returned to football. The Lloyd grad was working at Greater Cincinnati Airport when he learned Thomas More would be starting football. And he realized the game was calling his name.
“When they called me, it took about two seconds to say yes,” Noel says, as he worked his way through the 232 text messages he had by the end of the day. “I’m down to 115 now.”
This job takes a toll on you if you do it right, as Noel, now 58, did. Day after day, year after year, game after game, player after player, championship after championship in succeeding a pair of Beechwood legends in Bernie Barre and Mike Yeagle as the caretaker of a special culture at the Ft. Mitchell school.
Here’s Noel’s thank you for his time at Beechwood: “To everyone who has been associated with and supported our program, thank you. And especially to the wonderful players I’ve coached — you all are amazing. We created great memories on the field. But watching the impact you’ve had long after leaving Beechwood is the true measurement of our success together.”
And now Noel gets a chance to do it all again, for a season, as he steps into a culture created by his friend, David Trosper, who will be right there beside him on the sideline.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440..