We have to start this story with a bit of self-deprecating humor ! When I moved to Carroll County, I came here with a bag of money and a long list of ideas about how we could raise the bar on education plus have some fun while doing it.
I googled the email address of the athletic director for Carroll County High School so I could introduce myself and roll out my plans. We went back and forth for what felt like a month before he offered up that one question ?????
” You know that we are in Kentucky, right ?”…..
Well, that happened. I dusted myself off, laughed hard, and started the process over once again. Darrin enjoyed the story, too, once we finally found each other.
The two pictures above are from the day Rick Nester opened the Press Box for me so I could interview a trio of people about the State Championship and how it changed Cavalier Park forever. The 60 minutes with our former athletic director was as joyful as the grin on his face.
The book I was working on was designed to be the equivalent of a time capsule that would have meaning if it was opened 50 years later. The thought process was very similar to the book we did for the Back 2 Back State Championships won by Marc Motley.
The game had been covered so well that there was zero need to rehash the victory. The goal was to get a personal take from anyone who wanted to offer one up. We talked for a while about the amount of dedication required to be a high school AD and how fulfilling it was to have a ring 💍 from the first State Championship in the 46-year history of the school.
Diamonds 💎 are a Girls 👧 Best Friend : The opening scene of the screen play version takes place at the Crooked Oak Restaurant…
The link above takes you to an Aaron Sorkin look at the path that led Darrin and Principal Thompson to offer the position of Head Coach – Softball to the man tough enough to make the Chuck Norris look human.
When I leaned in for the pull quote, answer about something nobody else would know, Darrin offered up the following.
” We only reserved the hotel rooms for one night in case we lost to Deep Creek in the semi-final game. After we won, there were no rooms to be found anywhere near the field.” The next few hours were spent chasing down every coach who had just lost their semi-final game in hopes of getting one of them to let him follow them back to their hotel and claim their rooms.
The rooms were secured, and there is no reason to reveal which school gave them up or which coach might have said, ” Are you serious about this ?”
Darrin Mathews is good people, and I consider him a friend. So much that I gave him a really cool gold watch when he retired ! You should ask him about that !!
