Straight Outta Title Town

There’s a town in Central Kentucky where Friday night is king;

Little boys grow up dreaming of wearing that champions ring.

Sometimes people marvel at the great things they do

But there’s a secret on the field known by just the few.

They’re not the biggest or strongest and in numbers they are few,

But when the odds are the longest each one has the strength of two.

For every boy you see playing you are really seeing two

’Cause next to every Danville Admiral plays a ghost that’s dressed in blue.

They may be in the stands tonight, they may be miles away

Some you may see everyday, some God has called to play,

Some give their all to help you go that extra mile,

Some just scroll the news, and quietly, proudly smile.

So know that in victory, or even a loss or two

Those smiles and tears you’ll always share with those ghosts in blue.

There’s nothing like tradition to show a team the way,

You’ll always know you’re not alone when you need to make that play.

When all seems lost and it’s up to you,

Just turn and look beside you at the ghost that’s dressed in blue.

Don’t kid yourself by thinking titles make you strong,

An Admiral’s strength comes from years before of making that third and long

And lining up and competing in places they don’t belong

And beating teams with rankings high and making their winters long.

So cheer for the blue and white and let those victories ring,

Look at your teammates tonight and know just one thing;

The greatest trophy you will win, when your playing days are through,

Yes, when the battle’s raging, you’ll be their ghost in blue.

Poem Composed by Bill Ruth Class of ‘71

Adapted for Digital by Jessica Bugg Class of ‘03

Thoughts

This poem has been handed down from generation to generation of athletes in my tiny Kentucky hometown. Ranked on Maxx Preps for all time wins in football which is no small feat for a town with less than 20,000 people and less than 600 at my old high school.

People always wondered how we were able to just dominate in everything we did. Our athletic teams won. Our Forensics team won (that’s speech and debate style not dissecting bodies). Our test scores were good.

But according to statistics, we shouldn’t have been, so how were we able to beat statistics?

After all, statistics exist for a reason right? The answer after years of discussion with classmates and now almost twenty years out for most of us, we have came to an aggregate conclusion.

Danville Taught Us To Expect To Win

We even had a saying amongst ourselves, that we won in the offseason, we just picked up the trophies at the games. The fact of the matter is all of us worked more than the people we went up against.

We WANTED it more.

Practice Had No End Time

If you go back and take a look at Coach Marty Jaggers or Coach Sam Harp’s football practice schedule, there was a start time . . . but no end time. It was just assumed by everyone, players, coaches, parents, that practice ended when the work was done. Not at a time. That might be two hours, it might be six.

Just ask any parent of ours who parked their cars above the practice field and turned on the headlights so practice could go on after sunset.

We Learned That Winners Don’t Take Holidays Off

Growing up it was a bad thing to be spending Thanksgiving at home. That meant that the team had gotten knocked out of playoffs. And if you got knocked out of playoffs that meant you weren’t winning a state championship.

See where I am from, if you didn’t win the state championship you might as well have not had a season. Yeah the paper would even print that. Why bother showing up if you aren’t going all the way?

But to be spending Thanksgiving at the football field which we did for years in order to prepare for semifinals, that was a measure of success. No one cared we missed Thanksgiving, we were all so focused on trying to win we didn’t care.

As an adult, when I talk about this with normal people, they can’t believe that essentially an entire town skipped Thanksgiving. But we did. And to this day, I think all of us made the right choice. Thanksgiving is not a great holiday anyway but you better bet your ass that if we had to have practice on Christmas or even the best holiday, Halloween in order to win, by God there would be practice.

We learned to sacrifice where others wouldn’t in order to have the advantage. This still applies in my professional life and personal life.

Learning To “Hold The Rope”

How To Lose

Every season had a theme. One season the theme was “Unfinished Business” that was the season after the first team in history went to the state championship game and lost . . . for the first time in history ever.

The entire next season was focused on avenging the loss, but not against the opponent. We weren’t taught to play the opponent, we were taught to play against ourselves.

So when we encountered a loss, we never blamed the other team, or the refs, or our teammates. We were taught to look at what we didn’t do, how we could get better. We were never victims to someone else in a loss, if we had lost, it was because of what we didn’t do.

How To Win

In the same token, with a win, it wasn’t because we had it easy. And we never let up on an opponent, in fact most second halfs of my high school time were played with the “fourth quarter” rule in effect.

The fourth quarter rule is when the clock runs the entire fourth quarter in order to expedite the end of the game . . . it was nothing for us to be ahead 30–40 points by half time. Our JV would be in by the second quarter.

Again, we weren’t playing the opponent. We were executing the plays that we were trying to make. We weren’t taught to play reactive, we were taught to set the tone and pace on the gridiron. And life is a lot like that. You are either playing to win or you are playing to not lose.

I will take playing to win all day. It’s the only way to live.

How To Hold The Rope

The next season’s theme was Hold The Rope, an odd theme for a year for sure, in fact, for most of us we had no idea what it meant. The AD/Head Football Coach Sam Harp was speaking to all of us once and finally my old cheerleading coach spoke up and said

Coach Harp, what exactly does hold the rope mean? We don’t have rope in football or any of our sports.

Authors Note: I want to take a moment to recognize that the state of Kentucky recognizes cheerleading as a sport and has since the 1950s. And in case you are curious in the battle between Louisville and UK, L’s up baby. L1C4

Coach Harp looked around the room and explained in his booming voice

I was sitting in the off season which as you all know lasts two days following a championship before we begin the plans for the following season. I was watching a documentary about mountain climbers who ascend in groups to achieve their goal.

There is one climber who is in charge of “holding the rope”. That climber is the one who makes sure that if one of his fellow climbers stumbles, the rope will hold them until they can regain their footing.

I challenge each one of you this season, find a way to hold the rope for your teammates. Push each other and be there to pick up the slack if someone stumbles.

Remember, not a single climber in the group would make it to the top if one climber didn’t sacrifice their safety and pride to hold the rope for the rest of them. They achieve together.

One of the greatest recognitions I have ever received as a human being was at the end of that year’s athletic season and Coach Harp looked at me and said “You were one of the ones who held the rope”.

We were taught through that season’s theme that no one has success on their own. We all must sacrifice for one another. We are all on the same team.

It is never lost on me especially when I was coaching, the number of organizations that ask me how we were so successful and yet they are busy tearing teammates and fellow coaches down. I wanna say

Bitch, y’all on the same team

Which I have said before. That mentality comes from blaming others which we were never allowed to do. We always were asked, what did you not do? And even as a professional adult, I know that any time my life has sucked it’s because of something I didn’t do.

I can’t be mad if someone does well if they have put in the work I didn’t put in. Being angry at others when they win is indicative of a mindset problem. You should be happy to see others succeed because that’s proof it’s possible and to go back to one of our previous points, you are playing you. No one else.

How To Handle Prejudice

That’s the biggest damn Mexican I’ve ever seen.

So although I grew up in small town, friday night lights Kentucky where almost all imaginable stereotypes apply there was one major caveat. My high school had more socioeconomic and racial diversity than the college I attended.

We had poor people, rich people, Mexican people, white, black, gay, straight, Christian, Hindu, and even a family of Eskimos. They were the Tagarooks and their mom Kelly was my first cheerleading coach and an adopted mother figure. Kelly had three sons one of which was named Manning.

Manning was a big motherfucker and still is. I think he works in the oil and natural gas business now. Manning was lineman and one of the teams we played honestly just got their ass handed to them.

When the local news asked the other team what they thought at half time, the opposing lineman who was facing Manning looked up and said, “Man, that’s the biggest damn Mexican I’ve ever seen.”

The team went on to lose and when everyone lined up to shake hands no one had the heart to tell that guy that Manning wasn’t a Mexican, he was an Eskimo. I mean it would have been helpful if they had even had an ounce of intelligence to at least recognize the correct minority group.

I asked Manning and Kelly if they were upset about what the other player said. Manning who was always cool AF looked at me and said

It doesn’t matter if he things I’m an Eskimo, a Mexican, or an ice cream sandwich. I will play in the state championship while he sits at home.

Manning was so focused on winning that he didn’t even care what someone said about him. None of us did. Now, I’m not excusing people being hateful not by a long shot and we experienced PLENTY of racism and prejudice especially when we had to go deep in the mountains to play but a quote sums up how we felt and why these things didn’t phase us:

Have you ever seen a hater doing better than you? Me neither.

In fact, the only people who have actively speaking horrible things either about me or other people . . . weren’t really successful at all.

How To Leave A Legacy

We received trophies, banners, newspaper writeups, hell we had helicopters with news crews flying in to cover our games . . . no exaggeration. At the end of a successful season, you would also receive your prized item. The championship rings.

These rings were important because you were only allowed to wear them from the time you received them after winning the championship until the official start of spring ball, when you had to remove your ring(s).

Why did we have that rule?

Remember the poem above? Don’t kid yourself by thinking that titles make you strong. We had to earn the win and the bragging rights all over again each season. You weren’t allowed to rest on the fact that you “used to be good”. That’s irrelevant. No one cares about who you used to be, what you did five, ten years ago.

You have to show up everyday and produce excellence otherwise, momentum will sweep you away.

We learned that winning is a choice and a lifestyle not a one time event.

The Greatest Win

But of all the gifts, trinkets, and mementos that were handed out . . . the crowning achievement was after your last season, when you would be presented with a framed copy of the Ghost In Blue poem. Now with digital times, that effect is lost because of the instant access of media but to us it was everything.

To become a Ghost In Blue it meant that you had lived up to the expectations of all those people who sacrificed and came before you and that now, you would be the person who inspired the next crew.

Because we had made the decision everyday to wake up, tired, injured, defeated, and put in the work to win, we would now serve as the inspiration and yes, I believe in this, the energetic, ethereal stuff that could carry the next generation when they were tempted to quit or give up or not go as hard.

That applied then in athletics and it applies to me now as someone who is building a legacy for younger writers and for my own family.

Final Thoughts

Almost twenty years has passed. I don’t even live there anymore although my brother is a referee now and I have cousins and a stepfather who coach football. But the impact of being surrounded by a successful mindset has prepared me for adulthood in a way nothing else could have.

Remember, play to win, don’t languish in past success, encourage the people around you.

Set the tone to create the legacy for those who come behind you, they will thank you because there’s nothing like tradition to show a team (business/family) the way and the most important part:

The greatest trophy you will win when your playing days are through, when the battle’s raging, you’ll be their ghost in blue.

Thank you for reading. I hope this encourages you today, wherever you are.