By Stephen D. Bowling
This is the third installment of a series of articles that follow the development and success of the football team at Breathitt High School.
While the Breathitt County Football Committee continued raising funds to begin the football program, the Breathitt Board of Education turned its attention to hiring a coach. Superintendent Eugene Sebastian informed a large gathering of football supporters at the Breathitt County Courthouse on November 22, 1971, that the Board would hire a coach if the community could unite to buy the equipment. Sebastian held true to his word- even though it took the Board more than a year to act.
Fundraising continued as money trickled into the football coffers. The spring came, and the talk of football waned. In April 1972, The Breathitt County Enquirer declared in an editorial that “the interest in Football at Breathitt High School for next year has all but cooled down.” In May, the Football Committee announced that it had donations and pledges of more than $11,000 to help get the program started. Football Vice-Chair Cecil Clair deposited $5,000 in a new account established at both local banks.
Football Committee Chairman Jerry F. Howell told The Jackson Times that the collection efforts had slowed due to the “busy graduation season.” “We just keep plodding along and will get to our goal before we finish,” Howell said in May 1972. The Chairman announced that the Football Committee had received non-profit status and that any future donation could be taken off an individual’s or business’s taxes. “Our committee is greatly encouraged by the support we have received and will continue to work hard,” Howell told supporters.
Other community organizations soon joined the drive. The Jackson Junior Woman’s Club directed a letter-writing campaign to send letters to potential donors across the county and state. Junior Woman’s Club members sent more than 500 letters in the coming months and paid much of the postage and for the printing of the official Football Committee letterhead from club funds.
The Jackson Lion’s Club joined the effort too. Newly elected Lion’s Club President Dean Spencer announced that the Annual Lion’s Club Auction would donate all its proceeds to the football program effort. The auction, scheduled for June 21-24, raised more than $2,500 annually for a community project thanks to bids from the community and donated air time on WEKG radio. The Lions visited local businesses and accepted donations of items to auction. “We hope you all cooperate as fully as last year when we had a very successful project,” Spencer stated.
Spencer’s hopes were answered. Hundreds of items were donated. The Lion’s Club, with Dean Spencer, R. J. Combs, Pryce Hounshell, Jim Hay, Tommy Miller, and Cecil Clair monitoring and reading the bids listed on the chalkboard, raised more than $1,139 the first night. When the auction ended on the third night, the Lions tallied more than $3,500 raised. Personal donations from Lions Club members pushed the total to over $4,000 when Spencer presented the check to the Football Committee.
“If anyone had any doubts about how bad this community wants football at the county school– then all were erased last week as the Lions Club held their annual auction for the sole benefit of giving the proceeds to the Fund,” Editor Charles Hayes of The Breathitt County Enquirer declared. “Surely, this leaves no doubt as to where the feelings of the community lie concerning football.”
Local businesses soon joined the effort, only partially spurred by the organization’s tax status. On May 29, 1972, Roy Mullins, Vice President of Falcon Coal Company, presented the Football Committee with a check for $500 from the company and its 250 employees. Mullins also pledged another $500 in 1973 and 1974. Other businesses followed. First National Bank of Jackson President J. Phil Smith smiled as he handed over a $1,000 check from the bank, noting that it represented one-third of its commitment. “We will be paying an additional $1,000 per year for the next two years,” Smith said. “We are in this for the long haul.”
A.B. Duncan Drug Store, Home Grocery, Turner-Graham, The Jackson Times, Bizzack Brothers Construction, Mountain Cable T.V., Chapman’s Department Store, Jackson 5 & 10, Stamper Hardware, and many other businesses joined more than 400 private donors to boost the Football Committee’s total to more than $15,000 by June 1972.
The proposed football team also became a political topic in the 1972 School Board Elections. Many candidates who filed for school board publicly proclaimed that they would support the effort. Blackburn Griffith, a first-time candidate for the School Board from District 1, included a direct statement related to the football program in his candidacy announcement. “If elected,” Griffith wrote, “I would personally make a motion to adopt football. The people have given the money to start it, and we should have it.” Other candidates made the same promise.
The community effort continued with great success at raising money, but the School Board remained unmoved. The fundraising surpassed its $15,000 goal by the end of June. The School Board did not mention advertising or hiring a coach at its July 1972 meeting. The community reacted with amazement and surprise. Calls and questions poured into the Board office above the Citizen’s Bank & Trust Company. It was added quickly to the August agenda after Marie R. Turner stopped by for a “quick chat” and to “check on things.”
In August, the Board voted to approve the position of Head Coach of the Breathitt High School Bobcat football team. The Board contacted several coaches in the area and several in the central Kentucky area after determining that there were “no local qualified applicants.” None of the coaches were willing to accept the challenge of building a program from the ground up, and all inquiries of interest met with negative responses from prospective coaches.
That fall, a young father from Harrison County was completing his final semester at Eastern Kentucky University. Majoring in education, he was not hopeful that he could find a teaching position mid-year after graduation. He completed his course of studies and graduated in early December. His family moved from Richmond to Paris, Kentucky, his wife’s hometown, where he found work student teaching, a job at the Paris YMCA, and a part-time job at a liquor store to support his young family. He planned to look for a full-time teaching position during the summer.
In Breathitt County, the search for a coach continued. The Board received two applications in September. Neither was a fit, according to a former Board employee. The Board “spread the net a little further” and opened the application process to anyone interested in the challenge. One afternoon in early December 1972, the phone rang at the liquor store, and his wife told the young father, “There’s a job open down in Breathitt County. They want to start a football program, and they want to develop one from scratch.” His response was, “I don’t know about this.” He noted that he had not coached or been coached at football in four years. He was unsure that he wanted to apply.
“I was a little nervous and a little apprehensive, but it was a job,” he said in a 2023 interview. “It was in school, and it was teaching, and that is what I had prepared for in college.” He called the Board Office and spoke with Mr. Sebastian. They sent him an application. He filled it out and sent it back to Jackson. A few days later, Eugene Sebastian called him and asked for an interview.
Tevis Penn Gray, a 23-year-old recent college graduate, drove from Paris to Jackson. He climbed the steps to the Board Office and was ushered into Mr. Sebastian’s office. They talked for some time in the office before Superintendent Sebastian suggested they walk down the street to a restaurant for coffee. Gray apologized and said, “Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t drink coffee. Do you mind if I have a Coke?” Sebastian laughed. The pair walked to Deaton’s Restaurant on Broadway, where a small group of interested supporters was already gathered for their daily “eat and chat.”
The handshakes and introductions followed. The conversation continued with some questions from those gathered. “We all sat there and chatted, going over things and history,” Gray said. “Mr. Sebastian asked many questions. I was young, inexperienced, and naive. I guess he saw something in me that he liked.” They shook hands, and Gray drove back to Paris with many unanswered questions.
The Breathitt County Board of Education met on Monday, January 15, 1973, in the conference room above Citizen’s Bank on Main Street. After completing its routine business, the Board discussed the position and salary of the coach of the proposed football team. The Board stressed that the coach would be in charge of all football activities at the high school and responsible for starting and coordinating a grade school feeder program. The vote was unanimous to create and fund the position. They did not establish a position for an assistant coach to help in this process. The Board discussed the four applications selected for review. They narrowed it to two, and Sebastian discussed his conversations with each. He recommended that the Board hire Tevis Penn Gray as Breathitt High School’s first football coach. Another unanimous vote followed.
Superintendent Eugene Sebastian walked to his office after the meeting and called Gray to officially offer him the job. “I jumped into it with both feet,” Gray said. The next day, January 16, 1973, he drove again to Jackson and signed his contract. As the ink dried, Gray, at 23, became the youngest head coach in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Sebastian introduced Gray as Breathitt’s new coach to the local media. He said, “This young man comes to us highly recommended. I’m mighty pleased…and I’m very high on him and feel he’ll help us build the type of football program Breathitt County can be proud of.” After many years of work by the community and local football supporters, Breathitt High School had a coach- finally. That afternoon Gray visited Breathitt High School to talk to some potential players, and the football program was born.
He started looking for a place to move his family to in Jackson and found a “little small white house on the corner down by the river” in the Frog Pond section of Jackson. A few days later, two pickup trucks rolled into Jackson “with all we owned” and set up housekeeping. Gray, his wife Teresa, and their two small girls, Gina and Lisa, settled into life in Jackson. He would move three times during his tenure at Breathitt, upgrading as his family grew.
Tevis Gray was born in Cynthiana, Kentucky, in 1950. He attended Marshall Elementary School and Harrison County High School. He started playing football in the fourth grade. He played football for the next eight years in the Harrison County school system. During his time on the field, Gray excelled as a 5’11”, 185-pound running back. Four of his eight years were under legendary coach Bill McKee at Harrison County High School.
Gray competed in the state championship during his high school career in pole vaulting, swimming, and diving. By 1968, The Louisville Courier-Journal recognized him as one of the Lexington Region’s best who consistently vaulted more than 12 feet each jump.
As a high schooler, Gray helped organize and was a member of the Harrison County Leo Club, a junior Lion’s Club organization focused on developing leadership, experience, and opportunity.
After graduation, Gray did not receive offers to play football at the college level. He attended Eastern Kentucky University, where he settled into typical freshman life. “It was interesting,” Gray said. “It was my first time being away from home, and I encountered many roadblocks along the way. It was a time of great growth for me.”
Gray worked his way through college and worked several jobs to pay the bills. “I struggled a little bit my freshman year,” Gray said, “but I came back my sophomore year and did much stronger and better.” Then his life changed. During his third year at EKU, he met Theresa, and she “strengthened me considerably.” They married during his junior year. He graduated in December 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in education.
Gray arrived in Jackson in January 1973 excited and ready to go but aware of the tremendous challenge ahead. “I have seen some good-sized boys who’ll make good football prospects,” Gray said. Practice and conditioning started immediately. He went to work building support and raising more money. The school had no equipment, no uniforms, and no players with football experience. Gray focused first on developing players and a team, but that was not without controversy.
© 2023 Stephen D. Bowling
Bookie on the Trail 