Speaking of Sports: Logan-Drakes Creek connection grows as soccer begins
By Jim Turner


Posted on January 1, 0001 12:00 AM



     Logan County High School alumnus Sam Hartford has been named head football coach at Drakes Creek Middle School, which is the primary feeder for Greenwood High School.
     Another LCHS grad, Adam Reed, is a basketball coach for the school, which is usually one of the dominant programs in the region among middle schools.
     Hartford played football for the Cougars; in fact, he played it very well. In college, however, he played soccer, even though LCHS does not have a soccer program, or at least didn't then. That's changing after the Logan board of education recently approved starting a soccer program in the county schools, beginning this fall with the fifth through eighth graders. A head coach and an assistant coach for the soccer program are being sought.
     Hartford played his collegiate soccer at Ohio Valley College in Parkersburg, W.Va. While there he was a teammate of Russellville's  Daniel McCarley-- now the youth minister of Crittenden Drive Church of Christ-- and former Russellvillian Darrin Waldo, the new head soccer coach at Warren East High School.
     Sam coached football at Russellville Middle School soon after graduating from college.
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     Thomas Washington's performance in the state track meet ranks as one of the best all-time by a local trackster. The Logan County High School junior won the triple jump, place second in the long jump and finished third in the 400-meter run. He and his fellow Cougars were competing in the Class 2A meet at the University of Louisville track.
    The greatest performance was by Russellville junior Forrest Killebrew, who led the Panthers to a state Class A championship in 1975 by jumping and running. He was the state runner-up team by himself.
    You have to consider Teco Dickerson as one of the greatest runners ever here. He won state championships at three different levels while a student at Adairville, LCHS and RHS.
    Killebrew had a great track career at Western Kentucky University, and Dickerson played both football and basketball at WKU, including being a member of the national champion football team.
    I don't know anything about Washington's grades as far as being eligible for college, but I look for him to have comparable performances in collegiate track.
   Washington and Russellville's Chiquita Rose, who had a second and fifth in the Class A state meet while running the hurdles, have excellent high school track coaches in Greg Howard at LCHS and Matt Tipton at RHS.
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     After overcoming an injury that sidelined him for part of the year, John Starks of Russellville was a solid contributor for the Centre College baseball team this season. He batted .289 (15 of 52) with a home run, three doubles and four RBIs. He also walked four times and stole a base. He didn't make an error, one of three team members with a 1.000 fielding percentage. Starks played in 20 games, starting 14 of them.
     John Michael is also the kicker for the Colonels' football team.
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     Kara Haley is officially injury free, at least for now. After missing all of the last two seasons on the Kentucky Wesleyan College basketball team because of injuries, the former Lady Cougar basketball star reports that she was released by her doctor in mid-May after recovering from knee surgery. The year before she was out with shoulder surgery.
    "I have been running and working out everyday since. I am hoping I will hold together long enough to make it through my senior season! I think I am going in the record books as the college's longest redshirt," she laughs.




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