During a meeting with Principal John Myers late last week, Russellville High School boys basketball coach Dennis Pardue submitted his resignation from that position.

Pardue has been the Panthers' coach for eight seasons. Before that, the 1981 Auburn High School graduate had coached middle school basketball at Auburn, Todd County and Russellville, was assistant high school coach at Barren County, and had been the head coach of district rival Todd Central.

His final appearance in 13^th District action as the RHS coach was a memorable one. His Panthers beat top-seeded Logan County in the finals behind 31 points by his son Davis Pardue, who hit eight three-pointers. That turnaround came after Logan County had beaten a Pardue-coached team for the first time in his coaching history. In fact, Logan swept both Clashes of the Cats during the recent regular season.

“This was a really special tournament with the win over a good Logan County team and with Davis having that kind of game. In fact, Davis told me was made it so special to him was that he did it with me as his coach,” Pardue told The LoJo.

Dennis Pardue has been a high school head coach for 14 years. His teams have made it to the regional tournament in 12 of those seasons, six as a champion and six as a runner-up.

He went to Elkton in the fall of 1998 after having been the Russellville Middle School coach, succeeding David Edgin, who had held the title for six years. His first Todd team won 67-62 in the district finals over defending regional champion Russellville. The Panthers reached the regional finals that year. In 2001, his Rebels won the district championship 66-64 over RHS, which returned to the state semifinals for the second consecutive year. His 2002 team made it all the way to the regional finals, losing to Warren Central as Coach Tim Riley's Dragons began their streak of regional dominance. Pardue's 2003 Todd team won the district championship over Coach David Clark's Franklin-Simpson Wildcats in overtime. That was to be the first of nine times Clark and Pardue coached against each other in the district tournament, eight of them in the finals.

The two times Pardue didn't coach at regional came in Todd Central first-round district losses to F-S. One was against baseball Baseball Hall of Famer Greg Shelton in 2002 and the other to Clark in Pardue's last game as the Todd Central coach in 2004.

His first seven Russellville teams played Franklin in the finals. Pardue was 2-5 against Clark in those finals. He won his third championship this season over Logan County.

His Panther teams were stopped short of that goal each time, including this year in the first round to defending regional champion Central. In those eight years, five of the Panther seasons ended in a loss to Warren Central and the other three to Bowling Green. The 14^th District has won the last 10 regional championships following Russellville's dominance from 1999-2002.

One of Pardue's players at Todd Central, Mike Wells, became one of Western Kentucky University's all-time greats. Orlondo Woodard played briefly for Division I Kentucky State, and T.C. Thomason had an excellent Division III career at Transylvania. They were both seniors on the first Russellville team Pardue coached.

Pardue had a tough act to follow when he took over the Panther program. His predecessor, Phil Todd, had coached Russellville to five regional finals, including four straight from 1999-2001, winning the championship three times. Two of those teams made the Final Four at Rupp Arena. The Panthers hadn't reached the regional finals for 31 years before Todd became coach.

Pardue has known considerable success as the RHS boys and girls golf coach. Victoria Sansom finished fourth in the state in 2005, was the first-ever Lady Topper to hit a hole-in-one in collegiate competition, and became Western's female scholar athlete of the year. The 2005 girls team was regional runner-up and placed 10^th at state. Pardue's Lady Panthers won the 2006 regional championship. The team placed 8^th at state and Nikki Koller was state individual champion. The girls were regional runner-up in 2007, earning their fourth straight trip to state. Koller won her second straight state championship before heading to national powerhouse Arizona, where she is a four-year letter starter. That team also finished as state runner-up in Class A competition, falling by a single stroke.

The following year, Owen Townsend was Class A state champion and joined Priscilla Page in tying for 16^th at the overall KHSAA Tournament.

The Panther boys won two straight Class A regional championships and followed each with overall regional championships, Pardue's older son Daniel was a starter on both of those teams. Paul Neal Sansom finished third overall at state as an individual in 2009, after leading the field following suspended play on opening day. Sansom w as one of a dozen golfers in the nation named HP Scholastic All American by the American Junior Golf Association. He became Coach Pardue's third Division I collegiate golfer as a starter for rising national power Middle Tennessee.

Davis Pardue has also been a highly competitive golfer and is considering walking on Coach Phillip Hatchett's WKU team this fall.

A tenured teacher, Pardue did not resign his teaching position nor his golf coaching duties. They are his to continue unless he moves on to a new coaching and teaching position at a different school.

Dennis Pardue will complete his 24^th year as a teacher this spring. He needs three more for retirement. Right now he's planning to stay at RHS, although he indicated to The LoJo he would be willing to listen to possibilities for new challenges.

“We appreciate what Coach Pardue has done for RHS for eight years,” Principal Myers says. “He's been a good co-worker. We wish him nothing but the best.”

The LoJo

The search is underway now for a new boys basketball coach, and a number of high level candidates are expected to apply to lead the team of a school in a community which continues to produce a surprisingly large number of gifted athletes.

Speculation has been rampant over the weekend about the possibilities. Among the names which have been mentioned are former/current area coaches Steve Sparks, Kerry Stovall and John Tinsley, Warren Central assistant coaches Tim Arnold and Carlos Quarles (both of whom have local coaching experience), Daviess County coach Caleb Smith (a former Bowling Green player), and former Panther standout Nelson Cundiff, who has extensive coaching experience. No one has announced yet that he will be a candidate, however.

Daring to dream big, some people hope that one of the state's winningest coaches, Tim Davis of Campbellsville, would be willing to come this direction. His wife, the former Joni Smock, is a Lewisburg native. Others would like to think that Tim Riley, the state's most successful high school coach during the first decade of this century while at Warren Central, would be interested if his college coaching career does not continue. This comes on the heels of the firing last week of his boss, WKU women's coach Mary Taylor Cowles. Riley, however, is considered one of the prime candidates to succeed Cowles. He has a number of ties to the Land of Logan.

Finding a teaching position for a new coach could prove to be a problem. Baseball coach Lou Kendall is expected to retire this year after a long and distinguished career, but a coach who takes over his physical education duties at Stevenson Elementary School would need to be certified to teach at that level.

If there are no teaching positions, a possibility would be that Phil Todd himself would resume coaching the Panthers for a while. He is known to be contemplating retirement this year, especially since Myers will be moving from principal to the central office this summer, but he might consider taking over coaching duties until an appropriate successor and a teaching position can be found at the same time.

Now that bracketology has ended with the announcement of the NCAA Basketball Tournament field, speculation over the Russellville coaching job can takes center stage.