Putnam Stadium looked better than ever the other day. The turf was brown but the big maroon A at midfield still looked good on this sunshiny day. It was almost as if the old man that is Putnam Stadium was smiling. So, shaking off my shyness, I went up to him and started up a candid conversation.

So I heard you had a state championship victory party here last week. How did that go?

“Oh man, it was great. I’ve been waiting 30 years to have one like that again. I remember the last one – 1990, right? – those boys were so excited. They rolled the bus right onto my turf, through my back gate. I’m not sure how the driver did it, but he did. It was so cool. I remember the young kids chasing the bus like they were the Beatles or something. How old are those guys today, like 50? Man was that bunch fun to watch maul people.”

The Tomcats played a lot on your turf this season, which I know nobody enjoys more than you, but how did you hold up? Two of those games were in December!

“Oh, it was great! It’s lonely over here on Friday nights when they play somewhere else and winter is always hard on me. I wish every game was here and I loved having two here in December. When these guys come off the big yellow bus and walk in that locker room, I get all tingly inside, even after all these years. When Dicky (Martin) comes through the gates, it’s like seeing an old friend. I love that guy because he loves me. He tells me all the time…. I sure do miss having Dirk Payne around with him. He loved me too. You know who else I was happy for the other night? Coach Tony Love. That guy has been around here a long time. He deserved to celebrate like this more than anybody. What a class act. He was proud of this team and, let me tell you, I’m proud of him … he does things right.”

Do you need a tissue?

“No, I’ll be all right. The other guys, Steve (Conley) and Joe (McDavid), they love me too. I get better care than most front yards in Ashland. I mean those guys really, really care about how I look and they coddle this old man’s every blade of grass. I dare anybody to find better looking real turf anywhere. That’s all natural, you know. Even after that real muddy game, they got me looking good for the next week. You’d never known it was a mud bath a week earlier. I don’t know how they did it. I mean, I’m 83 years old!”

Did you know the Tomcats have won 21 consecutive games here? That’s the best streak ever here.

“You think I didn’t know that? I’m counting every one of them. Wasn’t that last one something else? Those Belfry boys are good football players and they came in here looking for a fight, but my Tomcats were better. And when those Belfry games were disrespecting me at midfield, I was so mad. But guess who came to my defense? They smacked them right in the mouth! That was an old school game, the kind I really like to have played on my turf. Reminded me a lot of that 67 team with the Lyons boys, Radjunas, and those guys. I remember that Belfry coach then called them brutes. He was right.”

This was a different kind of year for you – heck, not just for you, for all of us! I mean, you looked great as always, but I’ll bet it was kind of lonely. The fans couldn’t come because of the pandemic. A lot of us wouldn’t have had the chance to watch these guys play if not for a Facebook broadcast. You probably don’t know about Facebook.

“Well, you know, it was kind of lonely. I kept wondering where everybody was. This team sure was fun to watch. It’s too bad so few people got to see them in person. I never knew what was going on but everybody who came in seemed to be wearing something on their face. I thought it was something I did.”

No, no. It wasn’t you. It was a virus that was called COVID-19.

“Well, that’s a relief to hear. I was beginning to wonder if my turf was putting off some kind of allergic reaction. And, yes, I’ve heard of Facebook. I don’t live under a rock you know … Steve and Joe don’t allow rocks on my turf.”

The sights and sounds of Friday night were a lot different. But were there some familiar things about it for you?

“Yes, they were, especially with so few people here. I love hearing Chuck Rist’s voice after every play. He makes me feel good, like a comfort food for the ears. We have tradition here and people like Dicky and Chuck well, you know, they’re a big part of it. They tell us what’s happening. I saw we had some new guys who were broadcasting the games, too, on Facebook as you said. That one young fella, Tyler (Rowland), sure does get excited when the Tomcats do something good. I could hear him screaming myself so I can’t imagine how loud it must have been over the airwaves. It was a sweet sound to me though. I guess it was good that we had them since so few people were allowed to watch this great team play.”

It has been 62 years since the last undefeated team and 78 years since the last unbeaten and untied team. Do you remember the 1958 and 1942 teams?

“I remember every team. I was just a young place watching that ’42 team, only five years old. The place didn’t look like this. The turf was fresh but Spencer Heaton, Doc Rice and J.C. Kennard could sure tear it up. You should have seen that team! Nobody was out-toughing those guys. I get excited thinking about them. Then in 1958, Herbie Conley – man do I love that guy – and his buddy Dick Fillmore were so exciting to watch run up and down this field. They called them Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside. What thrills they provided me here! I love that Herb overlooks us here still. I feel very safe with him up there on the concourse.”

You saw this team performing all year. What did you like about them?

“I tell you, as much fun as watching some of those long touchdown runs from (Keontae) Pittman and (JT) Garrett was, the defense is what I liked most about this team. They chewed up people and I’ve not seen anybody play like the (Hunter) Gillum boy did. He was everywhere! Nothing came easy with these guys. When Jack Alley pulled down that interception against Belfry to lock up the win, I thought this old guy was going to cry. It had been so long. The only thing I missed about that night was the fans rushing the field like they did in 1990. You have no idea how good that feels on the turf. I was so sorry they didn’t do that.”

You got a facelift in 2014, so how are you holding up?

“Well, I’ll be honest. I don’t see as well as I used to so maybe some new lights are in order. And, you know, my hearing ain’t so good anymore either. We could use a better sound system. As much as I like this original turf, I could stand an upgrade there too. Steve and Joe aren’t getting any younger. Greg Jackson is another guy that sure means a lot to me. He’s made me look good for the last six years when I really started aging, maybe even dying. He gave me second life. Greg put up those banners of all the champions – even his 75 JAWS guys. I loved them and they will forever be a state champion to me and even have a trophy that says so.  Whatever anybody does for me is fine, I’ve certainly had the best life. I’ll always be Putnam Stadium no matter what they do to me. Do you think we can we plan another victory party for next December?”

Well, that’s not up to me. But I think the Tomcats may be planning on it.

Herb Alban, one of Ashland’s celebrated centenarians and a dedicated fan of Ashland Tomcat sports for seven decades, died on Friday at his home.

He was 102 years old and lived a rich life with family and friends.

Alban moved to Ashland in 1954 at the age of 36 and immediately fell in love with Tomcat sports. He was married to wife Alene for more than 75 years and they had two sons, John and Dave, and a daughter, Ann. His wife and daughter preceded him in death.

He lived on Joel Street, in the shadows of Putnam Stadium, most of his life and loved watching Tomcat football. No doubt this year’s undefeated state champions would have been one of his all-time favorites. But he was around to watch the undefeated team in 1958, and the state finalists and championship years in 1967, 1972, 1975 and 1990.

His son Dave played on the 1962 (8-1-1) and 1963 (8-2-1) Tomcat teams.

Even though he never donned the maroon and white as a player, Alban was highly thought of in Tomcat circles, enough so that he was given the Distinguished Tomcat Award, reserved for those who made big impacts on the sports program, at the 2014 Ashland Invitational Tournament.

So how big a fan was Herb Alban?

He once drove from Chicago to Louisville because the Tomcats were playing for a state football championship against Elizabethtown. That was in ’67 when Ashland defeated Elizabethtown 19-14 for the state title.

He watched with wonder the 1961 Ashland Tomcats dazzling state championship team, but never wondered if it was the greatest basketball team he ever witnessed.

That designation belonged to the Waterloo Wonders. He was 17 at the time when the Wonders won their second consecutive Ohio state title in the Class B division. “They could have won any division. I saw them play several times. Best I ever saw. I watched the 1961 Tomcats and they were good, real good. But I don’t know anybody who could give them (Waterloo) a game. They were that good.”

The last Tomcat games he watched was in 2018 when longtime neighbor and family friend Barry Newsome took him to Putnam Stadium like he had for years. When Barry moved into the neighborhood on Ranch Road, where Alban lived, the first people to come over and greet Barry and his family were Herb and Alene. They became extremely good friends over the years.

As a young man, Alban was a three-sport athlete at Columbus West High School, competing in football, baseball and wrestling. He called himself “an average quarterback on an average team” in football.

There was nothing average about his high school baseball team where he played catcher and there was nothing average about his abilities behind the plate either as he eventually broke into the professional ranks.

Columbus West reached the Ohio state championship game in baseball his senior year and lost in an excruciating way.

“I was at-bat, the score was tied, and they picked our shortstop off third base. Then I got a hit. The game would have been over. We’d have won.”

Instead, Cincinnati Withrow scored a run in the next inning to end the 1936 state championship game.

But that wasn’t the end of Alban’s baseball career. He went on to play in the St. Louis Cardinals organization, reaching high A ball. His roommate one year was Walter Alston, who went on to become the great Los Angeles Dodger manager.

“You talk about a nice guy, that was him,” Alban said. “We called him ‘Smoke.’ Our manager was new and he didn’t know any of us so he roomed us alphabetically.”

It was during that season that Alston was promoted to player-manager of that same team.

“Then he got a room by himself,” Alban said.

However, when World War II started, Alban joined the Navy and served in the Pacific for 33 months from 1942 to 1945 when the war was waging. He said he was glad to return home alive.

While in Ashland, Alban’s baseball skills paid off when he was a member of the Ben Williamson fast-pitch state champions for two years in the early 1960s. He was a 40-something third baseman.

“My knees were shot from all those years of playing catcher,” he said.

He recalled one season when Ben Williamson lost the opening game of the double-elimination state tournament, but came back to win the championship. It didn’t hurt having pitchers Bill Selbee and Ed Ratliff.

Alban came to Ashland in 1954 to work for the C&O Railroad, but spent most of his career at GATX, a tank car company. He left Ashland for a brief time, living in Chicago and in Pennsylvania, but eventually settled down here.

Son Dave played football and ran track for the Tomcats while John was a standout basketball player in the Chicago and Pennsylvania areas. He broke the school scoring record at his high school in Pennsylvania. “He was a shooting fool,” his father said.

Alban, who was born in 1918, had a sharp mind all his life. His stories were delightful and his attitude was that of a much, much younger man. He actively served on the Elks Sports Day Committee and sat at the welcome table at the event for years and years. Mayor Steve Gilmore presented him with a key to the city in 2017.

Imagine if Ashland’s football team returned from Lexington on Saturday night and they didn’t celebrate that fabulous victory over Elizabethtown.

No party at Putnam Stadium.

No band greeting the team with the fight song.

Not so much as a “Go Tomcats!” cheer.

Fifty-three years ago, when the Tomcats came home after defeating Elizabethtown 19-14 for their first state championship in the playoff format, it was a subdued celebration in Ashland.

The year was 1967 and it was a day after the damp Friday night finals in Louisville. The Tomcats spent the night and were coming home to Ashland on Saturday for what was assumed would be a big celebration, complete with a firetruck ride around town and adoring fans patting them on the back.

They thought that because that’s how championships were celebrated in the 1960s here and the community had the format down.

Ashland’s Little League teams won state titles in 1961, 1963 and 1964, the basketball team had captured the state championship in 1961 with one of Kentucky’s greatest teams, the Tomcat baseball team in 1966 finished a perfect season (that’s right, we had an undefeated season in that sport too) on the way to the first of three consecutive state championships.

So the football players knew the drill and they were looking forward to their turn. It was a big deal.

But when the buses neared Grayson, only about 30 minutes from home, Tomcat coach Jake Hallum motioned for captains Paul Hill and John Radjunas to come up and speak with him at his seat. Hallum told them there wasn’t going to be a celebration out of respect to the family of Joe Franklin, the young man who was killed in an accident near Farmers on Friday morning. Hallum wasn’t really asking his captains but more telling them. Even though they wanted to celebrate, because that’s what you did, the captains understood the message given by Coach Hallum.

But in a day when mobile ‘phones were only on “The Jetsons” and texting wasn’t yet a verb, the message that there wasn’t going to be a celebration didn’t quite get communicated to everyone in Ashland. When the bus carrying the team reached the city limits, cheering fans were lined up on U.S. 60 to celebrate with their newly crowned champions.

But instead of stopping, the bus drove on over to the front of the gym at Paul Blazer High School’s campus. Several hundred fans followed them there and gave polite applause as they unloaded the bus. The coaches spoke briefly, as did Mayor Everett Reeves, who was the only one who made mention of the death. And that was that.

No celebration, no firetrucks, no party.

Nobody was in much of a mood to celebrate. They were feeling the shock that comes with loss of young life. It was a cold reality of how fragile life could be. Joe Franklin was the All-American boy, a good athlete who had a bright basketball future, who was a brother to two older sisters and a well-mannered son to a hard-working father and mother.

It was such a horrific loss for the community that it brought a pale over any kind of celebrating a football game. The coaches had already voted to cancel a Tomcat Booster Club celebration planned for Central Park.

The championship game win came a day after Thanksgiving and Franklin’s funeral would be Sunday. Everybody was stunned over this tragedy.

Basketball practice had started and those Tomcats had to deal with stark reality of death, too. Franklin was a teammate and three other basketball players – Tim Huff, David Staten and Jerry Owens and manager Burl Kegley – were in the car with him. Kegley was badly injured but the others miraculously escaped major harm.

The team didn’t learn about the accident until after the championship game ended when Coach Hallum climbed on a chair and told them the sad, sad news. A once-jubilant locker room became nothing but the sounds of cleats clacking on the concrete floor.

Forty-five years after the Tomcats captured that state championship, they got their celebration when the book Triumph and Tragedy was launched eight years ago. Donna Childers Suttle hosted a book signing party at her florist shop and the Ashland Fire Department brought over a truck for the players to take pictures around.

It wasn’t how they envisioned it 45 years ago, when their whole lives were in front of them, but the bond of teammates remained striking.

It’s part of what happens when a team goes through a championship experience whether they celebrate it or not. You’ll find that to be true 2020 Tomcats.

In a year that has been far from perfect, Ashland seems to have mastered the art of it anyway.

It was basketball in the spring with their prodigious 33-0 record before having the Sweet Sixteen swept from under their feet by COVID and now they’ve doubled down in football with an 11-0 season that included the Tomcats’ third KHSAA-recognized state title with a thorough domination of Elizabethtown by a score of 35-14 in the Class 3A championship game at Kroger Field on Saturday.

The game was significant for many reasons, including being Ashland’s first perfect season since 1958 when Herb Conley and Dick Fillmore were scooting up and down Putnam Stadium and the first undefeated and untied season since 1942 when Doc Rice and Spencer Heaton were terrorizing opponents in a 10-0 season. It also put the exclamation point on a COVID-marred season that kept the Tomcats scrambling.

Ashland beat the beast after becoming one in the state championship game.

The Tomcats left skid marks on Elizabethtown, piling up 415 yards rushing in a head nod to the 1990 champions that won their title over Lincoln County by a score of 35-13 without bothering to pass much.

Only one school in Kentucky history has been undefeated in basketball in the spring and followed that with an undefeated record in football in the fall. And it happened right here in Ashland in 1928 when the Tomcats finished 37-0 in basketball and 10-0-1 the following fall in football.

Both the basketball and football Tomcats have given us reason to believe even during COVID days.

Nobody expected an undefeated season from either of those Tomcat teams, but the magic happened anyway. It came through coaches – Jason Mays in basketball and Tony Love in football – who put in the work and pushed the right buttons.

Ashland takes a 21-game winning streak at Putnam Stadium into the 2021 season. There will be a new banner flying over the locker room with 2020 on it representing the 12^th championship that the Tomcats recognize when that season begins next fall.

We Tomcats like to claim a dozen titles including eight before the playoff format began in 1959 – mythical titles with undefeated teams who finished No. 1 in polls – and another one from the 1975 JAWS team that won the Class AAAA State At-Large Championship (That’s what the trophy says anyway) but lost in the Kentucky Super Bowl against St. Xavier (the KHSAA says the Tomcats were runners-up but we beg to differ).

There’s no debate about the legitimacy of the 2020 Tomcats because of how they overcame COVID and every opponent they were able to play. The toughest foes were in our own eastern Kentucky neighborhood with Russell (10-7 win in the district championship) and Belfry (10-3 in the semifinals).

If you see Tony Love, give him some love. He is one of Kentucky’s brightest high school head coaches and now owns a state title. The work that made that happen cannot be measured in hours, although there was a lot of those. Sacrifices were made beyond the grind of a football season this year when masking up meant more than grabbing the front of the helmet.

Retooled offensive and defensive lines were the heroes on Saturday along with Keontae Pittman, Hunter Gillum and Zane Christian, who could open his own breakfast place after serving up so many pancake blocks against Elizabethtown. From the very start, the highest-scoring team in Class 3A never knew what hit them.

Much will be written in the years ahead about the 2020 Tomcats and a defense that gave up only 59 points in 11 games and allowed double figures only twice. They gave a command performance too on the state’s biggest stage.

It was, well, the perfect ending to a most imperfect year.