Tag: BASKETBALL

An open letter to Colin Porter

Dear Colin,

Just a note of congratulations and appreciation for how you handle yourself not only on the basketball court, which is nothing short of sensational, but how your faith and belief in Jesus Christ comes shining through.

You are the most valuable leader of a team that has made it to the NCAA tournament by playing the kind of basketball that should make others envious while offering a blueprint for wild success. Your play at point guard for Liberty University is the model and something that Ashland fans witnessed and will never forget during your three seasons as a Tomcat.

Even though everyone was sad to see you graduate early from Ashland (academics was never a problem either, obviously), we can clearly see it was the right decision. You were ready for college basketball.  

Watching your teammates gather around and celebrate with you during the national television interview after the win over Jacksonville State in the CUSA championship game Saturday night warmed hearts in Ashland. Through the magic of ESPN+, most every Liberty game has been on our televisions. We love the Wildcats but the Flames have a little fire, too.

Colin Porter will lead Liberty into the first round of the NCAA tournament Friday against Oregon. (Liberty photo)

Future Tomcats going through the program and the ones already there have no one better to admire and strive to be like on and off the court than you. “Be Like Colin” should be stamped on headbands and passed out to potential point guards.

Your mother and father certainly should take a bow, too, to raise a son with the characteristics that you possess. In these days and times, that is no simple task.

Basketball is something you do extremely well but you are winning at life, too, and that is far more important. People want whatever it is that is inside of you. Basketball gives you a platform to share that life-changing message of Jesus and you use it well. Your competitive spirit, those (Tom)cat-like reflexes and instincts, your flair for the dramatic play and leadership skills make people and teammates stand up and notice.

Through it all, you have remained a humble, hard-working young man who would rather watch a teammate succeed more than yourself. Liberty has a rare gem.

Ashland will be watching on Friday when the Flames take on fifth-seeded Oregon in the NCAA tournament. Anybody who has watched Liberty play this season (or the last three for that matter) will hesitate before choosing Oregon on their bracket. Those who see only “the 12th seed vs. the 5 seed” without knowing how Liberty plays could well be sorry when the clock strikes midnight.

But whether that happens or not, Porter has joined an exclusive club of former Ashland Tomcats (and Kittens) who have had the opportunity to be in the Big Dance. It is a smaller list than I imagined. This may not be an exhaustive list – and if somebody is left off please let me know –  but it is certainly a who’s who of Ashland Tomcat (and Kitten) basketball.

Colin, put your name beside the great ones: Earl “Brother” Adkins (UK), Larry Castle (WKU), Warner Caines (WKU), Gene Smith (Cincinnati), Larry Conley (UK), Ray Kleykamp (WKU), Clint Wheeler (UK), Jeff Kovach (Tulsa), Jim Harkins (Miami of Ohio), Jeff Tipton (Morehead State), Adam Howard (WKU) and Mykasa Robinson (with Louisville on the women’s side) who were on teams that played in the NCAA tournament.

 Our greats from the 1920s and 1930s like Ellis Johnson and Darrell Darby came before the NCAA tournament started in 1939 although they played in the national tournament of that time .

The humble Porter can take his place among the all-time greats in Ashland history. He is an absolute maestro with the basketball, with passing skills reserved for big stages and bright lights. His clutch playmaking during a pivotal sophomore season when Ashland went 33-0 during the COVID year that is part of a run of seven consecutive 16th Region championships, was the bittersweet season of a lifetime. Undefeated and uncrowned state champions.

Colin, basketball is what you do so well and have done well for most of your life, and this week is a dream come true for you. But God has a bigger purpose and plan. Just wait and see.

Coach Haywood’s life wasn’t just football. He was a guiding light for others.

The late great Philip Haywood was a mountain mover, putting that brand of football on the Kentucky high school football stage in magnificent ways throughout a brilliant career. During a 50-year coaching career, he amassed eight state championships, six runner-up finishes and an astounding 491 victories – more than any coach in Kentucky high school history – while serving as the head coach at Prestonsburg (nine seasons) and Belfry (41).

Fifty-years!

His passing on Wednesday doesn’t just leave a void, it leaves a deep hole in the heart of the Pond Creek community – and the Kentucky high school football community for that matter – that will be impossible to replace. I’m certain they are in shock that he’s gone. When I saw the report on Wednesday afternoon that he had died, it literally took my breath away. Even knowing that he was in a serious accident with severe injuries from a car accident a few days earlier, I was not expecting that news. Not Coach Haywood. He was going to recover and be fine. Such a good, good man.

It wasn’t just his football coaching skills that made him extraordinary. His interpersonal skills with players, teachers, sportswriters and anybody that crossed his path made him a master of communications. You walked away from any conversations with Coach Haywood feeling better about yourself because that’s how he affected people and that was his aim.

Coach Philip Haywood was successful in football and life. (Photo by Joshua Ball)

It was never about him. “How are you doing? How is your family?” and on and on the questions would go. We would eventually get around to football, which he loved to talk about, too. “How are the Tomcats doing?” he would ask me even if I was calling him about an upcoming game with Russell.

After serving as an assistant coach for three years at Tates Creek and Meade County, he took his first head coaching assignment at Prestonsburg, his alma mater, in 1975. That’s also the year I started working for the Ashland Daily Independent. Over the next few years, as he was building on an incredible coaching resume, I was learning the ropes of a sportswriter.

Prestonsburg was on the edge of our coverage area and, being at the bottom of the food chain in the sports department, that’s where I was to begin. I can remember interviewing him even then and coming away thinking how likeable he was. And I’m sure he had to answer (endure?) some dumb questions from this still green-behind-the-ears aspiring journalist.

We spoke off and on throughout his Prestonsburg tenure. Not often but often enough that we knew each other. If he didn’t answer the phone himself, he always called me back even though the ADI wasn’t really the paper of Prestonsburg. We might have sent a few hundred copies to that part of the Big Sandy area. Our reach mostly stopped around Paintsville (I had a good relationship with the great Walter Brugh, too).

Over the years both of our careers were moving. When he took over at Belfry High School in 1984, I had moved up the ladder and mostly covered the bigger schools in the closer part of our coverage area – Russell, Boyd County and Ashland.

Coach Haywood and I spoke on occasion, especially for some incredible battles with Russell and coach Ivan McGlone. They were important games and always a great chess match between Hall of Fame coaches. They were usually defense-dominated games with a conversion or extra point deciding the outcome.

Win or lose, both of those coaches were humble. They may have been disappointed if defeat came but understood how the game was played, and life was more than what happened on Friday nights. They were incredible men who offered life lessons to players during good times and bad. Both offered such dynamic insight into life even on the hardest of days.

Coach Haywood and I continued to be friends as our careers continued. I began covering more of Ashland games and eventually became the sports editor in 1989. That came during Haywood’s building of Belfry’s great program.

Belfry and Ashland knocked heads a lot during his time – 16 games to be exact. The Tomcats got the better of him in 12 of those, including a state semifinal game in 2020 at Putnam Stadium when Ashland won 10-3 on the way to the Class 3A state championship.

Keontae Pittman races for a 17-yard gain against Belfry in the 2020 state semifinals at Putnam Stadium. The Tomcats won 10-3 and won the Class 3A title a week later. (Photo by Don McReynolds)

He always had a healthy respect for the Tomcats and during many of our conversations he said just that to me. That may date back to his first coaching job as an assistant coach at Tates Creek for Roy Walton in 1972. The Creekers defeated Ashland 16-7 in the state championship that season in the last game ever played at UK’s Stoll Field. That Tomcat team never got the lasting respect they deserved but that’s a column for another day.

It might also be because of a conversation he had once with Herb Conley, who came over to his bus after a Tomcat game, put his hand on his shoulder and told him he was a great coach and was going to have a great career. Haywood never forgot the gesture.

Walton was a mentor for Haywood right down to the reason he wore a coat and tie on the sidelines every Friday night. Walton told him coaching on Friday nights was like going to the symphony so why not dress up. Tates Creek was 13-0 in that 1972 season.

Ashland was 4-3 at Belfry when Haywood was coaching and 8-1 in Putnam Stadium with the defeat (31-14) coming in 1989. That was the year before the Tomcats won the Class 4A title in 1990, which included a 35-20 victory at Belfry after the Tomcats had fallen behind at the half.

There were some important battles between Russell and Belfry over the years as well. Games that meant state championship appearances for the winner.

He carried so much respect for Ashland and Russell as I suspect he did for any opponent he was preparing to play. That’s just how he rolled. Respect the game, respect the opponent.

But Coach Haywood knew at the end of the day there were things a lot more important than a football game. He instilled that notion in his players, modeling what a Christian should be, showing these young men the importance of a relationship with Jesus. They didn’t have to look far for a role model that would not steer them wrong.

I cannot imagine what the Belfry community is experiencing right now. The word “loss” isn’t enough. Irreplaceable comes to mind. Greatness comes to mind. But not loss, because Coach Haywood was never about that word. It was always gain for him. Even in defeat there was something to be learned. He found a way to learn and teach even on the hardest days. He is teaching now that this is how you live and there is a reward. “Well done good and faithful servant” is what he heard Wednesday. And it wasn’t for his 491 victories and eight state championships. It was for a life that led others to Jesus. There is no bigger victory.

Johnny Mullins made lasting impact as athlete, friend

The 1960s are considered a golden era in Ashland Tomcat sports. They won state high school championships in basketball, football and baseball in the decade and had some of the greatest athletes to ever wear maroon and white.

JOHN MULLINS

Few teams anywhere – not just in the 16th Region but in all of Kentucky – could match them. Ashland put together powerful youth programs, especially in baseball, where state championships were quickly accumulated. That translated later to high school baseball teams from 1965-1969 when Ashland dominated the state with three titles, a semifinal finish and a runner-up finish during a five-year Tomcat Dynasty period that remains unmatched in state history.

The names from that era are forever remembered in Ashland. We sadly lost one of them last month with the passing of Johnny Mullins on Oct. 18. He was a brilliant athlete who excelled in baseball and basketball for the Tomcats while also starring on three memorable youth league championship teams, including the 1963 and 1964 Ashland American Little League state champions. The ’63 team was one win shy of being in the Little League World Series, losing to a team from North Houston 6-3. The following year, as a 13-year-old, he was on a Babe Ruth state champion, and he was just getting started. He was a star from the beginning with clutch performances on the mound and at the plate.

John Mullins stands behind Jim Speaks, a pair of fireball pitchers who were inducted into the CP-1 Hall of Fame in 2017. Both former Tomcat stars passed away in 2024.

Johnny was loved and admired by his teammates because if he was on your team, he made you better. He was a special talent.

Ashland’s baseball coaches recognized that in 1967 when they invited Mullins, who was a freshman at Coles Jr. High, to try out for the team. During that era, freshmen never played varsity in any sport. Ever. They would wait their turn not just in the freshman year but usually the sophomore year, too. But the Tomcats needed a shortstop and Mullins’ talent was undeniable. Let’s give the kid a shot, they said.

While he didn’t ultimately start at shortstop, he was a valuable reserve and pitched some too. That was unheard of for a freshman, and this was a team coming off an undefeated state championship season. All they did that season was win another state championship, and then another during Mullins’ sophomore year when he played a starring role.

Mullins was an easy selection for the CP-1 Hall of Fame in 2017 because of the gigantic roles he played on Tomcat teams of that era, including as a junior when he helped the Tomcats reach the state championship game for an unprecedented fourth consecutive year where they suffered a 1-0 loss to Owensboro in the championship game. As a senior, he took a depleted Tomcat team back to the regional championship game and Mullins’ will to win had a lot to do with that.

As a standout basketball player, he started on teams that went to the Sweet 16 in back-to-back seasons in 1969 and 1970 and reached the state semifinals in ’69 before losing an 82-80 heartbreaker to Ohio County. Playing in the final four is rare air even for Ashland, which has advanced that far only three times in the 55 years since.

Johnny Mullins was a natural athlete and good at anything he tried. He could have jumped off the high dive at Southside Pool for the first time and splashed down into the water after doing a triple flip without creating so much as a ripple, then move over’ to the basketball court and play the rest of the day because his team would never lose – and winners always stayed up at Southside. Then he might go down to the park and throw horseshoes and win there, too. Athletes like him do not come along often. The 1960s were full of them at Ashland and John Mullins rightly stands with the best of them.

The characteristics that made him a good athlete also made him a loyal friend and a loving husband, father, grandfather and brother. Family and friends mattered most to him.

Was he perfect? Of course not. None of us are. But it is what we do with those learning experiences that matter. As a professional, Mullins worked as a counselor at a day treatment center to help troubled youth in Ashland. Helping was what he did best. He related well to those he counseled, and they listened to his advice.

If you were in his circle, you could always count on him to be there in difficult times. He wanted to be that person who makes a difference, just like he did as an athlete.

Ashland lost a treasured friend on Oct. 18, but his legacy as an athlete, friend, and family man will be everlasting. A memorial ceremony to honor John Mullins will take place in the lobby of Paul G. Blazer High School on Nov. 16 from 2-4 p.m.

The 2017 CP-1 Hall of Fame class that included John Mullins who is on the far right of the back row.