Tag: fiction

Grimes brings home Bacon in Tomcat football memories of early 1960s

ASHLAND, Ky. (KT) – Bill Grimes doesn’t remember everything about his Ashland Tomcat football career in 1961 and 1962.

But there is one collision he will never forget.

Grimes was a junior in 1961, and things weren’t going well on the second Friday in October when Ironton came to town. Ashland was 1-5 and hadn’t scored since the second week of the season, a 12-6 loss to Point Pleasant, W.Va. The Tomcats had opened the year with a 7-0 victory over Catlettsburg.

On the opening kickoff at Putnam Stadium, the stocky, 181-pound Grimes sprinted toward Ironton’s Coy Bacon.

They didn’t collide. They crashed.

Grimes went flying backward through the air and landed hard on the turf. He collected himself and walked off the field.

Bill Grimes during his senior year at Ashland in 1962

Sixty-five years later, he can still feel it.

Bacon did all right for himself, too. He was selected to three Pro Bowls during a 14-year NFL career and recorded 130.5 sacks before sacks became an official statistic.

That was the stone wall Grimes ran into – and wished he hadn’t.

“I wasn’t afraid of anything, even Coy Bacon,” Grimes said. “He hit me and I’m flying in the air going backwards. It was on the film. The coaches said, ‘Grimes goes in the air and then gets back up ready to play.’ They were trying to make me feel better. Coy was a class guy, I really liked him. I kept thinking this guy is 23, 24 years old. He knocked the crap out of me. I sure do remember that.”

Grimes, now 81 and living in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., won’t soon forget it.

Ashland lost that night, 13-0, for its fourth consecutive shutout. The Tomcats lost to Fort Thomas Highlands the following week, 34-12, falling to 1-6 before winning their final three games to finish 4-6.

It was a sign of things to come.

“We started meshing and it carried over,” Grimes said.

It certainly did.

The 1962 Tomcats went 8-1-1, with the only blemish a 28-0 loss to Highlands. That loss kept them out of the state playoffs, which had begun in 1959.

Ashland’s first postseason appearance came in 1966, when Highlands again ended the Tomcats’ season with a 27-12 victory. A year later, Ashland returned to the playoffs and won the Class AA state championship.

The 1962 season deserves more attention than it gets.

Grimes was a versatile player who ran the ball, kicked and played linebacker. He averaged 7 yards a carry but had only 30 attempts for 212 yards. Chip Miller led the ground game with 566 yards and 10 touchdowns.

And talented sophomore Tom Ferguson started at quarterback during an era when sophomores seldom dressed. Only five did that season.

Ferguson started all three seasons before signing with the University of Kentucky. He played quarterback on the freshman team before moving to linebacker, where he started three years for the Wildcats.

From Alabama to Ashland

Grimes moved to Ashland from Alabama before his sophomore year. His father was a career Army man, and the family was supposed to move to Berlin. But the Berlin crisis changed those plans, and his father decided to retire.

His mother, an Ashland native, insisted they return to her hometown.

Grimes loved football, and his mother gave him some simple advice.

If you want to play football, go to Ashland and become a Tomcat.

He moved in with his aunt and started school. His parents arrived two months later and bought a home on Woodlawn Avenue.

He attended the old high school on Lexington Avenue, but the construction of Paul G. Blazer High School was already changing the landscape. Grimes called the new campus a showplace and believes it helped bring the team together.

His cousin, Bob Patterson, played in the band and introduced Grimes to the Cincinnati Reds. Patterson also taught him a lesson Grimes still lives by:

Once you’re a Tomcat, you’re always a Tomcat.

Basketball was another story.

“I had no idea why these guys were running around in shorts,” Grimes said. “Bear (Bryant) wouldn’t let me go anywhere in shorts. It was a real awakening.”

During Grimes’ junior year, the 1961 Tomcats basketball team produced one of the greatest seasons in Sweet Sixteen history, going 36-1 behind Harold Sargent, Gene Smith and Larry Conley.

The next year, Ashland nearly repeated as state champion, losing to St. Xavier, 62-58, in the finals.

But Grimes’ game was football.

He had thick thighs and ran with authority, even though he didn’t get a lot of carries. He attempted six passes – all incompletions – and was an accurate placekicker, making 21 extra points. “I did whatever I could to get on the field,” he said.

The Tomcats opened the 1962 season with four straight victories, including a 7-6 win over Huntington High.

That one mattered.

It matched coaching brothers Rex Miller of Ashland and Claude Miller of Huntington. Grimes put the Tomcats ahead 7-0 before the Pony Express scored. Huntington’s chance to tie was denied when Eddie Radjunas broke through the line and blocked the kick.

John Stafford, Tim Brown, Fred Cooper, Vic McGuire and Radjunas were honorable mention All-State selections. Nick Jordan, a junior who joined the team late that season, would become a first-team All-State defensive tackle in 1963.

Grimes still remembers the teammates who became lifelong friends: David Alban, J.B. Conley, Bob Yancey, George Branham, Bob Reynolds, Charlie Jordan, Radjunas and Larry Fairchild.

“I loved that team,” he said. “Those guys took me in as a sophomore and we grew to like each other. All of them grew up in Ashland. They knew their people. But they took care of me. We had confidence in our coaching staff. They called me The Bull believe it or not. The funny thing, Bob Yancey once told me, ‘Coach should have put you in more.’”

Ashland’s 1962 football team that had an 8-1-1 record and included several well-known Tomcats.

Ashland tied Hazard 20-20, and Grimes played a role in preserving the tie. He missed the extra point after the second touchdown but made the kick after the third score to keep the Tomcats undefeated.

He remembered playing at Hazard the previous season, too. The field was uneven, he said, and coal miners watched from the sidelines covered in coal dust.

“All you could see were their white teeth and eyes,” he said.

After beating Ironton 25-6 in his ssenior season, Ashland took its 5-0-1 record to Highlands with little hope of winning, Grimes said.

“A lot of the guys were just trying to get the game over with,” he said. “We knew we were going to get beat; just don’t get beat too bad. On the way home the coaches said you guys are too happy. The idea was, we got through it, we didn’t get killed (28-0). We still had three at the end (of the season).”

The Tomcats regrouped.

They won their final three games by a combined 102-25 to finish 8-1-1, their best record since the 10-0-1 team of 1958.

Grimes’ best game came in a 34-6 rout of Russell. He rushed for 67 yards.

“They turned me loose,” he said, chuckling. “I carried a guy about 30 yards on my back before somebody hit me and knocked me down. That’s where the name Bull came from.”

Once a Tomcat

Grimes moved to South Carolina in 2014, where he eventually ran into a player from Stonewall Jackson, which Ashland had defeated 27-20 in 1962.

The man talked about how Stonewall Jackson had won the game.

Grimes didn’t correct him.

Instead, the conversation led Grimes and his wife to a church where they remain members.

Grimes’ life after Ashland was as remarkable as his football career.

He joined the Army out of high school and served in Vietnam from 1966 to 1969, eventually rising to captain. He retired from the military after 32 years.

At one point, he served a midnight shift guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, an honored reserved for the elite soldier.

He later earned a law degree and spent 32 years as a prosecutor in Indiana.

He said 50 men he sent to prison are now Facebook friends with him.

Grimes and his wife Valorie will celebrate 39 years of marriage in December. He has three adult sons from a previous marriage, all of whom played high school football. His middle son, Matthew, played at Centre College.

And there is one more thing worth knowing about Bill Grimes.

He coached youth league football for 20 years.

A Tomcat football player. A Vietnam veteran. A prosecutor who put bad guys away. A youth football coach.

Not a bad legacy.

And perhaps not a bad legacy for a Tomcat team that deserves a little more love than it has received over the years.

Grimes certainly hasn’t forgotten it.

“Once a Tomcat, always a Tomcat,” he said. “I loved it!”

Rannie Cooper was much more than the Bluegrass boss

To most people in Ashland, Rannie Cooper was the man behind the legendary Bluegrass Grill, the hometown restaurant where great food and great memories were served side by side.

But to generations of boys growing up in Ashland, he was simply Coach Cooper.

He spent years coaching Little League baseball and elementary basketball, pouring his heart into young athletes. He taught them fundamentals, expected them to compete, and celebrated their victories with Bluegrass milkshakes. For a lot of kids, those milkshakes tasted even sweeter after a win.

He was also one of the Ashland Tomcats’ biggest supporters. Rannie often made sure players had meal tickets after big games—maybe before that was officially allowed. His son, Randy, was a dynamic receiver for the Tomcats, and few things made Rannie prouder than seeing him cross the goal line at Putnam Stadium.

Rannie Cooper in a 2006 photo from The Daily Independent photographer John Flavell as he was preparing to close the famous Bluegrass Grill in Ashland. Cooper died early Friday, June 19,2026

The relationships didn’t end when the seasons did. Rannie stayed connected with many of the boys he coached as they grew into high school athletes and adults. They remembered not only what he taught them about sports, but how he treated them.

Scott Walter, who played for Cooper’s Tigers in Ashland American Little League, summed him up perfectly in a Facebook tribute Saturday.

“He loved to win as much as anyone, and he certainly helped prepare us to compete by instructing us and teaching us the fundamentals of the game,” Walter wrote.

Rannie passed away Friday morning. With his passing, Ashland lost not only a legendary businessman but also a mentor whose influence reached far beyond a ball field.

As a businessman, Rannie did something remarkable. He didn’t just survive the fast-food explosion of the 1960s and 1970s — he thrived through it.

The Bluegrass Grill remained the place to eat in Ashland. At lunchtime, regulars packed the booths. After dark, teenagers filled the parking lot. Countless first dates began there. More than a few marriage proposals happened there. It was one of those rare places where good food became part of life’s biggest moments.

When Rannie closed the restaurant in 2006, it wasn’t because business had slowed. Quite the opposite.

After nearly 50 years of working 12- to 14-hour days, the 65-year-old was simply ready to retire. Customers were still lining up for Flying Saucers, Twinburgers, chili, spaghetti, onion rings, fresh pies and all the other favorites that made the Bluegrass famous throughout the Tri-State.

For many of us, the Bluegrass was also the headquarters of cruising culture. We’d circle through the restaurant, head down Winchester Avenue, then turn around and do it all over again. Long before social media, that’s where you saw your friends on a Friday or Saturday night.

Rannie had earned every bit of that success.

He started at the Bluegrass in 1956 as a 15-year-old carhop. After graduating from Ashland High School in 1959, he went to work there full time. In 1971, he purchased the restaurant from Michael Riggal, grandson of founders Arch and Frances Riggal, who opened the Bluegrass in 1946.

Along with the business came its treasured recipes. Rannie often said he promised the Riggal family those recipes would remain with him until his death. His son, Randy, and daughter, Annette Ryan, who both worked in the restaurant for years, never made that same promise.

This menu stand from the Bluegrass could just make your mouth water. Rannie Cooper, who operated the Bluegrass from 1971 to its closing in 2006, died on Friday, June 19, 2026.

Even today, it’s common to see people on social media reminiscing about the Bluegrass and wishing they could have one more meal there. Everyone had a favorite.

Mine was a Twinburger with onion rings and a slice of strawberry pie.

My connection to the Bluegrass started before I was born. My father worked there as a carhop in the late 1940s and often brought home a box of hot dogs for him and my mother to enjoy after work. Maybe that’s why the Bluegrass always felt like home to me.

I came to know Rannie well during my years at the newspaper. He was always straightforward, deeply rooted in his faith, and never shy about sharing an opinion —especially when it came to the Ashland Tomcats. It didn’t matter whether it was football, basketball or baseball. He cared about those teams because he cared about the young people wearing the uniforms.

Ashland has been blessed through the years with men who invested their time in coaching boys. Rannie Cooper was one of the very best.

The Bluegrass Grill remains one of those places that lives on in conversations, family stories and hometown nostalgia.

And Coach Cooper lives on in the countless boys who became better athletes — and better men — because he took the time to coach them.

My deepest condolences go to the Cooper family, especially to Charlene, his wife of 67 years.

Having a ball: Tom Clay gets a surprise gift with some Cincinnati Reds history to it

When Tom Clay pulled into a gas station the other day he got a surprise – and he said it wasn’t that he had to “give my first born to get a gallon of gas.”

There were five or six bikers around, trying to get respite from the rain. A man came over to him and, without introducing himself, said “I’ve got something I want you to have. I figured it was a fish net or lure or something. Then he said, ‘I have a signed baseball for the entire Cincinnati Reds baseball team from the early 1960s. I wanna give it to you.’”

Clay said, “Can you give me a lottery ticket, too?”

The man was Brent Dickison, who grew up across the road from Clay’s grandfather. Dickison, now 56, told Clay he had received the baseball years ago while playing outside as a child.

Tom Clay with Brent Dickison, who gave him a baseball that Tom’s grandfather had given him years ago from the 1962 Cincinnati Reds.

“Clay said Dickison told him my grandfather came outside with the baseball and wanted to give it to him,” Clay said.

The story only deepened the mystery.

“The surprise to me is, I don’t think my grandpa is a Reds’ fan,” Clay said. “Shelby Jean, his sister, she is a Reds’ fan. Shelby took her older brother, Randy, to Crosley Field. If the ball came from there, I don’t know. I know dad went to Crosley Field and took his mother. I don’t recall the ball being on the mantle or anything.”

A few days later, Dickison tracked Clay down again and handed over the baseball.

Hall of Famer Frank Robinson’s signature came be seen on this 1962 Reds’ team ball

That’s when the detective work began.

Clay started comparing signatures against old Reds rosters and quickly realized the ball wasn’t from the 1961 National League pennant-winning team, as he first suspected. The giveaway was pitcher Jim Maloney’s signature. Maloney was a rookie in 1962, and the rest of the names lined up with that season’s roster.

The baseball includes signatures from Reds legends such as Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson, Joe Nuxhall and manager Fred Hutchinson. Despite being yellowed with age, Clay said the ball remains in remarkably good condition for being 64 years old.

Being a fan of “Antique Roadshow,” Clay naturally looked into what the baseball might be worth. Thanks in part to the Robinson and Hutchinson signatures, he found estimates ranging from $750 to $1,000.

“Of course, that’s if you can find somebody who will give you that much for it,” Clay said.

The baseball also led to a little good-natured family humor.

Clay told his mother about the discovery, and she had her own response.

“Does this make up for me throwing away all your ball cards?” she told him.

Clay said he appreciated Dickison thinking enough of him to return the baseball after all these years. Not many people stop at a gas station and leave with a piece of family history.

And even with today’s prices, that’s worth more than a gallon of gas.

Tom Clay with family members at a Reds’ game this season.

Morehead State University HOF broadcaster pens fictional baseball book to inspire kids to read more

Congratulations to Chuck Mraz, a member of the Kentucky Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame and the longtime radio voice of the Morehead State Eagles football and basketball teams, on penning his first book. Over the years, Chuck has become not only a respected broadcaster, but also a good friend.

Now, he’s taking his storytelling talents in a new direction with his book, “Baseball Stories for Kids,” a collection of five fictional baseball stories aimed at encouraging elementary-age children to read more. The 220-page book features well-developed characters, relatable situations and stories that are both fun and meaningful.

In a world where children — and plenty of grandchildren, too — spend so much time in front of screens, books often get pushed aside. That concern was one of the biggest motivations behind Mraz writing this collection. He wanted to create something wholesome and engaging that could help spark a love of reading again. The stories are family-friendly and G-rated, free from the negativity and divisive issues that seem to dominate much of today’s media.

Baseball has always been one of Chuck’s greatest passions. He currently serves as an assistant coach for the Rowan County High School baseball team, and he drew from some of his own childhood experiences while writing the stories. Anyone who grew up in the 1960s or 1970s may especially enjoy the nostalgic feel woven throughout the book.

While the stories are written with younger readers in mind — perfect for elementary school libraries or family bookshelves — adults who remember their own sandlot baseball days will likely find themselves smiling along the way. Beyond baseball, the stories carry positive lessons about teamwork, perseverance, friendship and growing up.

Chuck said his hope is that the book motivates children to pick up more books — not just his — because reading remains “the foundation for academic careers.”

For years, Mraz used his voice to paint vivid pictures during Morehead State football and basketball broadcasts. He was always prepared, professional and passionate about his work. Now, he’s using those same storytelling skills on the printed page, hoping to encourage young readers to turn pages instead of scrolling screens.

Chuck Mraz

Although the book isn’t focused on teaching baseball fundamentals, it places its fictional characters in situations that young athletes — and their parents — will easily recognize. The messages are positive, the stories flow naturally from one to the next, and the overall reading experience is enjoyable from start to finish.

The project truly became a family effort. Chuck’s wife, Joni, and daughter, Megan, assisted with editing, while Megan also designed the cover and handled the page layout.

“Baseball Stories for Kids” is “Baseball Stories for Kids” is available on Amazon or by contacting Chuck Mraz at cmraz240@yahoo.com