‘It is a relic.’ When this Santa Claus hat comes to state, it can’t be stopped.
Philip Haywood, the all-time wins leader in KHSAA history, isn’t the only through line that unites the seven football championships won by Belfry High School.
There’s allegedly another, and it’s an appropriate for December: Beth Wright’s Santa Claus hat.
It was supposed to be cold in the 2003 final, so Wright — then a student at Belfry — brought it along. It was on her head as Belfry defeated Elizabethtown, 33-27 in overtime, for its first state championship in four trips.
“I was like, it’s red and white, it’s fitting,” Wright said. She wore it again in 2004. The Pirates won again.
Six years passed before Belfry would reach state again, but her hat was nowhere to be found in its appearances from 2010-2012. The Pirates lost all three.
“And then, in ‘13, we were playing Wayne County and it was supposed to be horrible weather,” Wright said. “I’d forgotten my jacket and went back and got it, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ll wear my old Santa hat.’”
Belfry defeated Wayne County, 3-0. It beat Central, 14-7, in 2014. It routed Lexington Catholic, 43-0, in 2015, before toppling Central once more, 52-31, to cap a run of four straight title wins in 2016 — and six straight with the hat in tow.
The Pirates defeated Bell County, 30-20, on Friday night to win their seventh state title and to 7-0 in state finals in which Beth Wright wears her Santa Claus hat.
Her husband, Jonathan, is an assistant coach at Belfry. He and other members of the Pirates’ staff have bought into the good mojo it produces.
“It is a relic, I guess you would say,’” Wright said. “We always put it up after every state championship so we can find it. We win every time she wears it, so I’m probably gonna have it dipped in bronze.”
