New high school football coaches target culture, community as path to success

Sometimes a fresh perspective can help a high school football team reach new heights or, perhaps, pull it away from a deep funk that might have hindered recent results.

Coaching changes can also be a passing of the torch from one fine legacy to a new era.

In all, 48 high school football teams have new head coaches this season. Lexington has three of them — Lafayette’s Jon Lawson, Lexington Catholic’s Bert Bathiany and Tates Creek’s Jonathan Hawks.

Their tasks go far beyond winning games.

“The kids are buying in, and that’s really the first step in this process,” Lawson said. “It’s getting the kids together, helping them learn, bringing the energy, trusting each other and becoming a family. And just kind of go from there.”

Culture building at a new program starts from Day One.

“We know that we’re not just trying to build a culture within the football program,” Hawks said. “We want to bring the community closer together, you know, just this whole entire environment and start to get more support. Our kids, they deserve it. They work hard for it, so I want to give it to them.”

Lafayette actually made two head football coaching hires in the offseason, but the first one didn’t take. Ethan Atchley, most recently in charge of Bullitt East, stepped back from the Generals a few weeks after his hiring was announced.

Atchley has since found a home as the head coach at Frankfort and explained the decision on a recent episode of “Big Things Kentucky,” a popular local high school commentary show streamed on YouTube.

“Lafayette looked like the stars might align from a history perspective, having been there and taught there previously before and started the career there coaching,” Atchley said. “Sometimes things aren’t the right fit.”

The right fit turned out to be the Class A Panthers instead.

“I thought that that was a place you could easily go win,” Atchley said. “From the outside looking in, you’ve got a lot of athletes, you’ve got a lot of talent each year. … It’s the best thing so far that I’ve had to walk into from a returning player perspective, from a culture that just needs to be built back up on and relook at how we do things here at Frankfort.”

While both the Lafayette and Tates Creek programs have been a bit of a roller coaster over the last decade with tremendous success followed by a decline, Lexington Catholic has consistently been a top-10 program with a legacy of two state championships this century (2005, 2007). Bathiany’s job is to carry on that proud tradition.

“When you come to a place like this, the talk is, ‘Well my uncle, my cousin, my dad, they played for Coach (Bob) Sphire or they played for Coach (Bill) Letton,’ and there’s a certain standard that’s been set,” Bathiany said. “And every (coach) after that is just trying to build upon that and make the ones in the past proud. But then also laying further foundations for those ones that are coming up in the future. So we can make this even better and let it grow just like those great coaches before me.”

2022’s new head coaches

Here’s a list of all the new head football coaches across the state.

Ashland Blazer: Chad Tackett; Bath County: Larry Bowling; Bellevue: David Brausch; Bullitt Central: Lewis Clark; Bullitt East: Keegan Kendrick; Campbell County: Brian Weinrich; Carroll County: Lonnie Oldham; Christian County: Blake Ladson; DeSales: Mike Jackson; Dixie Heights: Pat Burke; Edmonson County: Zach Vincent; Eminence: Ryan Jones; Fairview: Brent Wilcoxon; Fort Campbell: Henry Mitchell; Frankfort: Ethan Atchley; Garrard County: Spencer Crutchfield; Hopkinsville: Marc Clark; Iroquois: Mike Reed; Jackson County: Nick Sizemore; Jeffersontown: Donte Ellison; Johnson Central: Jesse Peck; Knott County Central: Joe Beder; Knox Central: Dustin Buckner; Lafayette: Jon Lawson; LaRue County: Sonny Judd; Lewis County: Gene Peterson; Lexington Catholic: Bert Bathiany; Lincoln County: Joshua Jaggers; Madison Southern: Mark Payne; Magoffin County: John Derossett; Manual: Donnie Stoner; Marion County: Arthur Carter; McCracken County: Jonathan Smith; Mercer County: Craig Yeast; Montgomery County: Michael Caba; Newport: Ryan Hahn; North Laurel: Jason Chappell; Ohio County: Terry Moeller; Phelps: Randy Smith; Pineville: Allen Harris; Rockcastle County: Chris Larkey; Russell County: Lucas Ford; Shelby County: Marcus Harris; Simon Kenton: Roy Lucas; South Laurel: Allen Mitchell; Southern: Justin Hatchett; Tates Creek: Jonathan Hawks; Valley: Robert Hennig.

This story was originally published August 17, 2022 at 6:30 AM.

Jared Peck

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-488-2883

Jared Peck, the Herald-Leader’s Digital Sports Writer, covers high school athletics and has been with the company as a writer and editor for more than 20 years. Support my work with a digital subscription