Lexington Catholic taps mind behind state-title defenses to lead football program

The architect behind the defense on two previous state championship teams at Lexington Catholic will now get the opportunity to call all the shots.

Nigel Smith is the first black head coach in Lexington Catholic football history, and only the fourth head coach overall. He succeeded Mark Perry, who was the coach at Catholic for four years before resigning in January to become the director of football operations under former University of Kentucky teammate Neal Brown at Troy University.

Bob Sphire founded Lexington Catholic’s program in 1991 and coached the Knights to the 2005 Class 3A state championship. Bill Letton took the job in 2006 and coached Catholic to a Class 4A state title in 2007. Catholic played for a Class 3A championship under Perry in 2015.

Smith was the defensive coordinator on both state-title teams and also coached under Perry. He’s been an assistant at Lexington Catholic since 2003 and is the chair of the school’s social studies department.

“We have a piece of everybody, no matter what role they’ve played over the course of those amount of those years, that is always going to be a part of us, no matter who they were,” Smith said. “No matter how much or how little they may have contributed on the field, they contributed to the heart of Lexington Catholic football. They are the reasons why, the history of this program is the reason why the future of this program is going to be so great.”

Smith graduated from Bryan Station High School and played football at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for a season before transferring to the University of Kentucky, where he walked on for the football team. He graduated from UK with a bachelor’s degree in education and later earned his master’s in education from Georgetown College. He also played under Sphire when he was a member of the Lexington Horsemen indoor football team in the mid-2000s.

In an address to team members during his introduction, Smith emphasized the importance of building high-character individuals as much as football players.

“We don’t want to sell these young men short,” Smith said. “They’re only here for four years max. An assistant coach can be here for 20, 30 years. That young man’s only got four years in this program. We don’t want that young man to have a missed opportunity because of something we did.”

This story was originally published February 20, 2018 at 3:19 PM with the headline "Lexington Catholic taps mind behind state-title defenses to lead football program."