Ex-UK football player won’t say ‘Kroger Field’ — but he is about to coach there
Like many with a past investment of sweat equity in the Kentucky football program, Mikie Benton has a hard time calling UK’s football home anything other than “Commonwealth Stadium.”
“Gonna be Commonwealth for me forever,” Benton said Wednesday. “Don’t know how much I will be saying ‘Kroger Field.’”
Benton may not be saying “Kroger Field,” but he will be coaching there. The former Wildcats defensive back (2008-2012) has directed his high school alma mater, Russellville, to its first Class A state championship game in 31 years.
Benton’s Panthers (12-1) will battle Pikeville (13-2) Friday at noon for a state title.
“It’s great — and also surreal,” Benton says of coaching the high school where he played to the state finals. “People around here have made the comment, ‘Man, you are a walking movie right now.’”
It is a heady moment for someone who never even planned to be a coach.
Benton, now 31, was a two-way star in his days as a Russellville football player.
As a senior in 2007, he made three interceptions and 11 pass breakups as a defensive back. Offensively, he ran for 749 yards and 14 touchdowns and passed for 856 yards and 14 scores.
The college recruiters, however, valued Benton mainly as a track prospect. He was Kentucky’s back-to-back Class A state champ in the 110 hurdles in 2007 and 2008. As a senior, he was state runner-up in the triple jump.
Both Notre Dame and Western Kentucky offered him track and field scholarships. Yet he rejected those when Kentucky gave him a chance to walk on in football.
“Track was hands-down my best sport,” Benton says. “But football was my passion.”
Benton joined UK in 2008, midway through the four-year bowl streak on which Rich Brooks would end his Wildcats’ coaching career.
He also played through all three seasons of the ill-fated Joker Phillips coaching tenure (2010-12), when UK sank from six wins with a bowl trip to five victories and then to two wins.
When Phillips hired Rick Minter to install what was considered an unusually complex defensive scheme at UK prior to the 2011 season, Benton saw an opportunity.
He devoted himself to mastering the concepts of Minter’s complicated defense while others struggled to do so. As a result, Benton went from third-string to starter.
For the 2011 and 2012 seasons, he was a first-team safety. In 2011, the 5-foot-11, 195-pound Benton led UK in pass breakups with seven. The former walk-on went on full football scholarship.
Though the agricultural economics major came to Lexington with no intention of becoming a coach, he is, in retrospect, grateful from a coaching perspective to have experienced the Kentucky program when things were going well and when things were going south.
When the Kentucky program started to struggle, it led to coaching staff shuffles.
“So I had the opportunity to learn from several different coaches,” Benton says. “Seeing (different ways) they operate, how they work X’s and O’s, how they communicate with other coaches and other players. It was kind of a blessing in disguise to put me where I am today.”
As his playing career at UK was winding down, Benton found out he was going to be a father. He decided to move home to Russellville to be near his daughter, Emery (now 8).
Moving home indirectly led Benton into high school football coaching. “At that time, my old high school coach, John Myers, was still (the coach) here at Russellville,” Benton says.
One day, Benton went to see his former coach. While conducting a practice, Myers was called away. He asked Benton to step in and explain the concept Myers had been teaching.
“(The players) picked it up real quick after me explaining,” Benton said. “Coach Myers said, ‘Mike, if you don’t have anything else going on, we’d love to have you back.’ Next thing I know, I am at every practice and every game. Literally since 2013, I have been on the (Russellville) sidelines.”
When Myers stepped down as Russellville head man to take a job with the Glasgow Independent Schools after the 2017 season, Benton — now a special-education teacher — was tabbed to replace him.
Benton’s first three seasons as Panthers head man yielded a 14-19 overall record with two playoff wins.
But this year, buoyed by five “super-seniors” taking advantage of the extra COVID-19 year of eligibility provided by the state legislature, Russellville has produced a magic season.
“I didn’t expect the number of them to come back who did,” Benton says of the fifth-year players. “But it’s just been great.”
In the run-up to Friday’s state title game, Benton says he has been swamped with congratulatory communications from ex-UK teammates. Gene McCaskill, AJ Nance, Morgan Newton and Raymond Sanders are only some of the ex-Cats to reach out.
Benton thinks the magnitude of coaching his high school alma mater in a state title game and doing it at the stadium where he played college football won’t fully impact him until he steps on the field Friday at the venue he won’t call “Kroger Field.”
“I think the moment I walk into that stadium and am able to get on the field and look up in the stands, it will hit me then,” Benton says. “It’s definitely very special.”
State championships
At Kroger Field in Lexington
Tickets: Available by advance sale digitally at KHSAAtickets.org. No walk-up paper tickets sold.
Online: Subscription required for live video stream at KHSAA.tv. Pay-per-view live HD video at Go.PrepSpin.com. Free audio stream at KHSAA.net.
FRIDAY’S GAMES
Class A: Pikeville (13-2) vs. Russellville (12-1), Noon
Class 2A: Beechwood (14-0) vs. Lexington Christian (14-0), 4 p.m.
Class 4A: Boyle County (13-1) vs. Johnson Central (12-2), 8 p.m.
SATURDAY’S GAMES
Class 3A: Belfry (8-6) vs. Paducah Tilghman (8-6), Noon
Class 5A: Frederick Douglass (13-1) vs. South Warren (13-1), 4 p.m.
Class 6A: Male (13-0) vs. St. Xavier (13-1), 8 p.m.
This story was originally published December 2, 2021 at 2:57 PM.
