Of all the coaches I have met, none were more wound up and passionate than Coach Homer Goins – and that was 10 years after he had coached his last football game.
He was a high-energy and high-intensity guy from the beginning of the day until the end.
One of the best things that could have happened for a young coach worked out for me – Homer Goins was our principal at Paris for my eight years there. The first four years I was an assistant, and after that, the head coach. It was a great opportunity and learning experience that for eight years I could walk into his office and ask questions of one of the most successful football coaching legends in the state of Kentucky.
Coach Goins had been a star player at Evarts in eastern Kentucky. The day he interviewed me, I saw his football scholarship to the University of Kentucky, signed by Blanton Collier ans hanging on his office wall. He was very proud of his scholarship and that Coach Collier, a Paris native, was the coach that signed him.
His college coach, however, turned out to be Charlie Bradshaw because Collier and his staff had been fired. Bradshaw is known for coaching the “Thin Thirty” because of the difficulty and toughness of the program under his guidance. Some would argue that brutality would describe what it was like more accurately.
The story goes that one night as several players were quitting and getting out of town, they came to get Homer Goins to quit also. But he believed his future and any success for him was tied to him staying at UK, playing football, and getting his education. From his perspective, he had to stay.
In 1968, Coach Goins came to Maysville High School with Tom Becherer. I have really enjoyed hearing Homer Goins stories from his former Maysville Bulldog players and Tom Duncan. Without a doubt, they describe the Coach Goins I worked for at Paris.
In 1969, Coach Goins became the head coach at Paris. His first team only had 17 to 19 players. He told me one time he used to sit in his office and pray that the players would walk back in the locker room for practice.
The players that could handle it were very good ones. He turned the program around that season and then led the Greyhounds to a state title in 1973. His principal that year was Ernie Trosper, who would turn out to be my father-in-law.
A lot of what I know about Coach Goins came from his players. They told a lot of stories that showed how tough he was on them and how much he demanded of them in practice. Several would say that practice was so difficult that the games seemed easy.
Supposedly one day several players were knocked out of practice because of how physical the drills were. The number of bodies able to practice was getting smaller. Coach Goins told them in so many words, you can get in shape by running or hitting, so we are going to start running!
When I became the head coach at Paris, I was very fortunate to have access to Coach Goins and his wisdom. I was in his office probably once a week, especially at the beginning. I was there because it was my choice. I always wanted his thoughts and advice.
I learned a lot from those talks, most of which were more about working with people than anything related to football strategy. Yes, he knew his football. But, like the other great coaches I had been around, he knew and understood people as well as anybody I know, if not the best of all.
He never made me do what he thought I should do. He always left it up to me. But many times I thought his advice was the best. There were three times he told me he didn’t like what I was doing – he didn’t like switching from white helmets to black helmets, he didn’t want black jerseys and silver pants, and I dismissed a player once and he thought it was a mistake and I should have kept him.
But each time he let me be the coach and I still am very appreciative that he let me do what I thought was best for the program.
Coach Goins taught me that if it is possible, it is best to let people make their own decisions. I have tried to apply that to the way I work with my coaches, players, students and even my three children at home. It is not something I can do 100 percent of the time. But the people you are working with appreciate it and it helps them grow, and it makes the organization stronger in the long run.
One Friday night at Fleming County, with the game on the line on fourth down on our side of the 50, I told Dustin Grutza to eyeball what was in front of him: “If you can get the first down, get it. If not, call time-out and we will punt.”
He knew we could get it. He ran a QB sneak, got the first down, and we ran out the clock and won the game.
I am sure of this: Homer Goins would have loved to coach Dustin Grutza!
This column first appeared in the Maysville Ledger Independent and was edited by Zack Klemme, former Ledger Sports Editor, currently on the staff of the Ashland Daily Independent.