There is a guy named Marshall Trimble who is the state of Arizona’s official historian and the vice-president of the Wild West History Association. He runs a service called Ask the Marshall and you can either email him at marshall.trimble@scottsdalecc.edu or write him, snail-mail, with post to P.O. Box 8008, Cave Creek, AZ 85327. Not long ago he was asked the origin of the phrase there’s gold in them thar hills! He attributed the saying to Mark Twain’s 1892 novel The American Claimant. The attribution further related the saying’s origin to a Dr. Matthew Fleming Stephenson, of Georgia, who invented the phrase to dissuade Georgians from removing to California during the Gold Rush in 1849. I mean, why go to California to pan for what you can harvest right there in the Mountains of Georgia, right? Yeah, Marshall University has become seized of the same idea. Why go anywhere else when you can slip across the Kentucky state line and find gold in them thar hills surrounding Belfry High School?
Now I have schools I favor, and I have been blowing them up with information about Ethan Wolford for quite a while now. I hope they have been moving on this solid information I have been laying down to them. I have been both consistent and steadfast in claiming Wolford to be the best center in Kentucky in the class of 2020; and you may be able to drop the phrase-in the class of 2020. He has ideal frame at 6-2 and 270 pounds, he is an All-Region, heavyweight wrestler, he has explosive get-off, violent hands, and an angry disposition all working in tangent with his agility, speed, and explosion. He hasn’t been selected an AFI-KPG Sophomore All-Stater and a National Undergraduate Combine All-American for nothing after-all. Now, the Belfry Kentucky 2020 prospect has been invited to visit all over the place this weekend but, after long deliberation with his family, Ethan has elected to visit Marshall University in nearby Huntington, West Virginia.
Marshall University is a FBS, Division I, football team which competes in Conference USA. The Thundering Herd ranks number one in college football for home winning percentage, with .851 (146-26 overall) at John C. Edwards Stadium. Number two on the list of winning percentage at home, in FBS, is the University of Alabama who has a home winning percentage of .821. Marshall has won two National Championships (Div. I-AA, in 1992,1996) and thirteen conference championships (12 outright, 1 shared). Marshall has, four times, ended the year in the FBS, College Football, Top-25 poll; one time finishing the year ranked in the Top-10 (1999). The Thundering Herd has developed 19 All-Americans and has produced two NFL, Hall of Famers, one at the offensive center position (Frank Gunner Gatski) and the other, Randy Moss.
We reached out to the All-State center from Belfry and Wolford provided to KPGFootball, by written statement, his feelings about being invited for the Spring game to Marshall. The statement reads, in pertinent part,…I just feel blessed and thankful that Marshall has decided to invite me down to visit their school during the Spring game. I’ve been to many camps there and have seen them play at home a few times but I’m pretty sure all of that will take a back seat to actually being there for a visit as a target at which they are looking. I’ve talked it over with my mom and dad a lot about what it would be like to play for Marshall. It’s close to home and they could come to all the home games and it’s one of my top schools for whom I would really want to play. It’s always been a dream to play for the Herd. Hopefully this is the first step toward that dream being fulfilled.
Sounds like, should the Herd offer this particular nugget of gold from the hills of Kentucky, this train may just pull on into the Thundering Herds’ station. For all you other coaches, you might have slept too long on this one, and, to think, he’s only a sophomore.
This is Fletcher Long, reporting for KPGFootball, reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
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