There are plenty of things about Atherton High School which should prove to be attractive to prospective parents of both present and future, Louisville-area, student-athletes. For one, Atherton High School, a Kentucky School of Distinction is rated by US News among Kentucky’s elite academic high schools. Atherton is the second highest rated high school, academically, in Louisville and the 7th highest regarded, commonwealth-wide.
Are they good at football? Well…they weren’t too good under the previous coaching regime. If we are being frank, and we are known to be somewhat direct, Coach Walker’s tenure was marred by the team’s ten year record of 19-82. Nine of the 19 wins came in 2017 & 2018, so the remaining 8 years only saw Atherton on the left side of the W/L column 10 times, combined.
That is the bad news. However, we were able to interview Coach Brown and he has some good news.
“First of all, we have 10 games on the 2019 schedule in which I fully expect us to compete in all ten of those games” Coach Brown told KPGFootball. “Atherton has a strong, 17-man, senior class who have been through a lot of strife together and are buying-in to the new direction. So far, they have presented to the practice field and strength training ready to both work hard and win.”
Atherton has an opportunity to win too as KPGFootball believes the Rebels will enter the playoffs seeded second to South Oldham in Class 5A, District 4. The Rebels, to gain that particular rung on the play-off ladder, will have to beat Seneca (Louisville), Jeffersontown High, and North Bullitt.
Seneca and J-Town, both moving down from Class 6A, were 0-11 and 3-8 last season, respectively. North Bullitt was 4-6, as was Atherton, in 2018, playing in the 5A classification.
Clearly, South Oldham, 12-2 in 2018 returning practically the entire nucleus of last year’s roster, are the district 4 team to beat. South, in 2018, were a 5A KHSAA football semi-finalist, and an elite team in Kentucky’s second largest classification. After South Oldham, Atherton has a more talented roster with athletes who have experienced some degree of success. There is, literally, no reason the Rebels should feel anything apart from optimistic about the 2019 football prospects.
Nino White, as he is widely known, spent 6 seasons at Class 6A, powerhouse, duPont Manual High School coaching running-backs. Coach White worked closely with the development of the Germantown Thoroughbreds junior-league program and has spent many years coaching on the staff of the Kentucky Future Stars. He was the Team Kentucky-7th grade HC this summer in a game where Kentucky bested Tennessee in the annual Classic.
We told you all of that to tell you this. Louisville high schools, both private and public, compete annually to draw some of Kentucky’s finest football talent to its rosters. Atherton hasn’t been winning many of those battles prior to now. With Coach White in the fold and running the program, you better by-God believe that will change and in short order.
When we asked Coach White what was his plan for Atherton’s rise to football prominence, he told us. “Look, Atherton sells itself with its academics and opportunities a diploma from here provides a young person. With my connections and relationships, built over years of effort and industry working and coaching both Louisville and Kentucky star football players, coupled with Atherton’s other off-the-field attributes, selling Louisville football players to come play for me at Atherton seems like an easy pitch.”
Yeah, Coach White, seems so to us too.
This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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