Goble to be enshrined! Long-time CCHS Colonel Football Coach to enter KHSAA Hall of Fame. @kyhighs @HLPreps @KyHighFootball @minguabeefjerky @PrepSpin @1776Bank @khsaafootball @ColonelFootball @CountyColonels @Christian_Co270

Hall of Famer, Dan Goble, Class of 2023

Some of you may remember a member of our editorial board, Fletcher Long, being summoned to the office of the Christian County School District’s Director of Athletics not terribly long ago. Coach Kerry Stovall (District AD) and Mr. Lindsey Clark (CCPS Board Member) asked KPGFootball to help get Coach Dan Goble inducted into the KHSAA Hall of Fame.

In response to and in acceptance of this charge, we did what we do. We wrote and disseminated an article detailing just why we thought it was high time the KHSAA enshrined Coach Goble. We assisted in compiling and putting together the packet of information required to support any candidacy for admission into the Dawahares, KHSAA Hall of Fame.

We also called on our friends and contacts, from around Kentucky, to get behind this petition and send to us letters in support of this candidacy. The response was both humbling and overwhelming.

Goble coached 37-years, only experiencing 7-losing seasons among them, winning 185-football games and two (2) 4A titles (1982, 1984)

KHSAA statistical website

The committee charged with selecting new Hall of Famers appears to have gotten our message. It appears the committee completely agreed. Matter of fact, KPGFootball has it on reliable authority the vote to enshrine Coach Goble, this go around, was unanimous.

Resulting from the committee’s unanimity, Coach Goble will be enshrined among the other immortals beside whom his inclusion seems both entirely natural and appropriate. Our initial article is linked here.

This article, here, is one KPGFootball has elected to publish and distribute in celebration of this incredible accomplishment. We hope you derive half as much joy in reading it as we had in writing and distributing it.

Hall of Fame Football Coach, Dan Goble

The case for Goble was persuasive. The evidence of his accomplishments were entirely worthy of enshrinement and staggeringly so.

In short, Goble coached 37-years, only experiencing 7-losing seasons among them. Goble won 185-football games and two (2) 4A titles (1982, 1984) at a time when 4A was the highest classification of football competition played in the commonwealth.

Coach Goble won 12-WKC championships (1981, ’82, ’83, ’84, ’85, ’88, ’89, ’90, ’91, ’92, ’93, & ’96), 6-District titles (1981, ’82, ’84, ’85, ’92, & ’93), and 3-Regional crowns (’82, ’84, & ’92).

Coach Goble was the Kelloggs Kentucky 4A Coach of the Year in 1982 and the Champion Products Kentucky 4A Coach of the Year in 1984. Coach Goble won the Kentucky New Era’s Coach of the Year Award in both 1991 & 1992.

Goble began his coaching career at Erlanger Lloyd where he helped that team win a 1A title (1965). Then Goble went onto Shelby County where his first team was 0-10. He took the next two teams to 6-4 and 10-1 before moving to Louisville’s Atherton High.

Coach Goble won 12-WKC championships, 6-District titles, and 3-Regional crowns

KHSAA statistical website

Goble was at Atherton for nine-seasons. Goble finished with a winning record (48-47-2). Leaving Atherton with a winning overall record, in those days, was a feat worthy of Hall of Fame consideration standing alone.

Goble spent 21-seasons at the helm of Christian County High School when it played Kentucky 4A, a.k.a. “Big-boy Football.” Over that tenure, Goble became the program’s all-time winningest coach, with 121-wins, and the only coach outside of Louisville to win a football title in Kentucky’s largest classification twice.

Four (4) schools had all-time seasons with Coach Goble either at the helm or on its football coaching staff. Erlanger Lloyd was 12-1 in 1965 with him as an assistant. Shelby County was 10-1 in 1971 with Goble at the helm. Atherton turned in a 9-1 worksheet with Goble as its head coach in 1973. Christian County went 14-1 in 1982.

Shelby County, a place he coached a whopping three (3) years, still hosts an annual fishing tournament named for him. That is how much Coach Goble meant to those young men. Those players, yearly, return to fish the tournament bearing his name. 

Four (4) schools had all-time seasons with Coach Goble either at the helm or on its football coaching staff

KHSAA statistical website

We reached Coach Goble regarding his enshrinement. He told KPGFootball, “When Commissioner, Jillian Tackett, called me I thought it was just another ‘spam’ call. My second thought was maybe he dialed the wrong number.”

Goble went on to tell us, “After I realized it was the real deal, I just couldn’t compose the words. Finally, I thought of all the people that made this honor even remotely possible. I thought of my family, friends, the people that hired me to run all of the football programs I was privileged to run.”

Kentucky New Era file photo Christian County quarterback Phillip Brooks (10) prepares to hand off the ball to running back Mack Major during the Colonels’ 1982 Class 4-A state championship game against Louisville Southern. The Colonels won the game 10-3 for the school’s first state football championship.

“I thought of the hundreds of young men and assistant coaches who were involved with me over my 37-years of coaching. I thought of the friends I grew up with, in Prestonsburg, who were probably going to hear this news and think, ‘This must be a mistake.'”

Goble finished with, “All I ever wanted to do, my entire career, was to make those people proud. I wanted them to be proud of me and proud of all I accomplished because of their love, support, and interest in me.”

We called Fletcher Long too, to congratulate him on spearheading this very successful effort. We were struck by what he told us.

All I ever wanted to do, my entire career, was to make those people proud

KHSAA Hall of Fame Football Coach, Dan Goble

“I called Coach Goble the morning I found out this wonderful news. He was crying. I was crying. It would appear both of us are the sensitive type. Sometimes, old age, fatherhood, and being grandfathers softens the harshest among us.”

Long went on to say, “Coach Goble got on the phone and barely choked out, through the tears, ‘Well, you did it, son.’ No sir, I replied, crying every bit as hard as he. You did it. It was you.”

“All I did was input the data I knew the committee would find important and persuasive. I also encouraged some future or present, Hall of Fame football coaches (Phillip Haywood, Dudley Hilton, Sam Harp, Pat Gates, Joe Morris, Mike Holcomb) to look at Goble’s record and express honest opinions regarding its worthiness.”

“The matter, from that point forward, just ran its natural course. The destination, which was an inevitable one, had been reached.”

In the end, I want to say, on Fletcher’s behalf and on behalf of our magazine, this was among the worthiest causes in which we have ever been asked to either direct or participate. Fletcher told me, when reminiscing about this endeavor, that, “This was one of the greatest life achievements in which I have ever been permitted to share. This was an outcome of which I will remain forever proud. This just couldn’t have happened to a more deserving nor more worthy guy.”

You did it, Coach Goble. It was absolutely all you. Congratulations.

This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!

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About Henry Lyon 1210 Articles
Have coached at the high school and middle school level. Have worked in athletic administration. Conceal my identity to enable my candor on articles published by this magazine. Only members of the editorial board are aware of my true identity.

2 Comments

  1. Great job on your portrayal of “Coach Dan Goble”. He was my head coach for 4 years and my Sr.
    Year at the awards banquet I remember standing at the podium and proclaiming to the attendee’s that I can only hope that when I have children I can only hope that they will have a coach in there lives that are just like coach. He walks the walk , said what he meant and meant what he said. Tough but fair and great role model. He also surrounded himself with stellar people on his staff. Coach Rod Cloyd , Boyd and Jay Phillips, Coaches Din Kays and Jim Knoner (sp?) we’re all cut from the same cloth. We were fortunate. Congratulations Coach, well deserved honor.

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