Perry County Central Football lands a “very big fish” in Mark Dixon

Perry County Central parted ways with Ovie Canady after his going 1-9 in 2019 and missing the playoffs on the heels of his steering the program to 8 wins in 2018. Perry County will turn to a very known commodity to fill that vacancy and one who isn’t a stranger to coaching at championship levels.

Hazard football coach, Mark Dixon, in a story broken by WYMT in Hazard, Kentucky, has accepted the head coaching position at Perry Central. Dixon, a graduate of M.C. Napier, where he played, and formerly the coach at cross-town Hazard High School since 2003 had an incredible record of success, cross-town.

Coach Dixon went 172-54 while at Hazard and took the Bulldogs to the state title game in 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2016. The Bulldogs were Class 1A football champions in 2011.

WYMT also reports this is the second time a coach has left one school to trek across town. Al Holland, Hazard’s AD, left Perry Central’s basketball program after the 2006-7 season to go to Hazard.

Now let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Will Coach Dixon be able to unseat to some degree the basketball crazies at Perry County Central to garner some love and attention for the gridiron, Friday night warriors? Also, will the Perry County football talent which was opting to play at Hazard now opt to play for the Commodores?

KPGFootball has talked to some well placed Perry County operatives and they tell me the Perry County talent hasn’t been coming to Hazard necessarily for Coach Dixon. They tell me the “guy” who has been pied piper(ing) those athletes to Hazard is still at Hazard and unlikely to go anywhere.

Photograph, Brendon Miller, Bluegrass Sports Nation

Then there is what we call the DeAndre Reed phenomenon. Reed, pictured above this paragraph is emblematical of the problem with the Perry County Central football program. Here is a sturdily built, tall, lengthy, 6-2 freakishly athletic young man who potentially could have played anywhere from OLB to corner but opted to not play football this previous Fall to focus on basketball. On the hardwood, he is a 6 to 7 point-per-game scorer. Reed could go to a 7 on 7 and walk away with a FBS football offer just on his looks.

Look at what Dre Boyd did this year at Class 4A Warren Central while he was out for football! Reed could do the same type things.

Look at Perry County’s Noah Caudill from last season. Here’s a 6-5, low post guy with the aggression to grab nearly 11 rebounds a game for the Commodores last season. Yet, you look at the 2018 roster and discover Noah Caudill wasn’t on the football team. For Dixon to thrive at Perry County Central, he has got to get the Noah Caudill and DeAndre Reed types to play football.

So here’s the bottom line…this is certainly a big-splash hire. Any time a program can hire a coach with four championship game appearances and a State Football Championship on his résumé, that makes the hire a no-brainer.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t some glaring questions. Is this a signal the administration is going to take its football program as seriously as it takes basketball? Will there be adequate funding for assistants and equipment? Will the football talent in Perry County, outside of Hazard, now play for Perry County instead of Hazard High School? Will some of the basketball talent come play football?

These are all questions which will need answering for us to know how big of a football move the Commodores have just made. This is a school which didn’t set the world on fire with either Tom Larkey or Justin Haddix at the controls. Will Mark Dixon fare better than either of those guys? If he does, it will have more to do with his ability to fix what is broken behind the scenes at the 4A school than his being a better football coach than some of his predecessors.

Reporting forKPGFootball, this is HB Lyon, reminding all of you ballers out there that #WeGotUCovered 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. His 1st year record came courtesy of the prior coaching staff, you see what he did the next year on his own? Reminds me of Tubby Smith’s NCAA title, when he rode Rick Patino’s coattails. Java the Hut is coaching wrestling in Bell County now. He looks one meal away from a heart attack.

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