
Haywood won 491-games in 50-years and played for 14-titles, winning eight (8)
Pond Creek: Kentucky’s all-time, greatest high school football coach has passed. This fact, virtually incomprehensible to me at present, has left me searching for words; adequate words.

I have lost a man I deeply admired and had grown to know fairly well. I have lost a benefactor who both supported and believed in the work of this magazine and this reporter.
I admired him as a writer. I admired him as a football coach. I admired him as a Christian. I admired him as a human being.
There are so many things I could discuss here. I suppose I could discuss his winning 491-football games in 50-years. I suppose I could talk of his being Kentucky’s all-time, winningest football coach; the nation’s fifth, all-time winningest football coach; or even the fact the Dawhares KHSAA Hall of Fame should be renamed in his honor.
All of those things are true. All of those things are impressive. Yet, he was so much more than just the all-time, winningest football coach.
Ask any one who played for him. Ask anyone who was ever sufficiently privileged to get to coach with him.
I would prefer to tell you my Phillip Haywood story, if you would permit me. I am hurting, I need to tell it. It captures so much of the man Coach Haywood really was.
I was sent to Pike County to cover a pair of games. The date was November 16, 2018 and both Pikeville and Belfry were hosting regional title games.
Pikeville was playing Williamsburg. Belfry was hosting Boyle County and its almost equally famous head football coach, Chuck Smith.
Haywood won 491-games in 50-years with eight (8) titles
KHSAA Statistical Website
It was pretty obvious Pikeville was going to murder Williamsburg. True to form, and to the surprise of no-one, the Panthers amassed a huge, first-quarter lead.
My sons and I decided to trek the 20 or so miles, up highway 119, to Pond Creek to watch the Belfry game. William was a sophomore in high school. Jack was 10; and a “small 10” at that.
I had earlier emailed Coach Haywood for passes. Coach Haywood was the AD, in addition to being the program’s head football coach.
When we got to the gate, the police officer motioned us to a spot virtually right off the playing surface.
“Are you Mr. Long,” the officer had asked at the gate?
“Yessir,” I responded.
“Coach Haywood has asked you to park in the VIP lot, sir.”
I looked over at William and winked. It is pretty rare, but sometimes covering sports has benefits.
The stadium was rocking that night. What I mean by rocking is there were over 7,000 screaming Pond Creekers who had virtually swallowed the entire environment. It was a mad-house.
I am not sure either of my two sons had ever before seen such rabid, off the chain exhibitions of fanaticism in either of their relatively short lives. When I say it was wild, I am talking w-i-l-d!
The game didn’t go Belfry’s way. Boyle County was a tough customer and Chuck Smith also knew a thing or two about coaching. The final score was Boyle County 41- Belfry 24; not that it matters.
We were coming to the end of the game and I had no idea where Jack had gone. I look at William and ask, “Son, where’s your brother?”
“I don’t know, Dad. I haven’t seen him for a half hour or so.” That wasn’t the answer I was wanting.
“Son, where’s your brother?”
Fletcher and William Long, 11/16/2018
“I don’t know, Dad.”
I was thinking of all the places Jack could be. I was wondering how I was ever going to find him in the absolute melee which was this home crowd. I was wondering what I was going to say to Jack’s mother and my wife.
As all of these thoughts were milling about in my head. Then, as if in answer to prayer, William says, “There he is Dad, at mid-field.”

I looked out to the team’s logo and there was my 10-year old son, holding Phillip Haywood’s hand, pulling him through the middle of the field. Jack was talking Coach’s ear off.
Haywood was walking, in lock step with little Jack, hanging on his every word. It looked as if Coach had been drawn into some fanciful yarn told him by his own grandson. I don’t know what the heck Jack was telling him, but Jack was earnest in its telling and Coach couldn’t have appeared any more interested.
The two had never met, had they? I mean, Coach and I had never met, in person, before that night. We had talked over the phone, and had some written correspondence; but tonight was our first in-person meeting.
I ran out to the middle of the field. “Coach, I am Fletcher Long with Kentucky Prep Gridiron, and I am so sorry if my son, Jack, has been bothering you.”
“I know who you are Mr. Long,” Haywood responded. “Your son, Jack is no bother at all. Matter of fact, I have been enjoying our conversation, immensely.”
“…Jack is no bother at all. Matter of fact, I have been enjoying our conversation, immensely.”
Phillip Haywood
“Coach,” I asked, “would you mind taking a picture with my two sons?”
“Mr. Long, let me trot down to the end zone and pay some attention to my parents and then it would be my pleasure to take a picture with your sons.” The picture to the above right, in this very article, is the picture which was taken that night.

This guy had just lost a regional championship game, and by a sizable margin; yet, he was happy to take the time to pose for a picture with my two sons. While I may have been (at the time) practically a stranger; Coach Haywood was gracious enough to do me this honor, this favor.
I am no Bible scholar. Phillip Haywood certainly was.
That being said, somewhere therein, Jesus told a story about a King saying, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Mathew 25:40-45, KJV.
Coach Haywood had been kind to my young son. He had been gracious and loving to my family. He had been a friend to me. Coach would remain a friend to me, every day following that first personal encounter.
I own an autographed copy of one of his books. I have text messages of encouragement he sent me through the years. There is nothing I own that I cherish anymore than the picture my boys took with him that night.
Phillip Haywood was Hall of Fame in many ways other than football. Most of all, he was a Hall of Fame friend and a Hall of Fame example of how to be a real man by every conceivable way that term may ever, possibly be defined.
I loved him. I will miss him; so will my boys.
This is Friday Night Fletch, reporting for KPGFootball, reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
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That’s a beautiful story of a magnificent soul. I know how much you loved Coach and he sounds like the kind of man the whole world needed to know. I am so sorry for your loss and for his family’s as he’s gone too soon.