Simpson led his Blue Devils to 193-victories and a Class 4A KHSAA runner-up finish in 1995
🎶And all the years
No one knows
Just how hard you worked
But now it shows...
(in) One Shining Moment, it's all on the line
One Shining Moment, there frozen in time🎶
David Barrett, 1986
Sam Simpson spent 32-years on a sideline as a head football coach. Simpson spent five years at Marion County and 27-years as the head man for Lexington’s Henry Clay High’s “Blue Devils.” Simpson told Mike Fields with the “Herald-Leader (Lexington)” that “Never in my career did I look to the extended future. I looked to be prepared for the next moment, the next day, the next week. I didn’t think about where I might want to be down the road. It was, ‘What’s in front of me? What’s my team look like this year? What do we have to do to be successful this year?’ I was always living in the present.” You might say Simpson wasn’t living in the present. Simpson was living in the moment. As in, “One Shining Moment…”
HB Lyon, Scouting Director, “KPGFootball”
Lexington, KY: Perhaps the best Sam Simpson story we can tell involves a kid who fought like the dickens to even find the playing field. His name was Kelly Rixie.
Before you go scouring through old Blue Devil statistics, let us save you some time. You are very likely to not find any.
Rixie wasn’t the most talented player and, entering his senior year, Rixie had never cracked the starting lineup. Rixie never stopped working, never gave up on his goal of contributing to the cause of his team.
You know the kid. If you have read Sam Harp’s and my book, Football 101: Boo-Boo’s a QB, then my next statement will, both fairly and fully, describe Rixie better than anything else I could ever think to write here. Rixie was a Chapter 16 kid.
The year was 2000 and Rixie was getting a chance to play in the closing minutes of the Tates Creek opener. In the closing minutes, Rixie caught a pass covering 16-yards, with a broken finger, thrown by David Buchanan to stake the Blue Devils to a 20-19 victory.
After the game, Buchanan called it a “magical moment.” For Rixie, it was his one shining moment, and he had made the most of it.
David Buchanan called Rixie’s catch a ‘magical moment’
Mike Fields, “The Herald-Leader (Lexington)”
“Never in my career did I look to the extended future,” Simpson told Mike Fields with Lexington’s Herald-Leader. “I looked to be prepared for the next moment, the next day, the next week. I didn’t think about where I might want to be down the road. It was, ‘What’s in front of me? What’s my team look like this year? What do we have to do to be successful this year?’
“I was always living in the present” Simpson concluded. No sir, with apologies, you were living in the moment. One shining moment…
So it went over a 32-year career. Through ups and downs, over five (5) years at Marion County, followed by 27 years at Lexington’s Henry Clay High, Simpson led his charges to 224-wins against 154 losses with a tie. Simpson made a run to the ’95 title game, and even it was improbable.
Henry Clay finished the ’95 regular season 5-5. The Blue Devils pulled four consecutive improbable upsets beating Madison Central, Clark County, Boone County, and Louisville Central, to reach a date in the finals with St. Xavier High. The Devils lost 26-0, but Simpson couldn’t have been any prouder.
“The greatest disappointment you have as a coach is when you look into the eyes of your kids and see defeat,” Simpson told Fields. “I saw that late in the (’95) regular season. The greatest feeling you have as coach is when you look into the eyes of your kids and see desire and inspiration. When we were in that playoff run, I saw that…”
The greatest disappointment you have as a coach is when you look into the eyes of your kids and see defeat
Sam Simpson
Overall, Simpson won 193-games at Henry Clay, a place where winning darn-near 200 football games shouldn’t be taken for granted. Henry Clay won a football title in 1981. Jake Bell was the head man then. The Blue Devils bested St. Francis DeSales, from Louisville, 20-7. Other than 1995, they haven’t been back.
Coach Simpson always felt his wife, Sherri, and he were a team. Simpson told Fields in 2017 that his wife and he, who had been married 35 years when that article ran, were partners.
“I couldn’t have done what I’ve done without her. She’s that last line of defense.”
Simpson continued, “I’m pretty good at beating myself up when things aren’t going well. If there was [a] strategy for redirecting [a] course [away from] insanity, it [was] having a wife like her.”
Simpson went on to relate to Fields, “She reminds me what’s important. She’s always positive. And she always cheers as hard for all the players as she did for her own boys.”
Coaching is often times about catching that bolt of lightening in a bottle. It is made up of little moments.
It is about having star players and handling both the rigors of their demands and the demands of their posse. It is also about squeezing the last little bit of effort and ability out of the “Kelly Rixie types” out there who virtually litter every roster in Kentucky and at every conceivable competitive classification.
Not all players are Shane Boyd types and Zia Combs types. There are far more Kelly Rixies.
There are way more Rixies than Boyds or Combses
Friday Night Fletch
With more “Rixies” than (perhaps) his fair share on a 4A roster back when Kentucky had only the four (4) classes, Simpson still managed a winning season in the majority of his 32-seasons at Henry Clay and Marion County. Simpson admits he had scores of “great ones.” However, he had even more players who may have not been great, but were certainly loyal, certainly dutiful.
As for Kelly Rixie? Rixie became a computer technician for the U.S. Navy working on aircraft carriers. Years after his big catch from David Buchanan which won the Tates Creek game, Rixie came back to a practice at Henry Clay.
Rixie wanted to greet his former coach. Rixie wanted to reminisce about his one shining moment, his heroic catch which won the Tates Creek game.
Rixie looked at Simpson and said, “You know what that (one shining moment) taught me, Coach? It taught me to always be ready for my moment.”
Rixie was spot on…
🎶(Because)...time is short
And the road is long
In the blinking of an eye
Ah that moment's gone
And when it's done
Win or lose
You always did your best
Cuz inside you knew...
(that) One Shining Moment, you reached deep inside
One Shining Moment, you knew you were alive...🎶
David Barrett, 1986
This is Friday Night Fletch, reporting for KPGFootball, reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
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