Ralph Mills (Hopkinsville) and Preston “Ty” Holland (Murray) may be before your time, but they could flat do it
We have been publishing a series of articles saluting the greatest coaches in the history of the KHSAA. Today, we are really going to go back in time and salute two prior coaching legends who both coached before many of you were capable of recollection. Preston “Ty” Holland won 249-games in his 43-years of coaching, finishing 1-1 in title games. Holland won the title and the “Coach of the Year” for his efforts in 1961. Holland took his team to play Lynch East Main, and Ed Miracle, in 1960 and 1961 with mixed results, losing to Lynch 39-0 in ’60 and winning 14-13 in ’61. Ralph Mills was probably the progenitor of the Tiger football dynasty. Mills was the inaugural, “Courier-Journal-Coach of the Year” in 1944, while coaching all time greats like Butch Lewis, Jack Haddock, Jerry Claiborne, and “Terrible” Tommy Gray. Mills led the Tigers on a 23-game win streak from the last game in 1939 through the 1941 campaign. Mills led the Tigers to a “Co-Kentucky Conference” championship in 1940 and numerous other Western Kentucky Conference (WKC) crowns.
HB Lyon, Scouting Director, “KPGFootball”
The Great Ralph Mills
Hopkinsville, KY: The earliest I have seen KHSAA State Championship recognition bestowed is 1959. There were only three classifications in 1959 and the 1A State Champion was Lynch East Main, the 2A State Champion was Henderson, and the 3A State Champion was duPont Manual.
That doesn’t mean teams weren’t considered state champions prior to 1959, however. Louisville duPont Manual, for instance, claims four of its six titles were won prior to KHSAA recognition, laying claim to titles in 1925, 36, 38, and 48.
Hopkinsville High School has won a third state championship. That means the program has won three, not two, state football championships and the architect of the first one was Coach Ralph Mills with the later two coming under Fleming Thornton in 1965 & 1966.
It is a commonly applied method of interpretation to derive meaning from a document by considering the time in which a document was authored and applying what ever meanings and context would have been applied by people during that time. You often hear this argued by constitutional scholars and is referred to as the historical test.
Here’s what we know about the 1940 Tiger team. The team won all 11 of its contests for Coach Ralph Mills who is listed as the third winningest head coach in Hopkinsville High School history behind Craig Clayton and former great, Fleming Thornton.
The 1940 Tiger team won all 11 of its contests for Coach Ralph Mills
100 Years of Tiger Football, Turner & Keller
The book, One Hundred Years of Tiger Football, compiled by William Turner & Roy Keller, which is an excellent book I have both bought and highly recommend, reflects Coach Mills, in 9 seasons, won 63 times against 30 losses with 4 ties. That is a very fine record, in deed, as it reflects Mills won almost 65% of the games in which he coached, in addition to leading the 1939, 40, & 41 teams to 23 straight victories, with his 1940 team being crowned the co-champion football team of the All-Kentucky conference.
Coach Mills’ record may have been even better than what Messrs. Turner and Keller’s book reflects. The book has Mills first stint being from 1937-1941 before Coach Mills was called off to war, along with many other able-bodied men in his generation. The book then reflects Oakley Brown was the head coach in 1942 and 43 with Chris Cox being the HC in 1944, a year in which the Tigers went 9-1 and were WKC champions.
However, the Louisville Courier-Journal lists Ralph Mills, Hopkinsville, as its 1944 Coach of the Year in high school football in an article published in 2016 awarding the same award to Phillip Haywood from Belfry.
I believe I know from where Turner and Keller may have gotten their information. I, too, consulted the yearbook for that season and it does list Chris Cox as the head coach as opposed to Ralph Mills.
I believe this becomes a matter of which source the reader considers to be more likely correct. You either believe the hometown author of the high school annual’s team page, or the sports reporting staff of the commonwealth’s largest circulated newspaper.
Louisville Courier-Journal lists Ralph Mills, Hopkinsville, as its 1944 coach of the year in high school football
Friday Night Fletch
If this sounds flippant, I don’t mean it to be, as I really can argue either way as to which source would be more likely correct. All of this aside, it appears the Courier-Journal was sufficiently convinced the 9-1 record, compiled in 1944, and the Western Kentucky Conference Championship which went along with it, was the work of Ralph Mills, and not Chris Cox, a point to which they would, to this day, still contend. Were this as true as we believe it to be, it would make Mills’ record over ten seasons 72-31-4.
Even with the nine (9) additional victories, Mills is still third on the all-time coaching wins list. Even were his career record corrected, he remains well short of Thornton’s 109 victories and ahead of James Bravard’s 37 wins.
Back to the key point of the present article. I believe the Hopkinsville High School Tigers were Kentucky High School Football Champions, though tied with Manual from Louisville, in 1940. The below is why.
In 1940, the Tigers won all eleven of its games and never by a margin less than two-touchdowns, in spite of playing the likes of Bowling Green, Mayfield, Owensboro, Clarksville (TN), Glasgow, Henderson, Madisonville, and Princeton during the year. Many of these teams have historically been among the winningest teams in the history of Kentucky High School football and didn’t get there by long lapses of futility, meaning they were likely stout competition, even then.
The Tigers finished the year on a 12 game winning streak dating back to November of 1939, and would win 11 straight games, the following year, in spite of losing much of its lines of scrimmage to graduation. The key here, at least to this author, was the following, which I am taking from the annual published in 1941 but which detailed the accomplishments of the year previous.
The annual said…As a result of their fine record the Tigers won the Western Kentucky conference championship for the first time since 1927 and shared the All-Kentucky league crown with Mighty Manual of Louisville…Emphasis not in original.
In ’40, the Tigers won the Western Kentucky Conference Championship for the first time since 1927 and shared the All-Kentucky League crown with “Mighty” Manual of Louisville
Tiger Annual, 1941
Under Mills, The Tigers scored 369 points in 1940 to the opponent’s 48. The Tigers won all 11 of its games. The Tigers were clearly champions of the Western Kentucky Conference, winning all eight (8) of its conference games.
The Tigers had a player in Terrible Tommy Gray who was chosen to the All-Southern High School team, by Florida news outlets, though only being 5’9″ and weighing 150 pounds. This would indicate the 1940 team’s exploits were widely known in a time where news didn’t travel nearly as fast as today.
The Tigers, though losing many fine players in 1940, played and beat Manual in October of 1941. This game was scheduled in Hopkinsville owing to the Louisville High School’s high regard for the Orange and Black, according to the account in the annual.
The Tigers only trailed twice the entire 1940 season. The Tigers ended the year on a 12 game win streak which would expand to 23 before it was all done, and All-Kentucky conference co-champion sounds like a state championship.
I mean why wouldn’t All-Kentucky not include all of Kentucky? Mills could, just as easily, be recognized for his team’s accomplishments in 1941. Mills’ Tigers beat, for the second consecutive year, every Kentucky team it played, including Manual.
Largely owing to Ralph Mills, the Tigers were 78-28-2 over the expanse of the 1940s
KHSAA statistical website, Tiger Annuals for the decade
The Tigers, who were 78-28-2 over the expanse of the 1940s, were 11-0 in 1940, 11-1 in 1941, don’t know how they did in 1942, 10-0 in 1943, and 9-1 in 1944 and champions of the WKC. The loss in 1941 was to Boys High School from Atlanta, Georgia.
HHS had to take a train to play the nation’s number one ranked team in 1941 which boasted a backfield featuring Clint Castleberry (pictured). Castleberry would finish 3rd in the Heisman voting in 1942 for Bobby Dodd’s Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets as a freshman. Freshman were deemed eligible for Varsity football in 1942 owing to the World War.
So, no team in Kentucky high school football beat the Hoptown Tigers for three out of four consecutive years and the Tigers were a loss to Paducah away from that being four out of five consecutive years. HHS could well have laid claim to titles in 1941 and 1943, in addition to the one it won in 1940, but pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.
In summation, Coach Ralph Mills deserves recognition among the Kentucky all-time greats, particularly those “greats” from way back yonder. Mills won the 1940 All-Kentucky conference co-championship (with Manual) and several Western Kentucky Conference crowns.
Preston “Ty” Holland
Murray, KY: Preston “Ty” Holland was one of the early greats in the coaching game around the western end of Kentucky. Holland coached at his Alma Mater from 1930-1973. Holland made a pair of trips to the title game, in back to back years (1960, 1961).
Holland’s 1960 squad lost to Ed Miracle and the Lynch East Main High Bulldogs, 39-0, in the title game. It would be a re-match in 1961 for the title; and, this time, Holland and Murray would escape with a 14-13 triumph.
Murray wouldn’t win another title, after Holland’s championship in 1961, until John Hina and his 14-0 ball club beat Beechwood, 14-0 in 1974. Holland would be inducted into the KHSAA Hall of Fame in 1989.
There are two other fine testaments to the superlative level of coaching attributed to Coach Holland and his tenure at Murray High. For starters, Ty Holland Stadium stands as a testament to what he meant to the community and to the program.
The stadium, constructed in 1939 as a Depression-era public works project under the guidance of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, is among the few remaining Kentucky state structures. Having it named for Holland is an outward manifestation of what he meant to his school and its town which is virtually impossible to misinterpret.
The Ty Holland Memorial Scholarship was established in 1973 and is yearly awarded to a Murray High student who will attend a Kentucky university.
Friday Night Fletch
The Preston “Ty” Holland Memorial Scholarship was established in 1973, immediately after his retirement the same year. This scholarship is awarded, each year, to a Murray High student who will attend a state university.
Holland was a native of Murray and a 1924 Murray High School graduate. While a prep athlete, Holland was a member of Murray High’s football, basketball, track and baseball teams.
Holland graduate in 1928 from Murray State University and received his master’s degree in 1946. Holland was later honored with a MSU honorary doctorate.
Holland has a right to claim some ownership of the Murray High ’74 title, in addition to his crown in 1961. Why, you may ask?
It was Holland who brought John Hina to Murray to join his staff. Hina had been a Murray State football player and spent a year on the staff at Christian County before taking a similar position at Grove High in Paris, Tennessee.
When Hina returned to Murray, he joined Holland’s staff after a two-year stint in Paris. Hina added track coach and assistant basketball coach to his duties assisting the football program.
Holland retired in 1973 and Hina, in a move which surprised exactly no one, was elevated to the head job. This smooth transition paid huge dividends immediately with the 1974 title.
In summation, every town and school, regardless of enrollment, has a former, big-league, football coach to its credit. There are guys all over the commonwealth whose careers and coaching legends have shaped both the schools lucky enough to have employed them and the communities these schools serve.
Names like “Mills” and “Holland” live on in our memories and hearts. Now, they live in the pages of this publication to be accessed and studied from this day forward, ad infinitum.
Ain’t we lucky?
This is Friday Night Fletch, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
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My dad, Skip Aldridge, played on the “B squad” at Hoptown. He always talked about Murray’s Ty Holland being the only school still running the antiquated single wing offense in the late 1950s. He said it was a tough offense to defend, especially finding the back who had the ball with its use of fake handoffs.