Hauck, a Northern Kentucky legend, won a title at Highlands and took Boone County to the title game four (4) times in Class 4A
First of all we would thank two exceptional journalists, Mike Fields, with the “Herald-Leader” and “KHSAA.org,” and James Weber, with the “Cincinnati Enquirer.” These men wrote exceptional pieces about Owen Hauck from which we have borrowed liberally in order to bring this piece to you, our readers. If you look for the red lettering, we have provided links to each of the articles we read and studied to write this piece. Owen Hauck was a legend in Northern Kentucky and learned from one of the best the football game ever knew, Homer Rice, the literal author of the book on running Triple Option and the “Air Option Offense.” There is a statue of Homer Rice on the campus of Georgia Tech University. Think about that a moment. How many Northern Kentucky boys can make a similar claim. Hauck succeeded Rice at Highlands, won a championship there, and then took Boone County High to four, Class 4A, title games and even coaching (perhaps) the greatest RB in KHSAA history in “Alexander the Great.”
HB Lyon, Scouting Director, “KPGFootball”
Florence, KY: Homer Rice was a pretty dad-burned smart guy. Rice attended Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, lettered in football and baseball, and was a Collier’s All-American in 1948.
From 1951-1961 Rice coached high school football in Tennessee and Kentucky. He won 101-games, lost nine (9), and had seven (7) ties.
Charlie Bradshaw hired Rice to be his OC at UK for four years, then he moved onto OU, then Rice was the head man at Cincinnati. Rice moved into athletic administration, served as the AD at several prominent college jobs and even seven a stint in the NFL as the head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Yessir, that Rice was pretty smart. The smartest thing he ever did was hire Owen Hauck in 1954 to join his Bluebird staff at Highlands. The two of them together created a monster.
While Rice was hanging around places like Georgia Tech and the NFL, Hauck was building a right impressive coaching résumé at the high school level. Hauck would compile a 258-109-1 KHSAA coaching record and win a title in 1964, finishing runners-up five other times, many times in Kentucky’s largest classification of competition.
Hauck would call the eight years he spent on Homer Rice’s staff “wonderful.” I would think so. With Hauck on staff, Rice would go 71-11-6 those eight years, including three undefeated seasons, 50-straight wins, five (5) Northern Kentucky Conference titles and back-to-back, Class 2A state football (KHSAA) championships in 1960 (12-0 over Roy Kidd and Madison High School) & 1961 (21-13 over Roy Walton and Lafayette).
Hauck would succeed his mentor, Homer Rice, as Highlands football coach when Rice departed to join Charlie Bradshaw’s staff at UK. Hauck would immediately take Highlands to a 2A title over Madison High, and Bobby Harville, winning 36-0 and running the “Royal Purples” plumb off Stoll Field in Lexington.
Rice hired Hauck a second time. This time the year was 1967 and Rice was at the University of Cincinnati. Hauck coached the defensive line before Mt. Healthy High in Ohio called him to be its head football coach.
At Highlands, Rice and Hauck would go 71-11-6 in their eight years together including…50-straight wins and five (5) N. Ky. conference titles…
Mike Fields, KHSAA.org
From there, in 1973, Hauck got the job he would keep until he retired. For the next 25 years, from 1973-1998, Hauck became synonymous with Boone County High School football.
Hauck and his rebels were the scourge of Lexington area football teams. Boone County has never won a KHSAA title in football. However, Hauck guided Boone County to state runner-up finishes in 1986, 1987, 1992 and 1994. The Rebels knocked off Lexington competition on their way to all of those last four title game appearances.
During one dominant stretch, Boone County went 31-2 against Lexington teams, and did it in a smash-mouth way defined with a strong, physical offensive line and hard-running tailbacks.
The Rebels’ star ball carriers included Shaun Alexander. You might know him better as “Alexander the Great.”
Alexander went on to star at Alabama and in the NFL. In the NFL, Alexander won MVP honors while playing for the Seattle Seahawks. Alexander, saddened upon learning of the death of his high school coach back in 2016, tweeted out, “Love you Coach Hauck. Thank Jesus for allowing a great man like you in my life. You taught us how to fight & be a winner.”
Hauck was noted for several memorable quotations. Hauck was once credited as saying, “Men, the other team knows all our plays. Good, we know them too.”
Hauck continued, “The question is can they stop it…..If we can’t get a yard we got major problems with our program….”
Hauck was also fond of saying, “We will play anyone anytime and I guarantee they are going to feel it in the morning… We don’t run up the score, we just run the ball. If you can’t stop the run, it will be a tough night for you…”
Maybe even most famously, Hauck was fond of saying, “Don’t deviate, men. If somebody is in your path, go through them.”
Mike Meighan, a famous football coach in Lexington circles, who was an assistant at Bryan Station and Lexington Christian Academy and the head man at Paul Laurence Dunbar, regularly played Hauck coached teams. Meighan was asked once what was his clearest memory of those days and he said, “I remember getting my a$$ kicked.”
Meighan continued, “They had really good tailbacks. Hauck would just pound you with those guys.”
I remember getting my a$$ kicked
Mike Meighan asked for his clearest memory of playing Owen Hauck coached teams
“[Hauck] taught a lot about life through football,” said Bryson Warner, a 1992 Boone County High School graduate, former head football coach at several stops, and now real estate agent/tycoon. “It’s not about getting knocked down, it’s how soon you get back up.”
“He had such a tremendous impact on our lives,” Warner said. “He was always there for us. If he saw someone who could make that impact, he helped us try to duplicate that. We learned a lot from what he taught us. All of us who played for him took a lot from him and tried to teach it to our players.”
“You grew up wanting to play for Coach Hauck,” Warner said. “You kept up with him and the program at all times. All these guys were so close. It wasn’t just the guys in our classes. He never had to do roll call because everyone was there… It was fun. Conditioning was fun. He taught us a work ethic. We respected him so much that we didn’t want to disappoint him.”
Warner concluded with “[Hauck] made Boone a great place to be reared. We all learned life through football.”
“Hauck was demanding but fair, and always fun to be around,” said Skip Hicks, who played for Hauck at Highlands and was a player on Hauck’s only state championship team in 1964 with the Bluebirds. “[Hauck] attended a lot of functions and he would always pull me aside and talk football,” Hicks said.
“That’s the way he was. [Hauck] was a joy to play for. The rules were different, then. We weren’t allowed to take our helmets off, we weren’t allowed to unbuckle our chin strap or get water.”
It was a toughness which existed in those days I am not sure still exists. Hauck’s ambitions stemmed from his high school coach at Ludlow, Judge Waddell. Hauck referred to Waddell as “…one of the finest men I’ve ever known.”
At the end of the day, Hauck won 258-games in the KHSAA, 210-wins at Boone County alone. Hauck took a team which had never before won a title to four opportunities to do just that in Kentucky’s largest classification (4A).
Hauck developed some of the more elite football playing talent to ever run across a KHSAA playing surface and, in the end, his name and memory adorn the Boone County High School Football Stadium and playing surface. I can’t speak for you but that seems like a ton of things coming around full circle to me!
This is Friday Night Fletch, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
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