Ground breaking trail blazer made others believe
🎶They tell me that there’s more to life, than just what I can see
Oh I believe,…🎶
Songwriters: Ronnie Dunn/ Craig Wiseman/Brian Higgins / Steve Torch / Paul Barry, 2005
Ty Scroggins was a trailblazer. Ty Scroggins was a charismatic leader who filled up a room by entering it. Ty Scroggins was taken from our KHSAA family way too soon. Scroggins is missed. Scroggins will never be replaced. Scroggins was a 1990 graduate of Fairdale high where he played football and was the sixth man on the school’s ’90 state championship basketball team. Scroggins played LB at Louisville from 1990-1994 and then embarked on an extraordinary coaching career. Enjoy this look back at an extraordinary career and life which netted seven (7) championship game appearances and five (5) titles.
HB Lyon, Scouting Director, “KPGFootball”
Louisville, KY: “Believe” is a song written by Ronnie Dunn and Craig Wiseman and recorded by country music duo Brooks & Dunn. It was released in October of 2005 to much critical acclaim.
“Believe” was the single of the year in 2006. It also won Song of the Year and Music Video of the Year.
The song is about a neighborhood older gentleman who had lost his family to tragedy. When asked how this old man in the lyrics is able to withstand such tragedy without losing his sanity, the old man says he will see them soon in Heaven because he believes.
Believing is really more than half the battle. Ty Scroggins made believers everywhere he went in life.
Scroggins’ basketball team on which he came off the bench, as its “Sixth Man,” were believers. That is how Fairdale won the 1990 “Sweet Sixteen.”
Ty Scroggins was a believer. That is how he played LB at the University of Louisville from 1990-1994.
Louisville Doss believed. That is why they hired its assistant coach, Ty Scroggins, to be its head coach in 2002.
Ty Scroggins was the first black head football coach to win a title in 2007
Friday Night Fletch, KHSAA Statistical Website
Louisville’s Central High believed. That is why they hired Scroggins to lead the Yellow Jacket football program. That is why Scroggins became the first black head coach to win a KHSAA football title in 2007. That is why Scroggins rewarded that belief by winning state titles in 2007, ’08, ’10, ’11, and ’12 and playing for titles in both ’14 and ’16.
Coach Scroggins went on an incredible run at Central which would see him win over a hundred games, win his district 10-times, make eight (8) semis, win five (5) titles, play for seven (7) titles, win a 3A Coach of the Year, and be a National Finalist for Coach of the Year all in a 10-year tenure before turning the program over to one of his best friends in Marvin Dantzler.
“I could always pick up the phone and call him,” said current Central High School football head coach Marvin Dantzler when interviewed by a heavily circulated publication immediately following Coach Scroggins’ passing. “That will be missed, just having those conversations.”
Dantzler replaced Scroggins as Central head coach after Scroggins stepped away to spend more time with his kids after the 2016 season. But, Scroggins remained teaching at the school.
“His class was right above my class,” said Dantzler. “I would spend most of my breaks or whatever up there hanging out with him.”
“It’s remarkable, the run that he had at Central,” said former Central Athletic Director Ryan Bringhurst. “What he really knew how to do was get the men around him, and the boys around him, to believe in the mission…,” said KHSAA Commissioner Julian Tackett. Emphasis supplied.
What he really knew how to do was get the men around him…to believe…
Julian Tackett, KHSAA Commissioner
That was one of his biggest accomplishments, getting others to believe. Put another way, “Great coaches and great teachers, they’re able to impact generations of kids,” said Bringhurst. “Those legacies live on forever.”
“[Scroggins career] definitely open[ed] doors for guys like myself and others,” said Dantzler. “If you put in the work, you surround yourself with the right people, you do it the right way, it [can] be done.”
Scroggins was instrumental in creating the Kentucky Minority Coaches Association. Scroggins did way more than that.
Scroggins opened doors. Scroggins took kids to The Promise Land and won championships. Scroggins took programs to the mountain-top, then left us to blaze a new pathway for all of us to ultimately follow. Scroggins’ example has led us on our own pathway to Heaven.
Scroggins did it all…by believing. Amen!
This is Friday Night Fletch, reporting for KPGFootball, reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
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