Find us on Facebook: The River City News @ Facebook
|
 |
| The bus returns with the state champions on board |
The road to Bowling Green and the 2011 Kentucky State Football Class 2-A Championship trophy was fourteen years long for the Holy Cross Indians. A program that started in 1998 is now king in Kentucky in 2011. "Some of these kids didn't win a game in freshman football, and by the time they're seniors, they win the state championship," said Clay Eifert, principal of Holy Cross. "We teach our kids to overachieve and to believe anything is possible."
|
The trip to Western Kentucky University for the final game drew four-thousand Holy Cross students, fans, and alumni, Eifert said, more than were there for opposing Glasgow which is just thirty minutes away from Bowling Green. More importantly, there were more points on Holy Cross's side of the scoreboard when the final whistle blew: Indians 33, Glasgow 14. The Latonia Catholic school brings back its first state title and the first for any school in Covington, Northern Kentucky's final river city to be on top in Kentucky football.
|
 |
| Principal Clay Eifert await the bus |
The revelry from the final game continued from WKU's L.T. Smith Stadium to Church Street in Latonia where roughly sixty people waited in freezing temperatures to welcome back their heros. "Holy Cross is a generational school and when we have an even tlike this it brings all the alumni together," Eifert said. "I think that's what's special about the school is everyone comes back." Eifert's time at Holy Cross started as a first-grader in 1969. Now, as principal, he looks forward to the rewards of Holy Cross's efforts on the football field.
|
"This helps us moving forward," he said. "We're the only Catholic school that's been at full capacity the past twelve years. We've got a storied athletic tradition: four regional titles in boys' basketball, state championships in softball and volleyball. But for a football team to win after only fourteen years, that's really an accomplishment." Eifert credits the teaching and coaching style of head coach and former Cincinnati Bengal Bruce Kozerski. "He takes kids and develops them over four years, teaches them to play together and teaches them to overachieve, and they believe anything is possible" Eifert said. "The patron saint of Holy Cross is Saint Jude, the patron saint of the impossible. The impossible happened at Holy Cross."
|
Holy Cross sits on Church street in an urban setting with no outdoor athletic facilities, adding to the sense of overcoming the impossible. The school plays its home games at Holmes, but it does have a practice field through an agreement with the City of Covington. After the 1997 flood destroyed Rosedale Park, Holy Cross agreed to redevelop it. The location is now Eva G. Farris Park and is home to practice fields, a soccer field and a running track. "To think that a small inner city school on a two-acre block with no football field of our own, can compete with schools that have all the resources, is really something," Eifert said.
FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THE RETURN OF THE CHAMPS, CLICK BELOW:
|
No comments:
Post a Comment