Former JACHS football coach honored as loop around field named Jim Cullivan Way
Published 10:48 pm Wednesday, November 27, 2024
- Photo by Jeff Phillips Former Cawood player and coach Rick Parsons (left) and Harlan County board member Wallace Napier held one of the signs to mark Jim Cullivan Way at James A. Cawood Elementary School.
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Former Cawood players (from left) Doug Collins, Tim Miniard, Garry Henson, David Hensley, Rick Parsons and Eric Bowling spelled out “Cully” next to a sign at the former Cawood High School football field to honor Jim Sullivan, who coached the Trojans from 1980 to 1988 and won over 70 percent of his games. Former assistant coach Bill Musick (third from right) was also at the gathering to honor Sullivan, who died at 103 on Sept. 17.
During a remarkably successful nine-year run of football in the 1980s when the Cawood Trojans won over 70 percent of their games, there was no debate about how the game was to be played.
There was only the Jim Cullivan Way.
The Harlan County Board of Education voted Tuesday to honor Cullivan, who died at the age of 103 on Sept. 17 at his hometown of Paris, Tenn., naming the loop through the Harlan County Soccer Complex at James A. Cawood Elementary School as Jim Cullivan Way. The complex was previously the football facility at JACHS.
Cullivan posted a 66-28 record in nine seasons, leading the Trojans to undefeated regular seasons in both 1981 and 1985. Both squads were ranked, at one point during the season, as the No. 1 3A team in Kentucky.
Rick Parsons, one of Cullivan’s former players who also served as an assistant coach, was in attendance and had worked with county school board member Wallace Napier to identify a way to honor Cullivan for his service to Harlan County student athletes, according to a story on the Harlan County Schools web site.
Parsons recalled Cullivan telling him there are “only two kinds of coaches, ones that have been fired and the ones who are going to be fired. He said it is a rough profession.”
“If not for coach Cully, I’m not sure where I would be today. He gave me a life path that would not have been possible without him,” said former all-state running back David Hensley, who was the best player at JACHS in the 1980s. “I know I share this thought with anyone one who played for coach Cully when I say “from the bottom of my heart coach, thanks, congrats and God bless.”
Hensley went into coaching after playing for the legendary Roy Kidd at Eastern Kentucky University and was the head coach at both East Jessamine and Dunbar and served as an assistant at several other schools.
“I coached and taught for 36 years in Kentucky, all of which was result of coach Cully’s influence on me,” said Hensley, whose son Brady now plays for Eastern after earning all-state honors as a senior at Lexington Christian.
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Several of the best players during Cullivan’s tenure gathered Wednesday evening at the high school to honor their coach with the unveiling of the sign to mark Jim Cullivan Way.
Parsons, Hensley and Eric Bowling, all 1983 JACHS graduates, were at the ceremony, along with board chairman Gary Farmer, a 1979 Cawood graduate. Two Class of 1984 stars, quarterback Doug Collins and receiver Tim Miniard, were also in attendance. Both went on to play at Union College in the early years of the program. Garry Henson, a 1986 second-team all-state defensive end, was there from the JACHS Class of 1987. Former assistant coach Bill Musick, who went on to lead Evarts to a regional title in 1990 before going on to coach at Johnson Central, made the trip from Ashland to honor his mentor.
