[HCS]

I believe one thing that has changed the level of play in all sports at Clay County and most other mountain and coalfield schools is loss of enrollment. In the golden days of one championship after another in their sports programs Clay County had over 1200 students 9-12. Now they are around 700. That is not much over half of the student pool that Bobby Keith and others had access to in his coaching days. Bobby always developed talent from the elementary level and up and in some years was able to bring in additional talent to supplement his own kids, usually at the expense of in-county school Red Bird or other nearby counties.
The same loss of enrollments has also affected 14th and 15th region programs, too. Knott Central was around 1300 in 1975 and today have under 600 students. Breathitt County had 1100 in the ‘70s and ‘80s but I was told by a Breathitt administrator that they are under 500 in 9-12 nowadays.

I remember when Cawood was in AAA with Breathitt, Knott and Leslie at various times in the 70s and 80s when they had enrollments as you mentioned. It is amazing to look at the changes. Harlan County had 12 high schools in the early 1960s.