[EKC Man]

Coach Fields is a class act and will always be special to the program. He is an alum and credit should be given where credit is due. He took over the program 10 years ago when it was basically dead dressing 20 players and brought it back to life. Now the interest and community support for the program is back and 50+ kids come out each year. I wouldn't rule out him being involved in the program still in my opinion. Time will tell.

Now to address your predictions it is entirely possible your correct but I think you are forgetting something or are unaware. BC will return their entire team for all practical purposes. Only 4 seniors saw any real playing time last year. Only 6 Seniors the year before. BC has been playing Varsity for 2 seasons with mostly a JV team. That's not a knock on those that played but their classes just didn't have the numbers needed. The JV has been dominant against many of these same teams (Fairview, Bracken, Morgan, West, Lewis, Nicholas) for the past 3 seasons, going undefeated last year and only dropping 4 games total in 2012 and 2013 (2 of the 4 losses were to Raceland who has been to the state semi-finals the past 2 seasons with those teams). Several of the 14-16 incoming Seniors have been asked to play varsity for 2 seasons. They have another 12-14 solid Juniors coming in behind them.

The EKC Gridorama is the weekend before the season opens. After watching BC play many teams will go back their locker rooms and erase that W they had penciled in on their schedule beside Bath County.

I will stand by my predictions with the hope that you are closer to being correct than me. I have rarely seen a new coach come into a situation like this one and win right away. Especially this late in the year. New offense, new defense, new special teams, new staff, new philosophy on everything. From what I've heard this was not a smooth removal of Coach Fields. When this happens, generally speaking, there is resentment that lingers among the players. From your previous post you said that the JV where undefeated. I'm assuming that JV team had their success under Coach Fields' guidance. There will be kids that resist change. Whoever the new coach turns out to be, he will need to win those kids over, which will take time; and being this late in the year, that's time he won't have. I heard a very high profile coach once say that, when going into a new job, you might as well throw out the first season. Any wins there are bonus; icing on the cake. He was a very successful guy at the college level that had moved up the ladder. I can't recall his name but I heard him speak at the Louisville Coach of the Year Clinic about ten years ago. (Maybe Mark Richt?) anyway, loyalty takes time to build. That's one of the hardest things to build as a new staff. Again, I hope I'm wrong and Bath wins 7+ games. I'm glad Bath is back in the more traditional EKC district. It will eventually reignite many old rivalries and makes more sense for them geographically. I'm basing all of this on what I've seen/experienced in the past. History has a way of repeating itself.

On another note, even though I haven't spoke to Coach Fields in a while, I know this must be difficult for him. I've been through the same thing. He always talked good about his players and was always optimistic. I hope he continues to coach. I know there are many schools out there that would be elated to have a class act like him leading their program.