Call it the curse of state of K – Kentucky and Kansas. In the wheat fields of Kansas, the Jayhawks’ fall basketball practice draws a bigger crowd than football games. It’s a hard life for a football coach when you realize the court at Kansas is named after Dr. James Naismith. Yes, that same Naismith that nailed up the first peach basket in Springfield in the 1890’s.
Bill Monroe’s bluegrass standard “Blue Moon of Kentucky” pines on about a lost love. But to Kentucky football coaches, the sphere that lights up a landscape of bluegrass, bourbon, and some of the finest horses in the world is also is a reminder that basketball is the sport of choice.
“Kentucky is a basketball state. Period. There is no changing that and because you can’t change that you have to figure out a way to adapt,” Camden County Head Football Coach Bob Sphire said.
Sphire grew up in Kentucky and started his coaching career at Fairdale High School in Louisville after graduating Eastern Kentucky in 1979. Sphire knows how to build a program from the bottom up. He started the football program at Lexington Catholic High in the thoroughbred country of Lexington, Kentucky.
Lexington Catholic won one game in its first season in 1991, but with the workload increased and the buy into Sphire’s vision, the Knights were 9-1 in 1992. From 1998-2005, Sphire’s teams averaged double digits, six district championships and a 3A State Championship in 2005. The same year the Knights went to the state championship they were also nationally ranked. Lexington Catholic’s numbers in 2005 were absolutely startling and solidified the air raid offense and fast attacking defense. In 13 games, Lexington Catholic scored 676 points and averaged 165.0 rushing yards per game and 261.6 passing yards per game.
Sphire’s time in Lexington also showed his prowess with quarterbacks, one of which, Justin Burke, was named the Gatorade State Player of the Year and finished as a finalist for the national award.
When jobs started to come open in Georgia, Sphire’s name started to surface all over the southeast. Many of the message boards had him pegged for Valdosta, which was open at the time and considered to be the biggest job in Georgia. But Sphire and the air raid landed at North Gwinnett, a program that had been searching for its own identity.
The majority of schools in Georgia in 2006 still relied on a ground game. In fact, the majority of schools ran some type of variation of the Wing-T. Programs were going through changes in the mid-2000’s as Chip Kelly was starting to create the Oregon system, which was a true spread system and was executed to the second allowing an offense to dictate the pace and reaction of the defense.
“The offense sets the tempo and we go fast and we keep it moving trying take advantage of the defense,” Sphire said. “As the offense moves quickly it creates the same sense of tempo and urgency on the defensive side of the ball and it allows us to attack downhill. We can create more turnovers with the defense and it helps the offense stay at its tempo.”
Sphire had been working his air raid camps and the select quarterback camps, so he knew what football rich prospects could be found in metro-Atlanta. A popular and dynamic clinic speaker, many coaches really started paying attention to Sphire’s offense and trying to adapt pieces. Sphire would show coaches various ways to create an effective screen game and get your athletic players in spaces where they could let their natural ability take over.
The Bulldogs of North Gwinnett had never won 10 games in a season before Sphire. Once he arrived in 2006, Sphire won 10 games every year and made playoff absent North Gwinnett into a serious state contender. In his first season, Sphire had quarterback Michael Tamburo, who went to Boise State. Later the Bulldogs would be quarterbacked by his son Hayden, who played collegiately at Murray State.
Fifteen years, five region titles, and a 2007 state title loss to Lowndes and 2013 to Norcross, North Gwinnett was a run first offense before Bob Sphire got there. The excitement of the spread wasn’t just confined to the football field, the student body at North Gwinnett created their own “Bob” squad.
In November, one of the most coveted jobs in the southeast United States suddenly came open. Camden County High School head football coach Welton Coffey would assume the athletic director’s position the following year, opening the head football job. Camden County was the AJC team of the decade by class in the 2000’s with three state titles under Wing-T wizard Jeff Herron. Herron departed to retirement and after a couple of years at Prince Avenue Christian grabbed a 7A title in his one year stint with Grayson before heading to South Carolina’s T.L. Hannah.
Camden County sorted through resumes of the best high school and college coaches in the state, but Sphire made a hire that intrigued the entire state. The Wildcats have been so formatted to the Wing T, coaches probably know the secret handshake. Sphire would come in and throw the ball more in two weeks of practice than the Wildcats threw all last season.
“It’s a process definitely,” he said. “This is not something that we will learn all at once. It’s a lot to comprehend and we know that we are going to make mistakes but as long as we are moving towards our goal that is expected. Players are learning our terminology and everyone is using the same verbiage and we are starting to see some execution showing the learning is taking place.”
SE-CC-0817-Sphire
The Kentucky Thoroughbred
By W. John Wood
Photography by Michael Brinson
