By MARK MAYNARD - The Independent
ASHLAND
September 03, 2008 11:44 pm
—
It’s been 50 years since Ashland had a football team go through a season without a loss.
The 1958 Tomcats — the last undefeated team in school history — will be recognized on its golden anniversary Friday night at Putnam Stadium.
The calling card for Ashland’s ’58 team was pretty simple: It was pound and ground.
Led by a Mr. Outside (Dick Fillmore) and Mr. Inside (Herb Conley), these Tomcats were built for running the football. Fillmore was also Mr. Excitement, averaging 41.9 yards on his 20 touchdown runs.
Perhaps his biggest TD run was an 86-yard scamper against Ironton in the closing seconds of a 28-22 victory.
Fred Anson, an assistant who coached the running backs, remembers that game and that play well.
“It was right at the end of that game and I was up top (on the press box),” he said. “There was only about two minutes left and I came down. I was satisfied with a tie.”
With less that a minute remaining and Ashland on its own 14, a timeout was called. Quarterback Kendall Bocard huddled with the coaches and then came back with the play. It was going to be an off-tackle run by Fillmore.
“He broke a couple of tackles and was gone,” Anson said.
Fillmore said the players were surprised with the call, but loved the outcome.
“We thought it was going to be a pass play,” Fillmore said. “We ran it and Warner Caines got the last block on the halfback (defensive back) just as he was reaching for me.”
Fillmore said an Ironton assistant coach, Charlie Couch, who later coached at Marshall and was killed in the fateful 1970 plane crash, told Fillmore he was so close to the sideline he could have brought him down himself.
Duke Moore, who had three interceptions in the Ironton win, remembered Caines and Bobby Lee delivering key blocks on Fillmore’s electrifying run.
“He had a couple of key blocks and there may have been another one or two, but those two (Caines and Lee) stand out in my mind,” Moore said. “He (Fillmore) probably got hit six times. You could never get a solid lick on Dicky. I tried my best (in practice) to get a hard hit on him and couldn’t do it.”
Moore, a starter at defensive halfback who finished with eight interceptions, was a speedster, too. But he couldn’t nudge a starting spot on offense.
“I was teasing Dicky when I met him at the park (two weeks ago). I said ‘You know who the best player yards per carry we had?’ He said, ‘I think I was.’ I told him it was me but I didn’t carry it but about eight times.”
Ashland didn’t make it through the season completely unblemished. Huntington East tied the Tomcats 18-18 in the fourth week of the season.
“We let that daggone Huntington East tie us,” Moore said. “Our kicker, Terry Collins, was feeling real bad after that one because he missed four extra points (including two after one TD because of a penalty). After the game he said ‘I wish I had a gun, I’d shoot myself.’ I told him ‘It wouldn’t matter if you did, because you’d miss anyway.’ We could tease each other. That’s how this team was. I can’t describe how close we were.”
Of course, even after going 10-0-1, that was the end. The Kentucky High School Athletic Association hadn’t instituted a playoff format.
Ashland went 9-0-1 in the regular season and then played Richmond Madison-Model, led by future UK quarterback Jerry Woolum, in the Recreation Bowl. The Tomcats led only 14-13 at the half but outscored Model 20-0 in the second half for a season-ending 34-13 triumph.
With Model geared to stop Fillmore, which it did well, keeping him out of the end zone for the only game all season, Joey Layman played the role of star with three touchdown runs.
While there wasn’t a state playoff, there were two polls —– one from state coaches and another from The Courier-Journal. St. Xavier was No. 1 in the CJ poll and Ashland in the coaches poll.
“We wanted to play St. X,” Fillmore said. “It didn’t work out.”
Bocard shrugs off the idea that there wasn’t a playoff in place.
“That’s the way the system was then,” he said. “But we were a helluva good football team. We were not finesse. We ran the belly series. I’d put the ball in Herbie’s belly and we’d sometimes run 10 yards before I’d pull it out. It was a good, physical football team. Kind of like that 1961 (Tomcat) basketball team.”
Fillmore’s shifty running accounted for 1,223 yards and 20 touchdowns, averaging 11.4 per carry. Conley was the inside power and ran for 906 yards and 16 touchdowns with 7.2 per carry.
Bocard (491 yards rushing) and Layman (459) also did their share of running. Layman scored on runs of 50, 18 ad 17 against Model.
Fillmore scored 124 points and was second in area scoring that season to Catlettsburg’s Jim Lee, who finished with 146 points.
As for passing, well, it just wasn’t that kind of team. Bocard completed only 14 passes all season — nine of them going for touchdowns. Monte Campbell had 13 catches for 373 yards and eight TDs.
“We didn’t have to throw,” Bocard said. “We had a very good offensive line and with Herbie, Dick and Joey, why pass?”
Bocard was a hard-nosed runner himself and also teamed with Conley as inside linebackers in a wide-tackle six scheme. They were both punishing tacklers on a physical Tomcat defense.
Ashland rushed for 3,691 yards and outscored opponents 424-97.
The late Rex Miller was the head coach for the Tomcats in the ’58 season.
“We began to see it develop the year before that,” Anson said. “It was about halfway through that season when everything started coming together. We got off to a bad start that year.”
Team’s golden anniversary
Members of the 1958 Ashland Tomcats will be recognized at halftime of the Pikeville-Ashland game on Friday. Players need to be at the back gate on Elm Street at 7 p.m. and will be sitting in a roped off section. There will be a reception at the Elks Lodge following the game. Players will also be meeting from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Ashland Plaza Hotel.
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