They started 1–2–1. Then they won eight straight.
More than 50 years later, the story of the 1973 Meade County Greenwave football team remains one of the most memorable chapters in Meade County athletics history.
The newest episode of Greenwave: The Stories of Our Community, titled The Beatingest Bunch, looks back at the first Meade County football team to win a regional championship and advance to the state playoffs.
The season hardly looked historic at the beginning.
Jim DeVries took over as head coach after program founder Wilson Sears left. DeVries and his staff introduced the wishbone, a new triple-option offense that required players and coaches to learn a different way of playing football.
The transition took time. Meade County began the season 1–2–1, including a 35–0 loss at Owensboro.
But the Greenwave kept working. And then they started winning.
One victory became another as the Greenwave put together an eight-game winning streak. Players remember a team developing an identity that extended beyond its new offense. They expected to compete, held one another accountable, and began to believe they could win every time they stepped onto the field.
The postseason tested that belief.
Somerset arrived in Brandenburg ranked 12th in the state and favored by 21 points. The temperature was approximately 13 degrees, the field was wet and muddy, and the Meade County community rallied behind its team.
Somerset scored first, but the Greenwave refused to go away. Trailing 8–6 late in the game, Frank Duncan broke around the end for the go-ahead touchdown. A late interception sealed a 12–8 victory and sent Meade County to the state semifinals against No. 1 Paducah Tilghman.
Meade County's season eventually ended against Tilghman, but the team's identity remained on display until the final whistle.
Coach DeVries remembers the opposing coach approaching him after the game and offering a description of his team that has endured for more than five decades:
“That’s the beatingest bunch I’ve ever seen in my life. They hit at the end of the game, beat as hard as they did on the opening kickoff.”
That spirit gives this Greenwave Story its name.
Former players Tommy Garretson, Tim Gossett, Dan Powers and Jay Carlberg join Coach DeVries in remembering not only the football, but the friendships, personalities and moments that made the season unforgettable.
They remember Coach DeVries wearing the same shorts, shirt and floppy hat as the winning streak continued. They remember holding one another accountable. They remember a community becoming more energized with every victory. Most of all, they remember becoming a family.
More than five decades later, the regional championship still matters. Being the first Meade County football team to reach the state playoffs still matters.
But the legacy of 1973 reaches beyond either accomplishment.
Near the conclusion of the episode, Coach DeVries reads a letter thanking the players, parents, assistant coaches, fans, cheerleaders, band members, administrators, managers, media, students and countless others who helped make Meade County football what it became. He describes that extended family as Greenwave Nation and says he will always carry its spirit with him.
The 1973 team helped build that spirit.
The Beatingest Bunch is a story about a championship team, but more than that, it is a story about toughness, relationships, community, and a group that kept fighting together until the very end.