Challenger

Yelling at the top of his lungs on the football field is where you will usually find him. Or should I say could find him. For Coach Gooch, this past football season was his last here at Apollo. He will be moving on and taking a new step in his coaching career. Gooch will be leaving to go to Montgomery Co. High School in Montgomery, County Kentucky.

There, he will be teaching weight lifting and he will also continue his coaching career. “I feel like it is a good opportunity” states Gooch. Making the decision was extremely difficult for Coach Gooch, basically because the past year was an awesome year for the football team and the coaches. Well at least he is leaving on a good year and not a bad one.

Gooch had two specific memories that meant a lot to him in the past ten years he has been here at Apollo. The first one is when Apollo beat Henderson Co. in the second round of the playoffs. Henderson Co. had beat us in the regular season but Apollo came back and showed the Colonels how football is suppose to be played. Beating them then put us in the 2001 regional championship game. That game was played at Rash Stadium and we played Owensboro High School. We lost to them and they went on to play Louisville Male.

Of course we all know the next best memory .Does the phrase “taste like chicken” ring a bell? Duh, the little panthers over at Daviess Co. decided to put dead chickens on our field and they also painted the field with spray paint. So during half-time of that game the students got on the field an did the chicken dance. That had to make them feel very dumb. So we decided to beat them with a score of 43-0.

Many records were set and many titles were won by the talented coach. In 1999 and 2000 Apollo won District for the first time in history. Apollo was District runner up five times in the last five years. In 2001, the year we beat Henderson, we lost to Owensboro High School to become Regional Runner up. Since we beat Daviess County, Owensboro High School, and Owensboro Catholic in 2004, we became the City- County Champs. That was a great year for football at AHS. We were also City- County Champs in 1995, 1997, and 1998.

During spirit weeks Apollo always did a special fundrasier in order to give money to a group in need of money. 2003 Apollo did a fundrasier for the children at St. Judes. What many don’t know about Coach Gooch is that his daughter was at St. Judes for the longest time. All the money Apollo rasied went to St. Jude to help for research. Coach Gooch brought his daughter to the pep rally and this made everyone want to give more money, because seeing what St.Judes can do is absolutly amazing.

Seeing Coach Gooch go is disappointing. He is a great coach and a big influence to all the young football players he has coached. He has a big heart too. From dealing with the stress of football to the stress of taking care of his family at home. He takes on alot of responsiblity. We love you Coach Gooch and wish you luck in the future. I hope the school down there respects you as much as we did here at Apollo. You are not as scary as people make you out to be. Its sad to see you go but we are proud that you are moving on to bigger and better things.