Before he was a college football head coach, before he was an offensive coordinator, even before he was a college player — Neal Brown was one of the best high school football players ever to play in Kentucky.
While covering the WVU baseball team in an NCAA Regional in Lexington, Ky. a couple of weekends ago, I had the chance to go and see the high school where Neal Brown’s football career started.
Due to a lack of lodging in the Lexington area, a narrative that took on a life of its own in the days leading into the tournament, I had to stay in a hotel about 45 minutes outside of Lexington, in a town called Danville.
If, like me, the name Danville sounds familiar to you, it’s because that is where Brown grew up and attended Boyle County High School. I decided to look up Boyle County High School out of curiosity and you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that Brown’s alma mater has turned into a football powerhouse.
The Rebels have won three-straight Kentucky state championships and four of the last six. In Kentucky’s six-class system, Boyle County won a 3A title in 2017 and their three most-recent in 4A. That piqued my interest enough to swing by the high school on my final day in Kentucky and check the place out.
What I found was a humble little football field. Our fields here in Morgantown — Pony Lewis Field at MHS and Mylan Pharmaceuticals at UHS — both dwarf Rebel Stadium, which had a big entryway made of brick and large home stands, but normal bleachers on the visitors’ side and a small scoreboard out of one end zone.
It reminded me more of my own high school’s field, little Mercer High School in Pennsylvania, than that of a multiple-time state champion. The only difference is that Boyle County looked to have relatively new turf while, my alma mater still plays on grass.
It was while I was reminiscing about my own high school that I remembered that Brown had recruited someone out of Boyle County during his WVU tenure, former wide receiver Reese Smith.
“From my hometown, he’s really the first player that I’ve actively recruited from home,” Brown said back on national signing day in 2019. “That’s always going to be home for me so I’ve always been choosy about who we go back and get, so that tells you how much I think of him. He’s highly productive, he’s about the right things, he’s tough, he’s physical.”
Brown would know something about being a highly productive receiver at Boyle County. When Brown’s high school career ended in 1997, he had the third-most receptions (154) and fifth-most receiving yards (2,327) all-time in the state of Kentucky. I was able to find those figures because Brown, to this day, remains in the record books as one of the state’s best receivers ever, although he has been pushed down the board a bit in each category.
One of the people pushing Brown down the board was Smith, who topped each of Brown’s marks with 202 career receptions (currently 11th all-time) and 4,389 yards (sixth all-time). Also showing up in the Kentucky record books is former WVU offensive coordinator Gerad Parker, who played at Lawrence County until 1999. Parker ranks fifth in all-time receptions (238) and third in yards (4,736).
Ironically, despite the fact that Boyle County has turned into a powerhouse today and that Brown was so productive while he was there, Brown was not a champion with the Rebels. In fact, Boyle County’s first state championship came in 1999, just two seasons after Brown had already graduated and went to the nearby University of Kentucky.
Brown eventually transferred to UMass, where he finished his playing career and began his coaching one. Twenty or so years later, Brown is now in Morgantown coaching the Mountaineers.
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