The
Untouchables

The 1955 season began September 1 with a trip to Bell County. Corbin opened with a 25-6 victory, a strong beginning that offered an early indication of the team's potential. Eight days later, the Redhounds returned to Campbell Field and overwhelmed Henry Clay 33-0. The following week brought another convincing performance, a 39-0 shutout of Pineville. Three games into the season, Corbin had outscored its opponents 97-6.

But the fourth game provided a very different challenge. On September 23, the Redhounds traveled to Louisville to face DuPont Manual, an opponent capable of testing Corbin in ways its first three challengers had not. The result was a defensive struggle. Corbin won 7-0. It was the team's narrowest victory of the regular season, and perhaps one of its most revealing results. The Redhounds had already demonstrated that they could score in bunches. Against Manual, they demonstrated that they could survive a game in which every possession carried greater importance.

Four games into the season, Corbin was undefeated. More impressively, the defense had surrendered just six total points. And the Redhounds were only beginning to establish their dominance.

With the season moving into October, the challenges continued. Corbin traveled to Somerset on October 14 and returned with a 45-6 victory. The following week, Danville came to Campbell Field and produced the toughest offensive challenge the Redhounds had faced to that point. Corbin surrendered 20 points, more than its opponents had managed in the first seven games combined. But the Redhounds responded with 34 points of their own. The final was 34-20. That result offered another reminder that this team could win without dominating every moment of a contest.

The Redhounds were 8-0. Two regular-season games remained. On October 28, Williamsburg traveled to Campbell Field and was defeated 61-6. A week later, Corbin closed the regular season with a 56-0 victory over Knox Central. The final whistle on November 4 marked the completion of a perfect ten-game regular season. Ten games played. Ten victories. Six shutouts. An offense that had scored 422 points. A defense that had surrendered just 38.

Corbin had done everything necessary to establish itself among Kentucky's outstanding football teams. Yet there was still another game to play. And this one would become part of the championship story.

Among the players who wore Corbin's uniform in 1955 was a young athlete named Calvin Bird. In the decades that followed, the Bird name would become one of the most recognizable in Corbin sports history. Calvin and his brothers helped establish a remarkable family legacy, one associated with extraordinary athletic ability and success beyond the high school level. Calvin would go on to play college football at the University of Kentucky and attract professional football attention. But long before those accomplishments, he was a Redhound.

Perhaps no recollection better illustrates Bird's impact than a story told by Larry "Cotton" Adams. In 1955, Adams was just nine years old. He attended a Corbin football game and watched Bird return the opening kickoff for a touchdown, hurdling an attempted tackler near midfield. The play left an impression that would survive for more than sixty years. That boy would eventually become a Corbin football player himself. He would later return to the program as a coach. And in 1982, Larry "Cotton" Adams would guide the Redhounds to another state championship.

A young spectator watches Calvin Bird electrify Campbell Field in 1955. Twenty-seven years later, that same spectator is coaching Corbin to a state championship. The players changed. The coaches changed. Football itself changed. But the tradition continued.