Coach tells how Hillsboro became a football state power in the early 2000s in new book
Richard Herzog, a member of the Hillsboro football coaching staff that won a 2003 TSSAA state championship and advanced to the finals three other years, is writing a book about how the school's outstanding run came together.
It will be Herzog's second book and first on sports. He's titled it "Burro Run."
"You should write about what you know," said Herzog, the team's defensive coordinator from 1998-2005, who knows everything that went into turning the Burros into winners.
He joined coach Ron Aydelott's staff coming off a six-win season, which included a trip to the first round of the playoffs. Over the next couple of seasons the staff, which also included Jay Gore, Terry Hemontoler, Mose Phillips and Ty Finch, started to realize they were building something special.
Interestingly, Herzog said the Burros' success on the field actually began in the classroom.
"If a kid in Nashville wanted to go to a school that had a class offered that no other school offered then they could transfer," Herzog said. "We were fortunate enough to have some of those classes. So once we started getting pretty good in football, word got out, 'Hillsboro has this class, come on.' We weren't recruiting them, but they could come on their on and we ended up getting some really good football players."
The Burros went from failing to make the Class 4A playoffs in 1998 to advancing to the second round in 1999, the semifinals in 2000 and the state championship game in 2001 and 2002.
Hillsboro won its first state championship in 2003 when it shut out Morristown West 21-0. The Burros, who won the title again under a different staff in 2006, became only the third Metro Public Schools team to win a state championship since Overton in 1981 and Pearl-Cohn in 1996 and 1997.
The Burros compiled a record of 55-4 over their four-year run.
The chemistry of the staff, said Herzog, who began his career as a graduate assistant at Vanderbilt under Watson Brown and spent one year under Gerry DiNardo, was intricate in the program's success.
"With Ron being at the helm and then us as a staff coming together and saying this is the way it's got to be is what led to our success," Herzog said. "We had a really good athletic principal in Jim Overstreet. We were able to establish a boosters club that got a lot of things done. Jay having his experience at Lipscomb and coaching in state championships and Terry having all of his experience and my college experience; for four guys we had about 100 years of coaching experience."
Some of the key players during the run included Calvin Bryant, Brad Doss, Walter Fisher Jr., Marcellus Tibbs and Justin Merritt.
Herzog, who is retired, already has more than 200 pages written. He hopes to be done by the end of year.
His first book − "Pay Dirt" − was a memoir about surviving sexual abuse from a teacher as a high school student in New Orleans.
George Plaster starting speaker series at Ford Ice Center
After recently moving his studio to Ford Ice Center in Bellevue, host George Plaster announced he is starting a luncheon speaker series open to the public.
It begins April 20 with Barry Trotz, who is set to replace David Poile as the Nashville Predators' general manager. The luncheon will be from 11:30 a.m.-12:45 p.m.
Trotz, 60, was the Predators' coach from the franchise's origin in 1998 until 2014. He coached the Washington Capitals from 2014-18 and won the Stanley Cup in his final season then the New York Islanders from 2018-22.
Plaster, who hosts a sports talk show Monday-Friday (2-4 p.m.) on YouTube, Facebook, Apple Podcasts and Spotify, said he will keep the monthly series going through the summer.
"I've always thought these kind of luncheons are good and if you do them right people really enjoy them," Plaster said. "I's a good way for people to connect in the sports world."
For reservations email Plaster at plastergeorge@gmail.com.
Wellness conference for young athletes coming to Nissan Stadium
A Nashville-based wellness organization will host its inaugural Relate To Athlete conference April 21 supported by the Tennessee Titans Foundation and Nashville SC at Nissan Stadium.
It’s an opportunity for local student-athletes to focus on mental health as they learn from sports health professionals on how to better their state of minds.
There will be eight sessions led by mental health professionals, former pro athletes, and current student athletes.
Some of the speakers include former Titans wider receiver Kevin Dyson (principal at Centennial High); Johari Matthews, Titans Foundation program director; Gilman Whiting, Vanderbilt director of graduate studies for African American and Diaspora Studies; and Kofi Kondwani, assistant professor at the Morehouse School of Medicine.
For more information or to register visit r2aconference.com.
If you have an item for Midstate Chatter contact Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 or on Twitter @MikeOrganWriter.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Coach tells how Hillsboro became a football state power in new book
