KNOTT COUNTY, Ky. — Strength lies in Hindman, Kentucky. That’s clear to see as the community, just like many towns throughout eastern Kentucky, has banded together to rebuild following the devastating floods.
Knott County Central High School football coach Vance Hurley experienced that first-hand with the heroic deeds of his neighbor.
“Robert Cook put all five of those kids on his back and he swam through that swift water and got my niece and two nephews to safety and my two youngest children. That man saved my family,” Hurley, defensive line coach at Knott County Central High School, said.
This season, the Knott County Central Football team is playing for their town.
“Just do it for them, we got a whole team on our back plus we got a whole community on our back,” senior Dawson Stamper said. “We’re just going to try our hardest so they can have something to grab onto this fall.”
This season will be without one key player, Aaron “Mick” Crawford.
“We’re back there working and doing drills and stuff and I look around and Mick’s not there,” Hurley said. “That’s the toughest part. It’s like it becomes real all over again.”
A lineman, better known as a “war pig” at KCCHS.
“Being a lineman or a war pig, as I like to say, you have to put the team above yourself,” Hurley.
Putting the team above yourself, something Mick had experience with both on and off the field.
“Me and him got really close this year before everything happened and he was a one of a kind kid, he’d take the shirt off his back for you and do anything he can,” senior Kadon “Rudy” Sparkman said.
The 18-year-old, who would have been a junior this year at KCCHS died after helping flood victims in his community.
Mick’s mother told the Lexington Herald it was because of cardiac arrest.
“It’s different, it’s like part of the team is missing but as a team we all know he’s there, he’s with us every game and he’s watching over us,” Sparkman said.
So this season is more than just winning to the KCCHS football team.
“For me, it was like I knew I gotta take this seriously and I can’t take anything for granted anymore,” Stamper said.
It’s about healing.
“We take that jersey and his helmet with us to every game, we’re going to take it to every game and he’s always going to be with us,” Hurley said. “Mick’s going to be right there with us the entire time and he’s not going anywhere.”
Giving their community hope that things will get better.
“We get the community to buy in and they want to come watch us and have something to do that’s a win for us either way,” Sparkman said.
The Knott County Central High School football team kicks off their season at home on Friday, Aug. 26 as they take on Jackson County.
Every KCCHS football player will also have Mick’s number 78 and a number 17 sticker on the back of their helmets to represent the number of lives lost in their community because of the historic flooding.