After a year away from coaching, David Buchanan returns to lead Anderson program
By John Herndon, 110forChrist.com
LAWRENCEBURG, Ky. – Just about anyone who is anybody in Kentucky high school football knows about David Buchanan.
They might not know him personally, but they know about his highly successful head coaching stints at Paris, Mason County and Mercer County. They know about the quarterback camps he holds around the commonwealth.
And they know he’s a proven winner.
So when the word rumors started swirling the Buchanan was interested in the head coaching vacancy at Anderson County High School, the predictable reaction was a stunned look followed by a resounding “Whoa!”
Buchanan knows Anderson history. He knows that the program has a solid tradition. He knows that it’s not been that long since the Bearcats were regularly appearing in statewide Top 10 rankings. He knows they advanced to the Class 5A championship game in 2011 and appeared in four regional championship games in a five-season span.
“My senior year (at Mercer County High School) was in 1982. I actually played on this field,” Buchanan said from the Bearcat football office. “Jay Crawford was the Anderson County quarterback.”
Anderson, which was experiencing a rebirth under Coach George Fallis at the time, prevailed that night but it wasn’t Buchanan’s first experience at what is now known as Bob Ware Field.
“My first time on this field, I was six years old,” Buchanan remembers with an attention to detail that defies the 52-year gap in time. “It was 1971 and my dad (John Buchanan) was the head coach at Boyle County High School. I still remember it. My dad let me ride the team bus home after the game. Boyle County had won, 15-14.
“We had been through a lot. My dad’s quarterback, Robert Allen Yankey, one of the best persons I have ever known, drowned on the morning after a game in 1970. So in 1971, there were not a lot of really good moments, but that was one.”
The Bearcat program has not experienced a tragedy like the one that befell Boyle County in 1970 so the lack of good moments has been limited in regard to what has happened between the sidelines.
In 2018, the Bearcats went undefeated in the regular season, then threw a major scare into perennial power Highlands in the state playoffs. Since that night, Anderson has gone 8-34 and has not won a district game.
While much of that decline can be attributed to the natural talent cycle that most high schools inevitably experience, Buchanan is determined to make Friday nights a happening again at Anderson.
He’s embraced the tradition and is reaching out to alumni.
“I know who Bob Ware is,” he smiles when talking about Anderson’s thre-time all-state (1966, 1967, 1968) guard/linebacker who was voted by fans as the greatest Bearcat football player of all time in 2007. Ware remained close to the program until his death in 2013. His wife, Pam, is still a regular at Anderson games and their son, Bobby, played for Anderson in the 1990s.
“I posted a video of the 1970 Anderson County – Boyle County game on YouTube. One of my dad’s old players got me that video. We are going to go back and do a lot of things.”
Boyle won that game on its home field, 28-0. The video is in two parts.
One of the throwbacks Buchanan has embraced is red helmets with a navy blue “A” inside a white oval. Anderson last wore predominantly red helmets in 1971.
“We are doing that for several reasons,” Buchanan explains. “One, I think we needed a change. Two, I think it looks good. But three, and most important, what we are doing with that helmet and our uniform is we are reaching out to the Bearcat alumni. I want them to be a part of the program.”
Buchanan says he’s talked to many Anderson alumni, including some former foes on the field. He laughs, “If I am not careful, I will spend too much of my time talking to the old guys and telling stories.”
Buchanan got his start coaching at Mercer as an assistant in 1986 and recalls some memorable games against the Bearcats, who were coached by up-and-coming coaching star, Sam Harp. Harp would later lead Danville High to seven state championships and he has been inducted into the Kentucky High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame.
“In ‘86 and ‘87, we were pretty good at Mercer but Sam’s teams owned us,” Buchanan says. “They kicked our tails. Other than the ‘87 Danville team (a state champion), Sam’s ‘86 and ‘87 temas were the best we played agains. We were pretty good, but we couldn’t do anything with Anderson County. They ran that Split-4 defense and we couldn’t block it and couldn’t do anything with it.”
Buchanan eventually rose to the head coaching job at Paris High School, leading the Greyhounds from 1992-1995. He says the field at Anderson is similar to Paris in that the stands are close to the field. “Some things they do in regards to youth football are similar, too,” he says. “This is more like Paris than any place I have been since then.”
In 1996, Buchanan moved on to Mason County, where he took over a program that had won a combined 10 games the previous four years and turned the Royals into one of Kentucky’s better programs whether competing in Class AA or AAA.
And it was there where Buchanan coached his most well-known players, Chris Lofton and Darius Miller. After leading Mason County to the state basketball championship in 2003, Lofton went on to become an All-SEC performer at Tennessee. Miller led Mason to another basketball crown in 2008, then became a key performer on Kentucky’s national championship team in 2012.
At Mason, Buchanan also coached quarterback Dustin Grutza, who threw for more than 8,000 yards as a Royal, then went on to a successful career at the University of Cincinnati.
Buchanan coached another Mr. Basketball, Trevon Faulkner, at Mercer County. Faulkner would go on to Northern Kentucky University.
“I bet you that the only football coach to coach three Mr. Basketballs, you are talking to him,” Buchanan smiles. “Trevon Faulkner at Mercer, Darius Miller at Mason, Chris Lofton at Masonr.. All three played football and all three were Mr. Basketball. I tell people this, too. How many unexcused absences do you think these guys ever had in football? All three, zero!
“Here’s the thing: You can be an elite basketball player and you can be an elite football player. But it takes character to pull off both. Those guys had character. They will fight you. They know how to win. They were great basketball players, but they are better men.”
And character is what Buchanan is preaching constantly at Anderson County. He wants to win championships but also knows it’s going to take time to rebuild the program. For one thing, the redistricting that takes effect this fall has put Anderson in Class 5A along with Scott County and Woodford County, teams that are expected to make deep playoff runs, along with South Oldham, which won a regional title last year, and perennially strong Collins.
But while on the field expectations are not great, Buchanan sets a high bar of character. It matters. “Coaching matters,” he says. “But when you look at great teams, whether it is high school, college or pro, you know what you are going to find? Great men.”
And Buchanan seeks to build great men at Anderson, drawing on his Christian faith. He says he draws on advice his grandmother imparted to his father.
“When my dad was growing up in the ‘50s, he asked my grandmother, ‘Can you be a Christian and a football coach?’ Back then the culture was brutal,” Buchanan says. “My grandmother said, ‘Yes, you can.’
“There’s a great book, ‘The Handbook on Coaching Perfection,’ and it walks you through how you can coach in a Christlike manner. I know people get hung up sometimes on what you can verbalize and not verbalize. And there is a time and a place that is appropriate. But you can always interact with others in a Christlike manner. The way you treat others and the way that you talk and the way you respond to events probably says more about your faith than being vocal. I am obviously going to make a lot of mistakes but I believe the way we talk and the way we act says more about our faith than verbalizing it.”
And that includes building character in young men.
Buchanan coached seven years at his high school alma mater. Ironically, while there, he became the first Mercer coach to beat Anderson since Mercer and Harrodsburg merged in 2006 and became the Titans. Prior to that, Mercer had been known as the Scotties while Harrodsburg was the Pioneers.
“The Titans had never beaten the Bearcats until 2016,” Buchanan says. “That was the first time the Titans had ever won that game. That says something about the job Mark (Peach, the Anderson coach from 2005-2019) and those guys did. They really did a great job.”
Mercer has won the last four games in the series, but the old rivals are not scheduled to square off in 2023.
Buchanan says he loved his time at his alma mater. “I am very proud of what our kids, our coaches and our community got done in those seven years. We made a lot of progress and we had a lot of success on the field and off,” Buchanan recalls.
After posting a 50-32 record and twice advancing to the third round of the state playoffs, Buchanan stepped down following the 2021 season.
After taking a year off, he’s back on the sideline. Buchanan will have a non-teaching position in the Anderson County school system in addition to his coaching duties. He says his family will continue to live in Harrodsburg.
“It’s a 20-minute drive and it’s an easy drive,” Buchanan says. “My daughter just got engaged. My youngest son is at (the University of Kentucky). My oldest son and daughter-in-law and grandson are in Maysville. You know it’s a 20-minute commute. Probably 80 percent of America would kill for a 20-minute commute.”
Buchanan took the Bearcats through spring practice and believes he has some solid players, especially up front. While his system is known for innovation, his approach is one of old school faith and values of hard work, family and character.
“Two of the guys on my dad’s first team at Boyle County when I was four years old, we talk every other day because family is family. My family started as Black and Gold (at Boyle). Now it’s Red and Navy. But we are all interconnected.
We will want to win championships but to me unless you have an unbelievable talent level, you are not going to win championships unless you develop character.
“In high school athletics, the moral and ethical way to do it is to help kids.”
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