Trigg County High School has announced their second Athletic Hall of Fame class.
Athletes, coaches, and contributors to athletic programs at TCHS were considered for induction to the hall of fame, based on criteria that includes, but is not limited to, athletic accomplishments (both in high school and college), contributions to the athletic program, community impact, and citizenship.
The second Trigg County Hall of Fame class consists of:
Chappel Allen was a starting forward/center on the Trigg County basketball teams of the early 1950s. As a senior in 1953-54, Allen averaged 13.5 points a game for the Wildcats. While that average was second on the team behind Glen Simpson (15.8), it was the fourth-highest season scoring average in the first 17 seasons of Trigg County High School basketball.
After high school, Allen settled in Cadiz and founded Kentucky Machine and Engineering. Through his business and personal contributions, Allen has been one of the biggest supporters of Trigg County athletics through the years. Allen and KME have helped sponsor football bowl games and basketball tournaments. He has also made other contributions that have helped improve athletic facilities. Retired TCHS athletic director Jim Perrin called Allen one of the largest community supporters he has worked with in his many years of athletic work.
Duke Burnett was the Trigg County High School basketball coach from 1959-67. His record in eight seasons as Wildcat skipper was 133-77. His wins are the third most in school history and his .633 winning percentage ranks as second-highest.
Six of Burnett’s eight teams had winning records. However, his biggest challenge came in his second season as head coach when the school and gymnasium burned to the ground in the summer of 1960. Practicing in a warehouse and playing all of their games on the road in Hopkinsville and Christian County for two seasons, the Wildcats were a combined 25-25.
Burnett’s 1962-63 team christened the new Wildcat Gym with 20 wins in 23 games in their new home. The Wildcats set a school record with 23 wins and their first district title in 23 years. Trigg County won the school’s first region tournament game over Livingston Central before losing to Princeton Dotson in the semifinals.
The Wildcats again won 23 games and a district title in 1965 before losing to Hopkinsville Attucks in the region semifinals.
Burnett won his third and final district title for Trigg County in his final season in 1967.
David Butts was a three-sport star for the Wildcats from 1977-82.
He was the starting quarterback for the Wildcats in 1980 and 1981 and was a guard for the basketball Wildcats.
Butts was a member of the Wildcat baseball team as an eighth-grader and led the team with a .430 batting average as a junior. Butts hit .500 as a senior, again leading the Wildcats in that category.
Butts played college baseball at Murray State where he led the Racers in hits for three seasons, runs scored two seasons, and stolen bases his senior season. His 28 career home runs still ranks seventh on the Murray State career list. Butts was a two-time All-Ohio Valley Conference selection while at Murray State.
Butts was selected in the 20th round of the Major League Baseball draft by the Atlanta Braves. He played four seasons in the minor leagues, advancing as high as Class AA baseball at Greenville. He was a career .262 hitter with 18 home runs during his minor league travels.
Selby Grubbs was the leading rusher and scorer for Trigg County’s state champion football teams in 1971 and 1972. Grubbs also threw the shot put and discus for the Wildcat track teams.
Selby was a starter for the Wildcat football team as a sophomore but flourished under the offense of first-year head coach Joe Jaggers in 1971. Grubbs rushed for a school-record 1,714 yards as the Wildcats surprised many by defeating Lynch for the school’s first state title.
In 1972, Grubbs followed that up by rushing for 2,242 yards which still stands as the single season school rushing record. He rushed for 30 touchdowns and ran for 175 yards in Trigg County’s shutout win over Pikeville in the 1972 state title game.
His senior season totals of 30 rushing touchdowns, 212 points, and 16 two-point conversion runs remain school records as do his 58 career touchdowns and 376 career points.
Grubbs signed to play football at Western Kentucky University. He still lives in Cadiz and has served on the Trigg County Board of Education.
Joe Jaggers coached Trigg County football from 1971-76, amassing a record of 46 wins and 25 losses. His .648 winning percentage remains the second-highest in TCHS history.
Jaggers skippered the Wildcats to a 13-1 record in 1971 and the school’s first state football championship with a win over Class 1A power Lynch in the title game.
The Wildcats followed that up in 1972 with another 13-1 record and a dominating win over Pikeville in the state championship game.
The 1972 Wildcats averaged a school-record 34.2 points a game – a mark that stood for 28 years. The defense also allowed just 6.6 points a game, bettered only by the Wildcat teams of 1940 and 1984.
After leaving Trigg County in 1976, Jaggers went on to win state football titles at Fort Knox and retired as the state’s all time winningest coach with 273 victories.
Sam Love was a state record track and cross country runner who still holds school and state records some 30 years later.
Love was the three-time winner of the 800 and 1500-meter runs at the Kentucky State Track and Field Meet, running school record times of 1:45.7 in the 800 meters and 3:58.9 in the 1500 meters his senior season. His 800-meter time remains a Class 1A state meet record today.
“Fox” also ran anchor on the 1,600-meter relay team that won back-to-back state titles with the latter squad running a time of 3:21.40 in 1982 that also remains a Class 1A state record today.
After finishing second at the state cross country meet as a sophomore, Love won consecutive state titles the next two years, winning in his senior season in a meet record time of 16:16.
Love also played basketball and was named the inaugural winner of the Millard Griffin Sixth Man Award as a senior when he came off the bench to average nine points and 5.5 rebounds a game.
Love signed to run at the University of Kentucky, choosing the Wildcats over Western Kentucky and Kansas.
“Fox” was named Kentucky’s inaugural Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year following his senior year in 1982, beating out basketball players Jeff Hall and Todd May and Rowan County’s Joe Magrane, who pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals.
David Radford is considered by many to be the best athlete to play sports at Trigg County High School.
Radford played several positions on the football field, including quarterback his senior season in 1967 when the Wildcats won their first district title and advanced to the playoffs for the first time in school history. Radford made his name known on defense where he set a school record with 12 solo tackles and 21 total tackles in a game with Russellville.
For his efforts, Radford was named to the All Western Kentucky Conference Team that combined Classes 1A and 2A.
Radford was also a three-year starter on the Wildcat basketball teams and became only the second player to average over 20 points a game when he averaged 21.3 his senior season in 1968. Radford was an all-district and all-region performer and finished his basketball career with 1,228 points, which was third highest in school history when he graduated. His career scoring average of 18.05 points also ranks third best in school history.
Radford played college football at Jacksonville State College in Alabama where he was a three-year letter winner for the Gamecocks, playing primarily on defense.
Gary Siegmund served in many roles during his years at Trigg County and still serves as public address announcer for the Wildcat home football games.
“Coach Sieg” helped coach several of Trigg County’s state champion track and field team and served as an assistant basketball coach for the boys’ and girls’ teams for 14 years.
He served two different terms as Wildcat baseball coach. He guided the Wildcats to the school’s first district baseball title in 19 years in 1979, serving as head coach from 1978-82. He later returned as head coach in 1987 for a couple of seasons.
Coach Sieg also served as girls’ softball coach in 1989-90 and served as track and field coach.
He also was a long-time football trainer and assistant coach for the football team. It was during this time that he tutored many student-managers in the art of taping ankles, fingers, and wrists.
Coach Sieg also served as an athletic trainer for the Murray State football team in the 1980s.
Through his roles as teacher, trainer, and coach, Coach Sieg remains one of the most popular icons in Trigg County High School athletic history.
Buddy Sivills was one of the premier basketball players for Trigg County in the 1960s.
Sivills averaged double-figures in points in his final three years in high school, including a team best 19.3 points a game in 1965 in helping lead the Wildcats to a district title and region semifinal appearance.
He also averaged 14.5 rebounds a game his senior season and was named the Scholastic Magazine All-America squad.
His single-game effort of 37 points remained a school record until 1980.
Sivills finished his career as the school’s second all-time leading scorer with 1,262 points. He was named to several all-district teams and the 1965 all-region team.
After high school, Sivills played basketball at Carson-Newman College in Tennessee. After graduating from college in 1969, Sivills tried out for the Dallas Chapperals of the American Basketball Association.
He returned to Trigg County and became an assistant basketball coach under Jim Wallace on the 1969-70 squad that won the school’s first-ever region title and advanced to the Sweet 16 semifinals.
Sivills served several more seasons as an assistant coach and coached the Lady Wildcat basketball program for five seasons.
Ginger Wallace began running cross country at Trigg County as a fourth grader.
As an eighth grader, she finished fourth at the regional cross country meet and helped the team to their first team title in 1981.
Wallace finished in the top ten at the state cross country meet as a sophomore and was a member of Trigg County’s state champion track teams in 1982 and 1983.
On the basketball court, Ginger was the third leading scorer as a freshman. She led the team in scoring her sophomore and senior season. In 1986, her 21.5 points a game set a new school record as did her 539 points.
She still holds the school record for assists in a game (15), assists in a season (167), and single season free throw percentage (79%).
For her career, Wallace scored 1,498 points while shooting 53-percent from the field. Her 125 games played is the second most in TCHS history.
Following her senior season, she was named to the Associated Press All-State team and the Evansville Courier All Western Kentucky team.
She is also the only Trigg County basketball player – boys or girls – to make the Kentucky All-Star basketball team.
She played college basketball for the Air Force Academy where she was a starting guard.
The Hall of Fame class will be honored at Trigg County's January 27 basketball game with Christian County. A banquet will be held at the school on January 28 to officially induct the first Hall of Fame class.
An athlete must be out of high school for 10 years to be considered for induction, while coaches must be retired for five years.
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