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In 1976, the Class AA Lexington Tigers coached by Hall of Fame Coach Sammy Fisher had a dominating team that won in impressive fashion all season. They averaged about 90 points a game, even without the 3 point line. If in existence at that time, they would have easily averaged nearly a 100 points a game. They rolled through the regular season undefeated even beating 2 time Class A State Champion Perry County led by Mike Rhodes who later starred @ Vanderbilt, beating them twice during the season by over 30 points. They were a pressing and trapping defensive machine that forced their opponents into many turnovers. They won the district, region, and substate (against Obion Central) advancing to Murfreesboro with a 34-0 record. At the AA State Tournament, they won their quarterfinal and semifinal games to set up a meeting with West Tennessee nemesis Humboldt who was led by Junior Reid (UT Football star in the 70's) and Terry Martin (Lamuth College Basketball Star). This would be one of the greatest AA championship games of all time. Lexington led throughout the game and actually had a 5 point lead going into the 4th quarter but foul trouble, missed opportunities, and an unreal quarter by Reid and the entire Humboldt team ended in a 5 point loss by Lexington thus a crushing ending to a 36-1 season. Many West Tennessee basketball fans and historians will mention this Lexington Tiger team as the best to ever play in West Tennessee (outside of Memphis). The starting 5 of Rodney Campbell (Sr.), Dean Johnson (Sr.) and juniors Michael Smith, Levester Pritchard, and Johnny Cooper as well as 6th man Sophomore Rodney Arnold were one of the greatest Lexington teams during an era when Lexington was a perennial powerhouse in basketball. In fact just 5 years earlier, the 1971 Lexington Tigers (led by Larry Fry-3 year starter @ Mississippi St.) lost in the State Championship game when there was no classification to one the most storied Champions in Tennessee High School Basketball history Nashville Cameron led by David Vaughn Sr. The Lexington Tiger Basketball team went to the Class AA state the next year (1977) and lost in the first round to eventual champion, Memphis Treadwell (led by Hank McDowell-Memphis St and Golden St. Warriors) then had 2 more Substate appearances (1979 & 1980) but the program has never been back to a Substate or State tournament since. The proud legacy and history still lives on in Lexington and West Tennessee but the program has never reached even close to the heights that LHS Basketball did in the 50's, 60's and 70's.

Very young, lost 27 seniors from the team that had played in the semifinals their sophomore year, undefeated regular season(10-0) during their junior year then lost 1st round in playoffs and last year as seniors went 9-1 but put out in 2nd round by Liberty who they had throttled during the regular season. This year they will start several sophomores and a freshman quarterback so you can expect some dropoff for this reason plus they play a much tougher schedule as they picked up perennial power Milan, old time rival Jackson Northside and Crockett Co who is expected to be maybe the best 4A team in West Tennessee. All of these 3 games are on the road. The district has changed with rival Liberty and former power Jackson Central Merry moving out to District 15AA. They do however have about 90 players on the roster and only about 12 or so seniors. The sophomore and freshman class is loaded. Freshman dominating last year and Lexington Middle School went 9-0 last year in dominating fashion even trouncing West TN middle school power Paris Inman Middle School. Beat them 62-24 at Paris!!!! The biggest thing that Lexington High School football is battling is perception. They have been a great program for many many years with just a dip in the 90's when they were AAA for a few years. Early playoff exits have led people to question the program so to be considered a statewide power they need to advance to a championship game which they have never done. (Been to the semifinals 4 times, most recently in 2010.) The BIG RED machine has the potential to be very very good in the next 3 or 4 years joining several of their other programs that have excelled (Girls Softball-State Champs 2013; Baseball-State Champs in 2002 and runnerup in 2011; Boys Golf-State Champs, ect.)

Lexington won 14 to 3, BUT had a 60 yard touchdown by super sophomore Bradley Carver called back on their 4th offensive series and on the opening play of the game, their starting QB Kerry Sellers lined up at receiver and dropped a pass where he was a good 15 yards behind the defense and would have scored easily. Lexington has tremendous team speed and made Westview look slow in comparision. Lexington has really been building over the past 3 years and has only 10 seniors & 24 juniors on this years team. They pounded Milan in the spring and last week easily beat a good Lewis Co team in Hohenwald. They have a stable of fast runningbacks (only 1 senior-Ryan Halliburton) and a very good QB-Sellers. They have 8 starters back on offense and you will have to outscore them to beat them. Defense was the strength of the team last year but they lost 5 starters including 2 All State Defensive lineman Timothy Rogers(14AA Defensive Player of Year) and Russ Henderson as well as All-District cornerback Tyler Kizer and safety Caleb Stanford. If the defense comes on strong (2 Murphy Fair preseason All staters- AJ Gray at Linebacker and Christopher Williams at Safety-both juniors), they will be hard to beat. LHS is coming back as one of West Tennessee powerhouse programs!!

CLASS 4A Coach of the Year: Caine Ballard (Greeneville) Offense QB -- Willie Carmichael (Greeneville), Jacob Sexton (Scott). RB --Trevin Bryant (Liberty), [/b][/b]Stanley Hagan (Maplewood), Blake Johnston (Hickman), Randolf Zleh (Kingsbury). WR -- Trent McEwen (White House), Nathan Griffith (Scott). OL -- Will Brown (Marshall County), Alex Ballentine (Giles County), Terrell Rollins (Greeneville), Hakeem Gray (Fulton), Josh Boling (Gibbs). ATH -- Andy Hibbett (Gibbs), Terrell Williams (Trezevant). K -- Ben Ogle (Greeneville). Defense DL -- Jamel Hall (Greeneville), Russ Henderson (Lexington), Shunvontay Armstrong (Trezevant), Izaiah Rutledge (Red Bank), Timothy Rogers (Lexington). LB -- B.J. Spradlin (Greeneville), Ben Winters (Fulton), Zach Scott (Gibbs), Luqman Muhammad (Trezevant), Dwayne Smith (Maplewood), Austin Taylor (Crockett County). DB -- Kelvin Clay (Red Bank), Devin Houston (Trezevant), Tony Bell (Kingsbury), DeHart Hubbard (Chattanooga Central). P -- Jake Huitt (Livingston Academy).

Does anybody know when the Jackson Sun is going to post the 14AA All-District team. I know that is has been out for all while. I do know that Lexington had both the Offensive Player of the Year-Jr. QB Kerry Sellers and Defensive Player of the Year-Sr. DL Timothy Rogers. They also had several other first team and second team players. If anybody knows the entire team, please post or link when Jackson Sun posts!!!

14AA District Boys will be super tough this year, maybe even better than last year top to bottom. When you have the State Champion, Bolivar and State Runner-up, Jackson Liberty in the same District, this makes for a great run. Both of these teams appear to be extremely good this year(both already beat Marshall Co and Kedren Johnson), but the other teams in this District appear to be much improved with the exception of Jackson Central Merry who lost all 5 starters Jackson Southside looks to be much better. They have already beaten Northside who beat Liberty and Union City Fayette-Ware-lost quite a bit but still good Chester County-off to a 6-0 start McNairy Central-also off to a strong start Lexington-much improved, have just got back 2 starters (Timothy Rogers and Kristopher Williams) from their 4A Semifinal run-beat both JCM and Riverside this week. Has 4 sophomores in top 7 players. These Sophomores won the TNT 4A State Championship when they were in the 8th grade at Lexington Middle School. Any thoughts or predictions for this District. Can this District once again get the top 4 spots in Region 7A?? Who are the top ten players in the District??

They both are on schedule to be back next week for the Lexington Star Physical Therapy Jamboree on Friday, August 20th.

Hey Solomon The Big Red of Lexington is alive and well. They did lose 19 seniors from last year but they have a very athletic group with much more speed than last year. They have a small group of seniors(13) but a young speedy group of Sophomores. This group of seniors have lots of confidence because they have been winners in all athletics throughout their career (Little League Baseball Champions twice and TSSAA State Baseball Tournament in Baseball, played in TNT State Basketball Championship in 8th grade, then football Volunteer Conference Champs in 8th grade (7-1), Freshman 8-1 record, then last year semifinals losing to Giles, eventual 4A Champion). The sophomore group though is phenomenal as several will start on both sides of the ball. Watch out for sophomores AJ Gray (FB & LB), Kristopher Williams WR/QB & DB), Peyton Anderson RB/DB and Taylor Ballagh(OL/DL). The senior group includes 6 All-District and Honorable Mention All-West State players. Timothy "Yolk" Rogers has been selected preseason 4A All State Defensive Line as well as Russ Henderson(QB/TE & DE-2 time All State Baseball Player), Bryson Carver (RB/LB), Tyler Kizer (WR/DB) Caleb Stanford (WR/LB) & Robert Day ©. Also returning as seniors that played a big role last year are Drew Latham (DB), Hunter Allen (OL), and Dillon Blankenship (TE). They had a good spring (starting defense did not give up a touchdown in 3 scrimmages) and then beat a good Lewis County team in their first scrimmage and played an outstanding McKenzie team close this past Friday. The spirit and enthusiasm is high and hopefully the Big Red can have another outstanding season. Yes you are correct that Coach Johnson is now Defensive Coordinator and Coach Worth is Offensive Coordinator. GO BIG RED!!!!!

Any body there tonight gotta any thoughts. Lexington completely dominated on defense and won the scrimmage 2 touchdowns to none. Lewis County is going to be good this year though, I just think Lexington is going to be very good especially on defense. They have 7 starters back and 1st team defense has not given up a touchdown in Spring scrimmages or in this game.

I know it ran in the Jackson Sun last week (I believe Tuesday) but I missed it!!!!

First off, congratulations to Spring Hill on an obviously good season at 8-2 and a #8 state ranking. Being the parent of a Lexington player, I can tell you that this group was very focused all week long and the coaches certainly played on the disrespect that was being shown on here. First and foremost lets get one thing out in the open, Lexington's offensive and defensive lines completely whipped Spring Hill all night. I certainly could not say that Lexington would beat Spring Hill 9 out of 10 times as another poster said that Spring Hill could/would do, but I would take my chances. Lexington has really come on strong in the second half of the season as they finally have gotten most of all their players back from injuries. They played the first 3 games of the season without 4 or 5 key All-District type players and lost to a 7-3 Jackson Southside team and an 8-2 (5A) Hardin County team that is going on to round 2 of the playoffs after beating Memphis Ridgeway. Lexington held Hardin County to minus rushing yards and lost 14-0 giving up one TD by interception return. I don't know how far Lexington can go, maybe not even past this week against Page, but they do have a good team. I know that I saw the Massey ratings prediction of Page 20 Lexington 17. I think the players and coaches will like this just fine. Again, congratulations to Spring Hill and their fans on a great season.

Dyer County plays at Lexington Tuesday night to open the season in a Hall of Fame game. I know that some of you saw Lexington this summer in camps and thought they looked very good. Do you think that they can hang with Dyer County. They have looked quite impressive in preseason even without three starters who just finished their football season on Friday night. They can go 15 deep as Coach Qualls played this many all summer long. Hope that summer and preseason play can carry over but they have such a tough task with Dyer County. What are some thoughts about Lexington as some of you saw them this summer at Bethel, UT-Martin, and Union.

I don't think that you should overlook Lexington. They were very young last year and return all but 1 player from last year and add back a starter that did not play last year, Josh Fry. The went 19-2 this summer even losing by 3 to Union City and they consistently used 15 players per game. Last Thursday they had a playday and looked very good especiallyl in the last game defeating Riverside by about 30 points!!! They have about 5 or 6 players still in football including All-District Deshaun Kizer(Jr), Tylon Brown(Jr), and Kiefer Thompson(Sr.). I don't think that they can hang with Bolivar bug I believe they can be competitive with the rest of the district.

Hey Grandslam8 You're right about Lexington having an extremely strong freshmen class!!! Russ Henderson, a freshman, is starting at 3rd base on a loaded team and also there are 6 other freshman and 2 sophomores on the varsity who have accomplished the following playing together since they were 7 years old: *Won back to back Little League State Championships when they were both 9 and 10 year old(only one of 2 teams in state history to accomplish this) *Finished Runner-up in the Little League 11 year old State Championship to Columbia *Finished 3rd place in Little League 11-12 year old State Tournament after losing to Columbia in the opening game. fought all the way through the loser bracket winning 5 consecutive days to make it to the loser bracket final on Friday night losing 4-3 to the home team Clarksville after leading 3-0 through the first 4 innings. Columbia, beat Lexington in that opening game and never lost in the tournament and represented Tennessee in the Regional at St. Petersburg *Finished Runnerup in 13 year old Babe Ruth State Tournament to the home team Tullahoma *Finished 3rd place in 14 year old Babe Ruth State Tournament losing to Lawrenceburg in the loser bracket final (Lawrenceburg came out of loser's bracket to capture 14 year State Championship after winning twice in the championship game). *Lexington will host the 15 year old Babe Ruth State Tournament this year!!! This group has also played as a travel team on and off throughout the years with several also being involved with other sports. Henderson and Gaddis were on varsity football (Henderson started the last 6 games), McGill & Brown started for LHS Basketball and Timothy "Yolk" Rogers averaged 25 pts per game on Freshman & JV Basketball moving up to varsity after Christmas. All in all the group has much potential in several sports but it will take hard work and them staying together to see results like they have previously experienced. GO LHS TIGERS!!!!!