Irish ‘fight’ to the very end
Suddenly, amidst the paper-shuffling and chair-creaking, there came a loud ovation as head coach Philip Shadowens roused his team.
With one full practice left, the Irish appeared ready to storm into Covenant Health Park to face a Baylor squad ranked No. 9 in the country on MaxPreps.com.
Led by five-star Tennessee commitment David Gabriel Georges, the Red Raiders posed a larger threat than any team on Catholic’s already-loaded schedule.
That ultimately proved true in the result two days later, as Georges scored all three of Baylor’s touchdowns in a 21-7 victory.
Yet even with the loss, Catholic’s record stands at 7-3 — their best win-loss ratio since joining Division II-AAA in 2019. Any other year, that would set up the Irish for a playoff run.
Except three months and 19 days before Shadowens’ film session, Knoxville Catholic put out a release sending shockwaves through Tennessee high school football.
A TSSAA investigation found illegal communication between a non-faculty assistant coach and a player, and the school ultimately self-imposed a one-year postseason ban with a two-year probationary period.
In an instant, those postseason hopes were dashed.
Disappointment ran through the Catholic locker room, as palpable as the July heat. But soon enough, that sadness was replaced by resolve.
“Initially, it was very frustrating and I was pretty upset,” senior quarterback Mack Bartholomew said. “But then I took it like every game is a playoff game because it could be your last. So going from that, we have had one of the best seasons Catholic has ever had.”
Among those wins: victories over perennial powers Cardinal-Ritter (MO) and Hoover (AL), the latter of which came on a Hail Mary. In total, seven of Catholic’s 10 games this season were decided by one possession — and six resulted in wins.
“I’ve been blessed over the years with Smyrna and Blackman, having a lot of teams that are tough and won a lot of games,” Shadowens said. “But playing in the league and schedule we do, I don’t know there was a tougher schedule played in the Southeast. And to accomplish what we did with five seniors, knowing you don’t have a playoff, we could have used all that as an excuse to lose. Instead, we found ways to win. And from that standpoint of mental toughness, it has to rank as one of the best I’ve had in 33 years of being a head football coach.”
That pride does not completely erase the disappointment, as Shadowens said he filed the penalty and ensuing ban under “things are beyond your control.”
But the lessons learned will carry far longer for the coach and his players.
“That finality is upsetting for our kids, but they have used that anger, that disappointment as fire, and that has led us through the year,” Shadowens said. “I often use an analogy: when you get in a fight you can sit in the corner, put your head down and hope it ends, or you can fight your way out of the corner. It’s a life lesson. We learn life lessons all the time about the valleys we go through in life.
“And when you find out you can’t go to the playoffs, that’s a valley. But you can lay in the valley or you can climb the hill again. And we chose to climb mountains, to come out of the corner fighting.”
In 2027, that team will look a bit different. Bartholomew will be gone, as will four other seniors.
But with playmakers like Ryheem Lee, Kruise Buntyn and David Thomas set to return, the Irish are reloading with a specific goal in mind: to honor the seniors that helped them navigate a season unlike any other.
“We’ll start with the toughest offseason we’ve ever had here, the toughest we have put a team through physically and mentally,” Shadowens said. “We are taking it to a different level. Our kids tell us their goals and we want to hold them to that standard.
“And I’ve told those five seniors from this year that next year, our goal will be to win a state championship. And when we do, we will invite them back and hand them five state rings. Because there hasn’t been a mentally tougher team than this one to accomplish what they have.”
