MIKE MINIX 18 THE MISSILE LAUNCH TO TARGET
MIKE MINIX 18, THE MISSILE LAUNCH TO TARGETS
By Micheal B. Minix, Sr. M.D., F.I.C.S.
Updated February 25, 2019 mce ©
- Title 1
- Contents 2
- Preface 3
- Introduction 6
- Ancestor DNA Fueled “Mike The Missile” Journey 11
- Civil War Genealogy 27
- Childhood, Grade School, Middle School 35
- “The Missile” Was Launched 52
- University of Kentucky Football and Pre-Med 90
- Pathological Impact of Bradshaw Coaching UK Football 131
- Research, Department of Surgery, University of Kentucky 145
- College of Medicine, University of Kentucky 152
- Memorial Hospital Internship 1968-1969 159
- General Practice of Medicine 166
- U.S. Army Reserves, 810th Hospital Unit 175
- Ophthalmology Residency, University of Kentucky 177
- Ophthalmology Practice 188
- Athlete Safety 1st Advocacy 223
- Physical Incapacity, End of Dr. Minix Surgical Career 263
- Scientifically Literate Christians 275
- Postscript 280
PREFACE
“The Missile, Launch To Targets” is a free, non-commercial, nonprofit autobiography for research, scholarship, and educational uses intended for the benefit of everyone. “The Missile’s” journey includes the people who helped, inspired, assisted, and mentored him and friends along the way. The research, in preparation, includes genealogy research, family history, newspaper articles, school, academic, sports and professional records, and pictures. “There Was Life After Abusive University of Kentucky Football.” 22.
Publication of “The Missile, Launch To Targets” was inspired by many people. Al Figone, Ph.D., professor at Emeritus Humboldt State University, said, “you need to write a book about your life.” Dr. Figone has vast coaching, teaching, sports researching and publishing experience. Dr. Figone stated, “The Missile’s story is one that needs to be told.” Jerry Potter, golf reporter for USA Today from 1984 to 2010, now retired, urged Mike to write his story. Charles Watson, M.D., PHS basketball great, J.R. VanHoose, the Missile’s niece Myra VanHoose Blackwelder, professional golfer, LPGA Player of the Year and former University of Kentucky Golf Coach and other family members and friends similarly commented. Following everyone’s recommendation and persuasion and after due consideration, “The Missile” was convinced it was a history that should be preserved, not only for family but for future generations. Readers, however, can judge for themselves.
An athlete, aspiring medical doctor, parent, business person, lawyer, clergyman, and every other achiever must concentrate and focus their attention and mental effort primarily on internal, self-imposed positive motivations.
Secondarily, humans should focus on external, coach and mentor inspired, positive motivations.
An example is The Little Engine That Could, who said, “I think I can, I think I can,” Then the Little Engine could. The Little Engine became “process-oriented,” not “outcome-oriented.” Athletes and others should not worry about winning or losing, but the execution of their assignments. Athletes, in particular, should keep their athletic actions in their present sight; not the score on the scoreboard. “Give me the ball, I can score.” Victories will follow positive athletic actions. 1.
When focused on “He who dies with the most toys wins”, from a sign seen in Sausalito, CA in 1973, the individual will not actually “win” or be successful. Death is permanent and the toys can’t be taken with the deceased. 2. The individual should focus on the execution of the task or job at hand, not the outcome and rewards.
When focused properly, individuals have repetitive physiological athletic execution from the intensive practice of repetitive muscle synchronization. These are agonist-antagonist muscle reflexes, automatic contraction and relaxation phenomena, which can originate from brain or spinal cord innervation, depending on the complexity and on the spinal cord nerves and brain components that are involved, that create the misnomer, ‘muscle memory’.
There is no ‘muscle memory’ in muscles. ‘Muscle memory’ is a misnomer, because human muscle repetitive synchronization is not a function of conscious memory storage. Muscle reflexes are stored in the subconscious mind and are readily accessible or only accessible by non-conscious muscle repetitive reflexes.
“The agonist muscle groups are free to glide smoothly through their athletic memory synchronies, repeatedly, unimpeded by the antagonist muscles,” when the athlete is not worried about the outcome, i.e, “if I miss we’ll lose.” Instead, the athlete says to self “give me the ball because I can score” and “smash that tennis ball at me and I’ll smash it back.” Individuals have repetitive psychological and cognitive synchronization and execution from intensive practice i.e. “give me the job, I can do it.” [Vic Braden]
‘Mental Toughness’ is a term loosely thrown around by many well-intentioned persons who have no earthly notion about its definition. Athletes and others’ ‘Mental Toughness’ is derived from the love, passion, soul, and spirit for the game and, professionally, the surgery or job to be performed.
Internal, self-compelled, and external, coach and mentor reinforced, humans with ‘Superior Mindfulness’ (aka ‘Mental Toughness’) have an innate love for and desire to play the sport, perform the surgery, or execute their job as only they can perform and they can do. The “process-oriented” athlete, business-persons, and others are self-disciplined, have remarkable self-control, superior concentration and are passionately invested. They gather their total mindfulness from the top to the bottom of their brain and concentrate on execution of the job at hand and are obedient to themselves, the coach, boss, mentor and, therefore, the team.
Self-compelled achievers, combined with coach/mentors, who reinforce their desire, love for the job, and execution of the play, think they can. Thus, they can. The Missile, Launch To Target is an example of a successful journey that should be told, one for others to contemplate, and possibly emulate. The publication reveals tremendous aim, dedication, and determination by “The Missile”.
The individual must be extremely determined. “The Missile’s” Paintsville High School football coach, Walter Brugh, taught him to be humble in victory and gracious in defeat. Coach said, “It’s not how you fall down, but how you dust-off your pants and how and when you get back up that counts.”
“The content of this autobiography is exclusively “Dr. Mike the Missile” Minix’s developmental life, sports, and professional journey, narrated from his expert knowledge, experience, training, skills, and education, including medical and legal medicine expert opinions. Micheal B. Minix, Sr., M.D., F.I.C.S. was an athlete who had excelled in football, baseball, basketball, and track, a general practice medical doctor, who treated many different illnesses and injuries, including sports injuries, and understood morbidity and mortality, an emergency room doctor, a board-certified ophthalmologist, who performed many eye surgeries, ranked major of the Hospital Unit 810th U.S. Army Reserves, trained in combat medicine. He was a grade and middle school basketball and football coach, Little League and Babe Ruth coach and manager, PHS football team physician, football pre-participation physical examination volunteer, president of Paintsville Babe Ruth League, Paintsville Tri-County New York Yankees Class A Baseball board member and co-author of the first research study/survey author that concerned athlete football abuse, trained in child abuse recognition education, consultant to other advocacy groups and editor of the definition for child athlete abuse syndrome, November 15, 2010.
This autobiography is not an account of Micheal B. Minix’s, SR., M.D., F.I.C.S. (Mike) personal and family life. The probable size of his personal and family histories combined with developmental life, sports, and professional journey, would be too voluminous to include in this publication and, therefore, will perhaps become the subject of a second, follow-up publication.
Included in this autobiography are histories of Paintsville, Kentucky, Paintsville High School sports and 1961-1962 University of Kentucky football and 1962 University of Kentucky Coach Charlie Bradshaw Football Tragedy, University of Kentucky College of Medicine and Ophthalmology education, 1969-2014 medical practice, Athlete Safety 1st advocacy, his disabling medical condition, and his religion. This edition is currently being edited and changes and corrections will be made in the future.
- References:
1. [Vic Braden’s Mental Mojo Experience, by Paige Williams, New York Times, Oct. 29, 2006]
2. [“He Who Dies With the Most Toys…Wins!” Marvin J. Rosenthal, Published in Zion’s Fire Magazine in March, 1990]
INTRODUCTION
Mike returned home for Thanksgiving holiday, confident, from the University of Kentucky, where he was becoming well educated. The family usually gathered in the living room and deliberated matters, after they all were present and accounted for, in the course of holidays and school breaks. He began a discussion with his family about the wonders of chemistry and physics. Mike decided he would major in chemistry, while at UK, since there was no official pre-medical major, per se, but traditional courses in the College of Arts and Sciences that pre-med advisors recommended and instructors, in the past, had established as core pre-med curriculum, not available in every university. He loved chemistry and physics. In his immediate family, only his brother Maurice III had studied those subjects. Maurice became a pharmacist. Most of the Minix family were unintentionally “snowed” by Mike's monologue.
Mike perceived their bewilderment, so he took up a conversation concerning his nickname “The Missile”. Since high school, he had pondered what prompted Larry VanHoose, who reported to newspapers Mike’s high school football career, to tag him with that nickname. Larry, a Paintsville (KY) High School graduate, had been a Paintsville Herald, University of Kentucky Kernel, Lexington Herald-Leader and Sports Illustrated sports reporter. Subsequently, Larry became press secretary and speechwriter for Republican Gov. Louie B. Nunn. “After working in the Nunn administration, Mr. Van Hoose was executive director of the Kentucky Republican Party, before becoming chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Larry Hopkins of Lexington. He later worked for other Republican congressmen, including Ed Whitfield of Kentucky, Martin Hoke of Ohio and J.D. Hayworth of Arizona.” 1.
Mike was studying ROTC that semester and a chapter during his studies dwelt on missiles. He thought a missile description might remind someone about the evolution of his nickname. New UK Friends had inquired because hometown UK students still called him “The Missile”. He just happened to have his ROTC text nearby, stacked with other books for study on the piano bench. The book reminded him about his dislike of burning the shoe polish and spit shining his ROTC shoes and pressing his uniform for inspection. He wasn’t facile with either. Mike opened the text to the chapter and began reading paragraphs that he had highlighted. Hoping to elicit the basis for the nickname, he began by stating, “Missiles are propelled weapons designed to deliver explosive warheads with great accuracy at high speed. Missiles vary from small tactical weapons effective to only a few hundred feet to much larger strategic weapons with ranges of several thousand miles.”
“Almost all contain some form of guidance and control mechanism and are therefore often called guided missiles. A guided missile powered along a low, level flight path by an air-breathing jet engine is called a cruise missile. 2. An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery. Most modern designs support multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), a single missile carries several warheads, each of which can strike a different target.” 3. 4. 5.
Micheal Bryan Minix, Sr. M.D., F.I.C.S. during summer months as a kid and adolescent became deeply tanned. He was told his Native American Indian ancestry accounted for his deep tan. Mike played outside most of the day. He was nick-named Mike, Black Mike, Mumford and “The Missile”. A few called him the N-word because he became so dark. That name ceased when others with disgust pushed back. He only learned, after leaving Paintsville, a primarily Caucasian, isolated, rural town and region, how derogatory the N-word was and promptly he despised the word and discrimination himself. Mumford was for Manford (sic Manfred) Dale, who was thought to be of Native American Indian descent, too, who lived on Turkey Knob, a hill on the southeast end of town. Manford and his brother, Clarence, could run like deer. Many tried, but the Dales were never persuaded to play high school football. They might have given “The Missile” a run for his money, so to speak.
One night, Manford Dale was run over by a train as he slept on the railroad tracks after he was released from prison. Mike wasn’t the kind to get his “back up” over nick-names, but he was saddened by Manford’s death.
Mike lived on Main Street, downtown Paintsville. He was friendly with everyone in his small town and county. He was as “common as cornbread.” He respected and was kind to everyone, no matter their station in life. In fact, he took up for the ones that were bullied. He was particularly disturbed by mistreatment of vulnerable friends. Nicknames didn’t bother him, as it might have others. He realized none of his buddies meant any harm. Mike’s grandfather Minix passed out rolls of dimes to the less fortunate as he walked the sidewalk to and from work at Christmas time. Mike’s uncle Bill bought food at Murphy’s 5 and Dime lunch counter, not for himself, but for his buddy, who often didn’t have lunch to eat. Uncle Bill’s buddy, who later became successful in concrete construction, often told Mike the story later in life and how much he respected Uncle Bill. The Minix people were that way, friendly, compassionate and charitable. Mike was no exception to the rule.
“The Missile” received incredible, expert guidance, and great direction by his mentors. Once launched, he developed at a rapid rate of speed, and applied his innate control mechanisms along his journey. He was honed-in and locked-on his destinations by extraordinary determination. Mike then cruised doggedly toward his targets, during his journey, despite a tempestuous course and powerful head winds. The atmosphere and environment affected the course of this “Guided Missile”.
Brother Maurice, called Mo, who had heard enough of the living room conjecture, and was hungry for dinner said, “Larry VanHoose had written ‘you were like a “Maddog Missile” when you ran the football.’ You shot through the hole and were gone, beyond the linebackers and no one could catch you before the defense knew what happened and to your target, the goal line.” Everyone laughed. After lengthy laughter, silence came-over the living room. His Uncle Dola Wheeler, aka Uncle Dode, interrupted and said, “Maurice took it to the goats.”
Dumbfounded, Mike replied, “What?” Uncle Dode said, “A goat goes after edible things, that are down to earth, even roots beneath the ground, that the goat can grasp.” Mo replied, “You mean, keep it simple and we can grasp it, the KISS method.”
Based on six data points, education (percentage of residents with at least a bachelor’s degree), median household income, unemployment rate, disability rate, life expectancy and obesity, many of the Eastern Kentucky Counties in the Appalachian Mountains were found to be the hardest places in America to live in 2014. 6.
Professor Silas House, born in 1971, award-winning writer, who spent his childhood in Leslie County, Kentucky, took exception to the articles in Time Magazine and the New York Times about his “homeland” in Eastern Kentucky, called “the smudge of the country”. Silas, a well-educated gentleman with several degrees including a Masters in Creative Writing, one of the ten emerging talents in the South by the Millennial Gathering of Writers at Vanderbilt University, teaches Appalachian Literature, among other subjects, at many universities. 7. His exception appeared to be sentimental, but the facts are the facts, which must be recognized and improved for the future growth of Appalachia.
Times were much better in Paintsville and Eastern Kentucky in the course of Mike’s childhood than when recently reported. The rise and fall of coal and the rise and continued rise of drugs are the main culprits for East Kentucky’s demise. “For generations, coal has been king in East Kentucky. It provided heat, light, and jobs for the hundreds of people who worked in the nearby coal mines and coal-fired power plant. The coal industry is under siege, threatened by new regulations from Washington and the drug epidemic, maybe the worst in the U.S. per capita, has caused severe dependence, deaths, money, jobs, violence, and heartache. 8. 9. The transition, if necessary, from coal to other energy resources should have been gradual, not abrupt. The solution for the drug problem remained a quagmire.
Dr. “Mike the Missile” Minix grew up in a small town in Eastern Kentucky and attended the small Paintsville Independent School System and Paintsville High School. Small PHS had, relatively speaking, big education and big sports. PHS was one of the few schools in East KY that played football in those days. Students paid tuition from outside the city limits to come to town and play football, so it was said. Coal Country wasn’t chock full of tuition money, but miners had jobs, coal drove the economy and Friday night was totally PHS football.
He was a townie. His achievements were many. Friday night lights were special during Mike’s era. There was standing room only at the football field and basketball gym. Baseball was special in both the high school and semi-pro ranks. PHS was the number one academic school, in all schools no matter the size, in Kentucky for many years. PHS was an unusual oasis in rural Appalachia at that time. PHS pupils were students first and then athletes and other extracurriculars second, "per excellentiam" [L.] as Mike’s PHS Latin instructor, Dr. Alphareta Archer, might say.
Mary McClafferty, Civics Teacher at Paintsville High School, revered by all, was frequently heard by students to say “go that extra mile” in everything that you do and Mike did. He never claimed that he was a rocket or an MIT Rocket Scientist, though he did become “Mike the Missile”. He frequently said to himself and others, “I might not be the sharpest tool in the box, but you’ll never out work me.” Then work he did. Several chapters follow that characterize his determined launch to targets.
References Chapter I.:
- [Larry VanHoose, by Jim Warren , Lexington Herald Leader, Sept. 18, 2014]
- [Merriam-Webster Dictionary]
- [Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles". Special Weapons Primer. Federation of American Scientists.]
- [Dolman, Everett C.; Cooper, Henry F., Jr.]
- [Correll, John T. (July 2005). "How the Air Force got the ICBM," Airforce Magazine]
- [Where Are the Hardest Places to Live in the U.S.?, Alan Flippen, New York Times, June 26, 2014]
- ["Silas House (1971- )" by Linda Scott DeRosier". KYLIT. May 13, 2003]
- [Even in Coal Country, the Fight for an Industry by ERIC LIPTON, New York Times, May 29, 2012]
- [Toll of Eastern Kentucky's drug epidemic: violence and heartache, by Bill Estep, Lexington Herald Leader, December 1, 2013]
Files coming soon.
Growing up the center of Mike Minix Sr's family was the Sandy Valley Grocery Company Inc. founded by Mike’s grandfather, Charles Wesley Wheeler, born November 3, 1875. His grandfather Wheeler died December 1, 1931, unexpectedly, age 56, from a ruptured gallbladder.
The Wheeler family was large. Born to the family were three daughters and five sons. All Wheeler sons were very successful and daughters married excellent, well paid, husbands and families. Mike and brother Maurice III had several cousins with whom they enjoyed time and play. Peer cousins were George Wheeler (Sherman), David Wheeler (Harrison), Dick and Tony Wheeler (Dona), Linda Wheeler (Melvin) and Joe Ramsey (Uncle Pat and Aunt Ruie). Linda could play ball better than the male cousins, who had a lot of Wheeler in them. She fit right in with the brothers. In those days, families gathered for all occasions. Most were large, enjoyable feasts. On one occasion Mike hit a cousin in the head, accidentally, with a baseball bat. Later, when asked if he wanted to visit the brothers for a later gathering, one cousin said, “I don’t want to go play with those Indians.”
Charles Wesley and Elizabeth Jayne Wheeler, Mike’s Grandparents
“The Letcher Grocery Company, successors to Whitesburg Wholesale, as the result of a business transaction announced last week, that it had opened its doors Monday under the new local management of Harrison Wheeler, a young but experienced executive who has for many years been associated with Sandy Valley Grocery Company Inc. and affiliated Corporations.”
“The organization with which the new local house is affiliated was founded and incorporated as Sandy Valley Grocery Company at Paintsville, Ky., in 1921 (by Charles Wesley Wheeler, Mike’s grandfather). The company has developed until it now operates seventeen modern wholesale houses serving an area of 65,000 square miles which embraces sections of six states. C. W. Wheeler headed the organization until 1925, at which time a son, H. H. Wheeler (Henry Harrison) was elected to the presidency.”
“A few years later, after the death of C. W. Wheeler, his wife, Elizabeth Jayne (Mrs. C. W.) Wheeler, (Mike’s grandmother), was elected to succeed her husband. Then H. H. Wheeler began his turn as president, and a brother, Sherman continued as Secretary-Treasurer, with other family completing the administrative set up, which still exists. In order to be nearer the geographical center of its widespread operations, the organization's general offices were in Ashland, KY.”
“To The Public We wish to Announce That In Line with our usual policy we will sell Groceries and Feed to Merchants Only. The Sandy Grocery Company Inc. made its entrance into the manufacturing field with the purchase of the Winchester Milling Company, Winchester, Ky., and four years later acquired another manufacturing plant, the Golden Dream Food Corporation of Ashland.”
“In addition to Letcher Grocery Company here and its two manufacturing affiliates, the Sandy Valley organization operates the following wholesale houses, Sandy Valley Grocery Company, Ashland, Ky, Louisa Grocery Company, Louisa, Ky., Sandy Valley Grocery Company, Paintsville Ky., Merchants Grocery Company, Pikeville, Ky., Union Grocery Company, Morehead, Ky., Winchester Grocery Co., Winchester, Ky., Lexington Grocery Company, Lexington, Ky., Somerset Grocery Company, Somerset, Ky., Jefferson Grocery Company, Louisville, Ky., Portsmouth Grocery Company, Portsmouth, Ohio, Huntington Grocery Co., Huntington, W. Va., Charleston Grocery Company, Charleston. W. Va., Wheeler Grocery Company, Williamson, W. Va., Ripley Grocery Company, Ripley, W. Va., Kenova Grocery Company, Kenova, "W. Va., Hagen-Ratliff Company, Huntington, W. Va.”
“Under the leadership of H. H. Wheeler, president, the Sandy Valley organization has developed a modern plan of merchandising based upon a now famous pledge to its customers which commits the company "to make available to independent retail grocers the widest possible variety of quality merchandise at low prices.” 9.
In 1934 The Sandy Valley Grocery Co, Inc. paid for about 400 employees and their families to attend the 1934 World’s Fair in Chicago. The railroad coach cars began the excursion in Pikeville, KY and picked up employees and families at several depot locations in Eastern KY on its way to Cincinnati, OH. The trip was uninterrupted until it stopped in Kankakee, IL and changed train engines.
Then the train traveled on to Chicago and arrived at about 10:30 PM. They were greeted by the Chicago Mayor because it was the largest contingency attending the fair that year. Mike’s Uncle Harrison Wheeler rented most of the rooms in the Knickerbocker Hotel for the group. The picture in this section shows the East KY crowd feasting in the hotel’s Grand Ball Room. His uncle Harrison, the mayor and other dignitaries were seated at the large VIP table on the left of the ballroom.
John M. Salyer and his two sons Grover and Glen from Magoffin County were invited by the SVG Co to entertain. John played the fiddle, Grover the guitar, and Glen the mandolin. They played traditional “old music of eastern Kentucky.” They began playing when they boarded the train in Paintsville and didn’t stop until they returned to Paintsville a few days later. It was rumored to be a tremendous party trip. They played for a dance in the Grand Ballroom. Many people attended. The Salyers didn’t play a waltz, foxtrot, Virginia reel, or any other popular Chicago music requested by attendees. When asked in his East KY dialect, John said, “We’ll play our kind of music and you folks dance any kind of dance you can!” 9.
In 1945 the Sandy Valley Grocery Co, Inc., with central offices in Ashland and Paintsville, helped change the Miss America Pageant. Prior to 1945, the Miss America was awarded furs, movie contracts, and other luxuries. In 1945 Miss America was changed into a scholarship pageant offering funds for college.
The original scholarship patrons, who sponsored and changed the pageant, were Joseph Bancroft, Sons, Catalina Swimwear, F.W. Fitch Company and The Sandy Valley Grocery Co., Inc. Ashland, KY.
The SVG Co then employed three Miss Americas to help market SVG Co. soap, perfume, beauty, and other products. The company also sponsored its own beauty contests in Chicago. In the photo, left to right, were Marilyn Meseke 1938 Miss America, who was from Marion, Ohio, who won the title of Miss Ohio. Venus Ramey was 1944 Miss America born in 1924, in Ashland, KY. She worked for the war effort in Washington, DC and won the Miss D.C. pageant. Venus was the first red-haired contestant to win and first Miss America to be photographed in color. Bess Myerson was 1945 Miss America and the first Jewish Miss America from Brooklyn NY. Myerson was the first winner of the scholarship program. She is pictured far right in the group picture. The SVG Inc. was a very prosperous business concern in Kentucky. Both sides of Mike’s family were entrepreneurial and had positive impacts on his physical and psychological growth and development.
Mike and his UK teammates did not fit the mold of Charlie Bradshaw’s “lessor players” to be discussed in UK football sections that follow. An athlete didn’t have to be a poor, dumb, Godless, jock to play football. He and his teammates were not tycoons, to the best of his knowledge, but were student-athletes from nice well-respected families.
Legendary coach, Coach Walter Brugh, who was a middle school teacher and truant officer, graveled the playground to discourage soccer. Speculation was that Coach graveled the lot because he wanted to discourage soccer from competing with the football team for the few athletes in the PHS system. Players couldn’t plant their foot and kick or slide defensively blocking the soccer ball in gravel. For the most part, touch football and marbles in a cleared area were all the kids could play on gravel, except for occasional tag and dodgeball. It wasn’t until Mike was in seventh grade that a basketball goal was erected. Basketball was discouraged, too, as a competitor for athletes. But the PHS basketball program enjoyed success, anyway. Thus basketball became modestly approved for play on the playground. He played Paintsville Little League baseball from summer 1952 until 1955. In the seventh grade fall 1955 he played middle school football in Paintsville and started baseball center field in the seventh grade, spring 1956. Coach Walter Brugh was the head baseball coach that season, that spring and was named head football Coach Fall, 1956.
Over the years, Paintsville was subject to flooding. Home evacuations occurred during the 1957, 1963, and 1977 floods. In the course of the flood of 1957 about 700 residences and 80% of Paintsville was flooded. Damages were estimated at $39 million, significant money in those days, from flooding of the Big Sandy River basin in Eastern Kentucky. Our family stood on the front porch as the water reached the top steps. Sister Marlene was videoed riding a boat from her home down flooded Euclid Avenue to the old Paintsville Hospital to deliver her son Marvin Michael VanHoose January 31, 1957. His birth was safe and uneventful, but Marlene’s birth experience was cold, painful, and prehistoric. Eventually, the water level rose to two feet in the main level of the Minix home. Many home contents were lost, including the new living room carpet and Mike’s prized baseball card collection and prizefighter Jack Dempsey’s autograph. Paintsville Lake and Dam resolved the flooding issue from backwaters of the Big Sandy River. However, while the Army Corps of Engineers was building the Paintsville Dam, putting up a temporary barrier in December 1978, Paintsville received eight inches of rain in three days and the temporary dam was on the verge of collapse. Families were evacuated, but the rain ceased, the lake level fell, averting another catastrophe. 11.
His Grandmother Elizabeth Jayne Wheeler (1879-1956) lived two doors down at 137 Main Street adjacent to widower, F. S. VanHoose. After Fru VanHoose, Helen Craft’s father, passed, Scott Sr. and Helen Craft and children, Scott, Mike and Ann Lynn resided there. Mike Minix, who was born with excellent rhythm, asked-for and received a snare drum one Christmas in grade school. Scott Sr., who was employed at F.S. VanHoose Lumber, a music enthusiast, had an orchestra complete with bandstands, sheet music, white sport coats, and black bow ties. Scott Sr. recognized Mike Minix drum loving rhythm. He nicknamed him “Black Mike” and he invited him, a grade-schooler to sit-in, also dressed to the nines, white coat and bow tie, and play Big Scott’s drum set, with symbols, bass drum, tom-toms, and the entire ensemble, a few times at Paintsville Country Club dances for others’ amusement and his experience. “Black Mike” managed the drum set adequately, left foot on the symbol and right on the bass drum, to a few simple tunes, but soon his mother discouraged his youthful country club partying with the older men drinking alcohol. His orchestral appearances and theatrical nickname, “Black Mike” were thus short-lived. She didn’t approve of her son “swarping around”. Rhythm, in his life, he found was enormously important.
For a brief time they lived on second street. Mike had very little remembrance of that time and home. Brother Mark was born a few years before and was 10 years younger. After the age of 10, Mike was very busy with sports and school and had very little recollection of Mark and his life at that time. His grandmother’s home was purchased from her estate upon her death by Mike’s parents in 1956. It was a larger home with a smaller garage, of course, designed for the car of its day, his grandmother’s LaSalle, and an apartment building in the rear and an apartment in the back of the main home, for his grandmother’s domestic help and other renters. The family lived there until his sophomore year at the University of Kentucky in 1962. The entire family was successful in that early era of Mike’s history. But, as commerce moved forward, the Sandy Valley Grocery, Inc. was closed when the new retail grocery chains and their own wholesale grocery distributors, dominated the grocery business. Rural country stores, primarily customers of SVG Inc, began to disappear. The SVG Inc. suffered during that progressive grocery commerce chronicle and eventually did not survive. Eventually, his parents and Mark moved to Lexington. Morris worked in the Kentucky Department of Real Property and his mother was employed at Embry’s Department Store, while Mike was attending the University of Kentucky.
References:
1. ["Dr. Michael DeBakey: 1908–2008; 'Greatest surgeon of the 20th century' dies". Ackerman, Todd; Eric Berger (2008-07-12), Houston Chronicle]
2. [The Paintsville Hospital, By Paul Bryan Hall, M.D. 1952]
3. [Forty years practice of medicine & Surgery in the Hills of Eastern Kentucky, by Paul B. Hall, M.D.]
4. [The Black Diamond. Black Diamond Company. 1914. p. 412]
5. [Johnson County Historical Society. "Johnson County History ...And That's a Fact! - Personalities" by Robert Marsh] [Kentucky Wesleyan College. "Kentucky Wesleyan College - Alumni Hall of Fame Inductee". Archived from the original on 2007-07-13]
6. Van Lear. Blevins, Danny K. (2008). Arcadia Publishing. pp. 7–8] [Our Lady of the Mountains School: Mission and History". 2006]
7.[Historical marker in Paintsville commemorating the life of Mayo corner of third and court streets Paintsville, KY]
8. [Letcher county Grocery, Harrison Wheeler, Manager, Cash and Carry Grocery, Mountain eagle (Whitesburg, Ky.), July 27, 1944 page 1. Continued on pate 4.]
9. [John Morgan Salyer, Old Time Fiddlers Hall of Fame, Bruce Greene 1992]
10. [Timeline of The Great Depression, by Steve Kangas]
11. [Floods Southeastern Kentucky 1957, Geological Water Supply Paper 1652-A]
THE MISSILE WAS LAUNCHED
Spring and fall of 1956 were hallmark baseball and football seasons respectively for Mike because his sports career and reputation earnestly began. His physical growth and development had accelerated beyond his peers in 1956. He continued playing his second season in PHS baseball and began playing PHS football that fall season, while in the eighth grade.
The PHS baseball team was excellent and in the spring of the academic year, 1956-1957, advanced to the finals of the Kentucky High School State Tournament. Paintsville led most of the state final game against Owensboro High until there was an errant throw in an uncalled-for attempted pick-off play, with two outs and two strikes on the batter. The run tied the game. Owensboro went on to win.
Eighth-grader, Mike, stood third from left, back row. Spring 1957 was Coach Bill Decker’s first season as head PHS baseball coach. He was assistant football coach to the legendary head football coach, Walter Brugh. Decker was the offense and defense line coach for the football team fall 1956 that posted a 10-1 season plus winning the Big Sandy Bowl, defeating Coach Roy Kidd’s Richmond Madison Model 20-0. Coach Decker was a marvelous coach, whose home was in New York. He was a scholar-athlete who had graduated from Centre College, Danville, KY. In Mike’s opinion, he was the father of schooled, intelligent baseball play in Eastern Kentucky.
PHS baseball athletes learned the proper cut-off procedures, relays, pick-off plays, fielding, batting and bunting, offense and defense techniques. Decker was hired as an English literature teacher but surprised Superintendent Oran Teater with his knowledge and coaching ability of all sports. He and his wife were magnificent additions to the Paintsville community. Many baseball athletes in the area and Paintsville Little league, in particular, benefited from Decker’s knowledge, passed down through generations by quick, baseball-retentive students who were subsequently fathers and grandfathers of those who followed. Coach Bill and his wife remained three years and returned to his family and home in New York, leaving a baseball legacy. Paintsville and Johnson County have been the mecca of East Kentucky baseball since his instruction was shared.
One of PHS baseball’s graduates was San Francisco Giants’ shortstop, the Kentucky Long Rifle, “Peanut” Lemaster. “Peanut” was a product of trickle -down baseball knowledge that continued from Decker’s beginnings in Mike’s humble opinion. When “Peanut” was in grade school he shagged fly balls when he and David “Rolly-Polly” Wiley took batting practice with each other. Peanut was a very dedicated multi-sport athlete, like most, who played at PHS. He was a lanky, talented athlete and possessed a strong arm and iron glove. He was the Giants 1973 first-round draft pick. Many others became excellent baseball players from that region and were drafted. East KY was a sanctuary of baseball talent and major league scouts frequented the ballparks in the summertime.
Mike began playing semi-pro baseball in the Kentucky Mountain League with older men soon after Little League and in the course of Babe Ruth League play. It was called Semi-Pro, but no one on Paintsville’s team received pay or any benefits for play. It wasn’t long until he began playing third base for both PHS and the semi-pro team. He had a strong arm, quick, accurate bat, respectable batting averages, great glove, and speed. Most of the men were in their 20’s and 30’s. Mike was tough, a requirement of playing the “hot corner,” third base. He loved stories his father told him about the “Gas House Gang” and third baseman, Pepper Martin, history. Morris took Mike to the Major League All-Star Game on July 14, 1953, at Crosley Field in Cincinnati, Ohio. He saw Enos Slaughter, Sachel Page, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Pee Wee Reese, Stan Musial Ted Kluszewski, Roy Campanella, Eddie Mathews, Gus Bell, Robin Roberts, and others. He was kicked in the head chasing a ball that was hit into the stands - he failed to retrieve.
The Paintsville semi-pro baseball team participated in the Kentucky State Semi-pro Baseball Tournament several years. Mike gained tremendous experience batting against the likes of Ray Apple, Ohio State, Woody Fryman, and Ralph Beard, retired Cincinnati Reds, Big Bob Daniels, who played for Oil Springs High School, Western Kentucky University, drafted by the Cincinnati Royals in basketball, and coached at KY Wesleyan and Marshall. There were many other great players from the Mountain Valley League and Bluegrass League. At state semi-pro baseball tournament time, well-sponsored teams, like Lexington Frisch Restaurant, Coal Companies, West Liberty, Richmond, and others, hired college NCAA tournament and retired professional pitchers, who he played against. Money was no object for those teams. Paintsville was unique. The guys played for the love of the game and had no money. Paintsville had many excellent pitchers i.e. the other Bobby Daniels, Curt Reed Burchett, former PHS great Jerry Hensley, former PHS baseball Coach Charlie Adkins, and others. Some threw fastballs in the 90+ mph range. Some were good “ole junk pitchers”, for example, Clyde Ratliff who threw knuckleballs resembling Wiffle balls; only a few could “get good wood on.” Paintsville had players who became professionals.
The older baseball men in the area remembered and continued to occasionally talk about Mike’s collision with the catcher, Tootsie Hall, Wheelright, KY Coal Company team, when he was a teenager. The East KY coal towns had well equipped semi-pro baseball teams with professional-like fields. Former minor league players were hired by the Coal Companies to work in the office and play baseball. Wheelright had an outfield grassed terrace, a warning track for outfielders who approached the wall when chasing fly balls. Like major league fields then, it warned the players regarding the potential collision with the outfield wall. The field was perfectly manicured and even had night lights. Mike found it remarkable how many new baseballs were thrown to the umpire for play after a ball was merely fouled out of play. Wheelright had a Coal Company budget as did other Semi-Pro teams they played. The Paintsville team was allotted 3 new balls per game. Manager Ford Ferguson passed the hat himself during the game and took up a collection for balls and the umpire. The youngster, Mike, loved the smell of a new baseball and glove. He and Rolly-Polly screwed and taped the handles of many broken Louisville Sluggers. Baseball was the old fashioned American’s past time, then.
Mike was on second and a teammate hit a double. He rounded third base and Tootsie, a large offense-line size man and former Triple-A baseball professional, threw his mask and the batter’s bat in front of the plate, caught the relay and crouched in a fundamental blocking position and positioned himself in front to block the plate. In those days, a clear pathway to the plate belonged to the runner, who owned the path. Apparently, Tootsie was unaware of Mike’s football ability. Rather than hook slide or slide headfirst at the plate as he often did, Mike cut him with a body block and the ball was jarred loose. Tootsie, taken by surprise, careened backward nearly to the backstop screen. When the dust cleared, after they both had crawled back toward the plate, Mike touched the plate and scored the run. Meanwhile, his dad had jumped the third base fence and began to run toward the play at the plate. Thankfully, his dad was intercepted and stopped before an ugly scene erupted. His father was naturally protective of his children, to mildly put it. Mike was just a kid among older men. Morris, his father, was a well-respected businessman, usually wearing a necktie, but quick to be protective. He detested “dirty play”, i.e. placing the bat and mask in the path to the plate. Paintsville won the game and the legend of the collision streamed along, year after year when baseball season rolled around.
Billy Ray Cassidy scheduled very competitive schedules for Mike’s PHS basketball team. Examples were Louisville Seneca with Hall of Fame stars George Unseld, who played for Kansas, and Mike Redd, an All-American who scored over 3,000 points in his career, and Lexington Dunbar with Hall of Fame stars Julius Berry and Coach Sanford Thomas. S.T. Roach, Ashland State, and National Champions, with Larry Conley, Harold Sergent, Dale Sexton, Justin Hilton, Jerry Daniels, Don Stewart, Gene Smith, Cecil Thornberry, and many other schools and athletes.
Mike believed that “King” Kelly Coleman, who played for Coach “Copper” John Campbell, Wayland High, was probably the greatest Kentucky high-school basketball star of all time. “The ‘King’ during his amazing high school basketball career scored 4,263 points in 127 games for a nifty 33.6 per game average in his four-year career at Wayland High School. In his final high school season, 1955-56, he tallied 1,919 shots for a 46.8 point per game average.” 1. Mike sat on the high school bench after a middle school game and watched the King operate up close and personal, a tremendous privilege. When “The King” called time outs, Mike watched him exit the floor to the locker room for “hydration”, while the other four players went to the bench. He wasn’t positive about the form of “hydration” as alleged, which remained a mystery, but Mike knew “The King” was a man among boys, needless to say. Those days were a totally different experience and time.
Mike and his brother Mo attended several high school state basketball tournaments. In 1956, they witnessed “King’s” most points scored in a state tournament game, 68, breaking his own record of 50 set against Shelbyville in the opening game. Mo was older than Mike and “supervised” him on state tourney trips. Mike never consumed alcohol during his high school days, not even the first three years of college. Some of the older boys would imbibe spirits, but he did not approve. The older guys purchased alcoholic drinks and Mike purchased quarts of milk, a curious sight departing from a beverage store. He never smoked cigarettes or any other tobacco product because he was dedicated to perfect conditioning.
On one state tournament occasion, someone broke a fifth of bourbon on the driveway outside their uncle’s home, who was a United Baptist preacher, while getting out of the car. Their uncle, who heard it, unaware it was alcohol, shouted-out, “someone dropped their groceries.” On another trip, the older guys filled the bathtub with beer and ice in the old Berkley Hotel in downtown Louisville and Morris and Marvin VanHoose, Mike’s brother-in-law, saw the stock when they visited the guys and used the restroom in the hotel room. They departed without a word.
Morris knew many basketball coaches in Eastern KY. Many of the coaches were involved in wholesale grocery purchases for small country grocery and other commercial stores. Coach Russell Williamson was a grocer, banker, businessman and coached the Inez High School Basketball Team. Inez, Martin County, KY was a small town in the Eastern highlands that has maintained a population of about 400. It was a mineral-rich area that prospered during the coal boom but often experienced joblessness.
In 1954 Billy Ray Cassidy, later Mike’s PHS head basketball coach led Inez High to its second Kentucky State championship. The Inez Indians were a power in the 15th Region and the state of Kentucky since the 1930s. They won four straight 15th Region titles (1934-37) with a state tournament runner-up finish (1937). Then the Indians followed up that success with three more 15th Region titles (1939-41) and a state title for the small school in 1941. Inez won the 1954 state championship by eight, 63-55, over larger Newport High School, KY. It was Inez’s second state championship for the small school and town and truly remarkable. “It was also a proud moment for former coach and current principal Russell Williamson, who had led Inez to the state title in 1941. After the victory, he was quoted as saying, “We may be from the hills of Kentucky, but we are going to have a trophy in them thar hills!” 2. Williamson purchased many groceries from the SVG Inc. Morris and he were great friends and loved to talk basketball.
Morris Minix knew many of the KHSAA Hall of Fame Coaches i.e. (year inducted): John Bill Trivette, Pikeville, 1988, Russ Williamson, Inez High 1993, Pearl Combs, 1993, the “Mountain Legend” who began coaching at small Vicco and then Hindman, Ky recorded 761 wins and the State Championship defeating much larger Louisville St. Xavier, George Conley, Ashland 1995 whose father was an SVG Inc. stockholder, Meade Memorial High legend, Wendell Wallen 1996, Wayland’s “Copper” John Campbell, 2008, who coached the greatest Kentucky high basketball player of all time, Kelly Coleman, his four-year career at Wayland High School in the hills of Floyd County. Morris also knew local coaches Buzz Stapelton, Flat Gap, and Rusty Yates, Oil Springs, who were also tremendous coaches. Mike competed against those Hall of Fame and other coaches and their teams. He enjoyed that remarkable Eastern Kentucky fairytale-like historic basketball period, the stuff of which movies and TV shows were made. Basketball was a game of finesse, then, though hard-fought. Everyone in those days competed fiercely but were good friends who respected one another off the court. He enjoyed those competitive games and friendships.
Mike lettered five years in basketball and started for the PHS basketball team from his sophomore to senior year. He performed well enough the make the all-54thdistrict and all-15th region teams. His highest recognition was, in his humble opinion, his senior year on the All Opponent Team by the 1961 Ashland Tomcat State Champions, which some regard as the best team in Kentucky high school basketball history.
Paintsville began playing football in 1923. PHS football tradition was strong and 91 years extensive. The coach was unknown in 1923, but the team won three games and lost 1 with no ties. 1924 was the second football year and Coach Backer was head coach. They won four, lost three with no ties. His Uncle Bill Minix played with Coach Walter Brugh in the late 1940s. Bill was a terrific, speedy, tough running back and excellent baseball pitcher. Everyone expected Mike and Mo to play sports, especially football and hoped they’d play as well as their Uncle Bill.
Mike grew rapidly, shaved his face before his peers, among other “milestones” and came into his athletic prowess, earlier than usual. Not only did he start center field for PHS in the seventh-grade academic year 1954-1955, but he also lettered in high school basketball, football, and track in addition to lettering a second time in baseball, in the eighth grade. His high school football career began in the Fall season of 1956.
Mike, fifth from right, was pictured with his seventh grade football team. Head coach was Jim Chandler, who, in addition to an excellent football coach, was a tremendous math teacher from whom he learned excellent mathematical aptitude in middle and high school. In those days players didn’t wear mouth pieces, helmets had no face masks, and they pieced together their uniforms, as the picture demonstrated.
Unfortunately, older brother Mo sustained a concussion the first game in 1956 and was hospitalized for three days, in and out of consciousness. Maurice recovered for the time and continued to play sports at PHS. Mike’s mother, rightfully so, was extremely frightened by his injury and never attended another football game during the five years Mike played high school football and while he played at UK. His mother rode with Morris to the High School All-American Classic, but remained in the car and listened on the radio.
Mike played running back and scored three touchdowns his eighth grade year as an occasional starter on special teams, a substitute on offense and defense teams. Brother Maurice played quarterback and backed up Jimmy Conley, a truly gifted, speedy athlete, who was 6’2” and 195 pounds, naturally chiseled from birth. Jim received a football grant-in-aid with University of Kentucky. After a few months Jim decided to return home and work, which was not unusual during that era. Scholarships in those days often weren’t sufficient support and girlfriends often remained home, too. Running backs Frank Patton and Jim Wells were “speed merchants”. Roy Conley, 5’10”, 220lbs and Joey Rapier, who became an orthopedic surgeon, rotated at the fullback position. Paul Sheets, who became a chiropractor, and Gerald Hitchcock were ends, Paul Pelphrey, Jim Cyrus (300lbs+), Fred Webb (300lbs+), Bill Hensley, Stanley Knight were great linemen. Ralph Huston and James Kennard were guards. Kennard was the uncle of basketball great, Luke Kennard, Ohio high school graduate, who signed with Duke.
PHS’s Gene Cyrus, later Johnson County, KY sheriff, two years earlier signed with Bear Bryant at UK and then followed him to Texas A&M. He returned home amid the Junction Boys, fiasco. “The Junction Boys is the name given to the ‘survivors’ of Texas A&M Aggies football coach Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant’s ten day summer camp in Junction, Texas beginning September 1, 1954. The ordeal achieved legendary status and became the subject of a book and a television movie produced by ESPN.” 3. 4.
Gene was a successful Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) owner, business man, and Johnson County Sheriff. Cyrus was one of the toughest men Mike had known. He rode horseback around the mountains and through the woods searching for illicit drugs and other law breakers. He was compared to Bufford Pusser, star in the movie ‘Walking Tall’. Yes, Gene carried a big stick, meant what he said, and didn’t tolerate foolishness. He died tragically, when murdered by a shotgun blast, serving a warrant to a deranged man. Gene and all PHS athletes were Mike’s dear friends. He played-up with older athletes, who kindly watched out for Mike when he was a youngster.
The success of PHS football was reflected by the Louisville Courier Journal All State Football selections from Mike’s small PHS during the mid-1950s era. Selection was extremely difficult for East Kentuckians from Paintsville, KY which was 199 miles, 3 1/2 hours from Louisville. East Kentucky was sometimes forgotten, both athletically and commercially, by state government, other state agencies, and large city newspapers. Big accomplishments were required for an ounce of recognition.
There were many in numerous other eras, but just during Mike’s 1954-1956 era: 1954 CJ All-State Team - Gene Cyrus, HM Tackle, CJ, Irvin Franklin, HM End, CJ, Scotty McCloud, HM Center, CJ 1955 CJ All-State Team - Jim Conley, HM Back, CJ 1956 CJ All State Team - Jim Conley, second Team Back, CJ, Jim Cyrus, third Team Back, CJ, Gerald Hitchcock, HM End, CJ, Stanley Knight, HM Guard, CJ, Frankie Patton, HM Back, CJ, Paul Sheets, HM End, CJ . Mike’s first year 1956 PHS football in eigth grade. He was extremely honored to have been a teammate of these excellent football athletes. 5.
Mike’s PHS football era seriously began to emerge the Fall of 1957. Bill Hensley was a formidable CJ HM All State tough, both way tackle. Roy Elmer Conley was fullback and CJ HM All-State tackle. Mike started running back, Mo quarterback, and Joey Rapier alternated fullback. Coach Walter Brugh and the tigers record was 5-5-0. The year was a disappointment.
In 1958 Mike played both running back and quarterback, alternating both positions with brother Mo. Coach Brugh played him at QB because, as he told Morris, Mike was “getting beat-up pretty bad” at running back. PHS’s team had great size and strength that season, but were not blocking as they had been expected. Brugh and PHS were 5-6-0. Winchester defeated PHS 20-0 in the Big Sandy Bowl. Orville Hamilton was about 6’5” 200+ pound center, who later attended EKU on basketball scholarship and became Johnson Central superintendent. He and Mike were named CJ HM All-State. 5.
The 1958 PHS seniors were Roy Conley, Orville Hamilton, Joe Brown, John VanHoose, Liney Hicks, Joey Rapier, Clyde Ratliff, and Marucie Minix, III. 14. Most small schools, even though they had respectable football reputations, didn’t have the player numbers to simply reload every year. Small football high schools were cyclic and reloaded after a few consecutive years, as PHS did, unlike larger Lexington and Louisville schools with great depth that reloaded every year.
Prior to his junior year in the summer, Mike, halfback, and John Porter, full back, worked out diligently. They didn’t own weights. Few did in those days. So the two guys rigged-up a pulley system of weights on an old unused metal swing set with ropes, chains, bricks, and blocks in the Minix backyard. They did arms M, W, F and legs T and Th. They ran every morning down Euclid Avenue to highway 40 under the railroad tracks, then to Thealka and to the end of Concord Road and back. Then the two kicked footballs at the park and playground. John place-kicked to Mike and he punted to John relentlessly. In the afternoon, Mike hit 100 baseballs pitched from Rolly Polly (David Wiley), and then he pitched to Polly. Often Peanut Lemaster, a grade schooler then, shagged fly balls. He, John, and Polly were in excellent physical shape.
This was where Mike’s medical school neuroanatomy professor, Dr. Lois Gillalan, neural pathways lectures, re-entered “The Missile” Journey. The season of 1959 “The Missile” began a unique method for preparing himself mentally, not only physically, for football practice and games. There were no head-sets, ear-phones, or buds; only TV, radio, and record players. Music he found was inspirational. His DNA resonated with Rhythm and Blues. R&B he discovered put him in a dopamine feel-good state, a psychological zone. Gillalan had lectured about the neural pathway.
WSIP 1490 AM radio station was up Main Street, three houses and the station from Mike’s home in Paintsville. Ted Arnold Silvert owned the station. WSIP FM was non-existent then. His great buddy while growing up, David Silvert, and family lived on the second floor over the radio station. Jolly John, David, Big Bill Herald, a football teammate, and even Mike’s younger brother, Mark, and others were disc jockeys. Mike listened to sports and music from WSIP. Mike, David, Kendrick Wells, House Johnson, Mike Baily, J.C. Blevins, John Porter, Mike and Scott Craft, Rolly Polly, and brother Wendell Wiley, Maurice, and the Grab Nickel gang played ball and other kid stuff, from mid-morning to night during the Summer and Paintsville School sports during the school year. Many became excellent athletes as they advanced through school and were teammates of his at PHS.
One late evening he tuned-in WSIP, but instead landed on 1510 AM, Randy’s Record Shop, and discovered a magnificent Rhythm and Blues (R&B) station, broadcast from Gallatin Tennessee. WOW, he was blown away with the soul music. From then on, 1510 AM was like medicine. R&B became the stimulus releaser of his psychological zone. R&B psyched him up for football practices and games. The musical energy fuelled his body.
When he listened to 1510 AM, Mike was transfixed, hypnotized, and stirred into fever pitch by R&B. He was moved, inspired, and filled with energy. He felt empowered and he was motivated to excel. The transformation was very similar to the power he received from religious gospel music or a hell fire, damnation sermon. R&B took him to church. When he relaxed pre-game, after his pre-game meal, he listened to R&B 45 rpms while lying in bed. Then he commenced to the locker at the football field to have his ankles taped. Once taped he felt that he could conquer football and all the bodies hurled at him.
The station’s history was explained. “Back in the 1950s, when white teenagers were just beginning to discover that Pat Boone's version of "Ain't That A Shame" was not the original, a radio station in Gallatin, Tennessee, was beaming rhythm and blues and gospel music to millions of young listeners, each discretely tuning his dial to WLAC 1510 on the AM dial late into the evening hours.”
“Here streaming directly into our bedrooms were the strange, new, and wonderful tones of Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, Lowell Fulson, Lightning Hopkins, Muddy Waters, Little Junior Parker, The Spaniels, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howling Wolf, and Etta James.” The rhythmic spaces devoid of head jamming instruments in blues music were identical to vintage African and Native American Indian tribal drumming and chanting vibrations that resonated within humans and “The Missile” DNA.
“Nothing characterized the WLAC listening experience more than the nightly program sponsored by "The World's Largest Mail Order Phonograph Record Shop" Randy's Record Shop in Gallatin, Tennessee. WLAC had no street address, no post office box ... just "Gallatin, Tennessee." 18. WSIP began playing R&B. Mike’s buddy, Dave Silvert, gave him several promotional 45 rpm records that “The Missile” played pre-game for inspiration. He was “psyched” on R&B.
Dr. Gillilan and scientists described the physiology for that phenomenon. African phonic energy became a science, Mike discovered. “African drumming and musical resonance restores life.” African music healers discovered how to manipulate appropriate phonic energy for illness intervention. Primordial R&B had even been chanted for the endurance of hard work on plantations. The scientists found instrumental tones, ensemble textures, structural configurations of sound and form selected individually healed the sick. African medicine science involved musical arts in traditional Africa and helped spiritual celebrations. African music was both a healer and promoter. 19. 20.
Scientists discovered sound energies and vibrations resonated naturally in human environments and every biological system. Sound was stored after the energy was transferred between two or more different potential storage and kinetic modes, similar to a pendulum swinging. The kinetic energy oscillations matched each system's natural frequency of vibration. Scientists concluded that resonance phenomena occurred with all vibration types or waves: acoustic, optical, electrical, orbital, mechanical, electromagnetic, nuclear magnetic (NMR), electron spin (ESR), and resonance of quantum wave functions on atomic particle levels. Resonant systems generated vibrations of specific frequency from musical instruments and received specific frequencies from a complex vibrations that contained many frequencies. 21. God created natural laws that possessed natural rhythms. God’s rhythms sustained life.
Biophysicists discovered that DNA, the molecular code for life resonantly absorbed electromagnetic energy. They demonstrated that DNA molecules absorbed energy because DNA chains continually resonated. “All physical systems biological or otherwise have natural resonance at certain frequencies (resonant frequency). Researchers revealed that microwaves around three gigahertz resonantly drive longitudinal vibration mode in DNA chains by electrically coupling with ions residing on the backbone of the DNA helix. 22. The DNA then drove other physiologic and endocrine body systems. Mike was toned for greatness after he was maximally stimulated with R&B, which resonated within his DNA and then elicited maximum feel good neurochemical, dopamine, and three major stress hormones, epinephrine (adrenaline), norepinephrine (noradrenaline), and cortisol. He became prepared with a feel-good, fight and flight state. He always said his adrenal gland that produces adrenaline was a big as a washtub because he was quick to respond to challenging circumstances.
Scientists showed that every creation in the universe had vibration and resonant energy. Vibrations generated waves our senses perceived both physically and subliminally. Every atom, particle, molecule was in constant vibration and resonated. Every organ, cell, bone, tissue, and liquid of the body and electromagnetic fields around the body (aura) had a healthy vibratory frequency. The entire universe and all its contents were in a state of vibration, including human beings. If humans were not resonating with some part of themselves or their surroundings, they became dissonant or dis-resonant or unhealthy. 23.
Sounds and vibrations absorbed by DNA, neurological and other body systems, altered DNA and Neurologic and Human behavior. Brain messages that traveled from neuron to neuron via synapses were affected by resonant (good) or dis-resonant (bad) sounds and vibrations. The song ‘Good Vibrations’ by the Beach Boys said it succinctly. Mike was pickin’ up good vibrations and the music gave him excitations.
“The Missile” had likewise discovered how to utilize Rhythm and Blues, R&B, from 1510 AM Gallatin, TN to put him in a dopamine feel-good state, a psychological zone in which he shot and soared like a “missile” during football games. He had confidence that he could fly and never get tackled. He ran like a hammer behind his pads or slippery-hipped depending on game situations and even seemed to run faster than ever. He ran with his shoulders squared when he hit the line of scrimmage. He was good at finding lanes and was disciplined runner, yet ran with reckless abandon. “Mike the Missile” hit the holes with precise timing so that the play unfolded the way it was designed. The number of steps he took to the holes on various plays seldom varied, because of his discipline and Coach Brugh’s precise instruction. He burst through holes in the offensive line like a “missile” flying downhill behind his pads. 24. 25. Most humans seek and some, accidentally, find their powerful, dominant traits. “The Missile” soared during football with his rhythm of life establishment from his fueled DNA.
His junior year, 1959, the football team showed marked improvement. The team was better synchronized on offense, the defense was more aggressive, and the athletes were dedicated. The team was 6-4-0, scored 246 and gave up 146 points. Mike scored 192 points of the points on 32 touchdowns. Mike Minix, running back, was third team CJ All-State and Roger Dixon, tackle, Kendrick Wells, guard, and Charles “Chuck” Conley, end, were HM CJ All-State. 5.
Some of the following is repetitious, but included because of its importance to the history. Mr. Larry VanHoose, a journalist who became a gubernatorial press secretary, aide to congressmen and director of the Republican Party in Kentucky, named him, “Mike The Missile” during his 1959 season. VanHoose grew up in Paintsville. At the University of Kentucky, Mr. VanHoose worked on the student newspaper, The Kentucky Kernel, and he later wrote for the Lexington Herald-Leader and Paintsville Herald newspaper. He was a stringer for Sports Illustrated for a while, In the late 1960s, an interest in Republican politics led Mr. VanHoose to a post in the administration of recently elected Republican Gov. Louie B. Nunn. He became Nunn's press secretary,.
Files coming soon.
"Larry VanHoose was the governor's voice; he wrote just about every word that came out of the governor's mouth," Todd VanHoose, his son, said. "He understood the way the governor thought. And the governor gave him the leeway to express it the way he wanted."
After working in the Nunn administration, Mr. VanHoose was executive director of the Kentucky Republican Party before becoming chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Larry Hopkins of Lexington. He later worked for other Republican congressmen, including Ed Whitfield of Kentucky, Martin Hoke of Ohio and J.D. Hayworth of Arizona. "I trusted Larry; he was a great sounding board for ideas," Hopkins said. "He didn't always agree with the way I voted, and he would tell me that.” 6. The name “The Missile” became part of the Eastern Kentucky Sports Historic Landscape, even recounted today, 55 years later.
Mike’s PHS senior year was an enjoyable, gratifying year. The football team was 11-1-0, number three in Litkenhous Rating, number two United Press International. The team scored 388 points and gave up 96 points. Minix scored 252 points on 42 touchdowns. Mike, a running back, was first team CJ All-State. John “P-Jack” Daniels, tackle, Doug Hamilton, tackle, Bobby Haney, guard, Bill Herald, center, and Mike Lyons, QB were HM CJ All-State. 5.
The first-ever game against Pikeville was in 1925. PHS won 7-0. Pikeville leads the series with Paintsville 46W-30L-3T. Pikeville High has been a nemesis in recent years, but during Mike’s years in PHS football, the scores were the following: 1956 Pikeville won 12-7. PHS’s QB Jim Conley had a separated shoulder, could not play his QB position and stayed flanked-out as a decoy most of the game, PHS’s only loss during the era. Thereafter, during Mike’s era Paintsville when he was a starter, PHS defeated Pikeville in 1957 40-0, 1958 21-7, 1959 32-6 and 1960 27-13.
Mike was taught that sportsmanship included playing without cheating and bullying. “The Missile” was never allowed to "trash talk". His father and high school Coach, Walter Brugh, instructed him to say "good hit" even when he was slobber-knocked, then smile, jump up, and return to the huddle. That attitude often confused opponents, after they delivered their toughest tackle, followed by Mike’s smile, shrug-off, and bounce-up without ill-effects. Ultimately, that attitude discouraged the opposing team and encouraged “Missile” momentum. During the 1960 season his 252 points, 42 touchdowns, and 618 career points on 103 touchdowns led the state and the nation. He continued to be listed among the scoring leaders in the Kentucky High School Athletic Association (KHSAA) records. Interestingly, most of the athletes in those records scored more than five TDs on many single game occasions, even more than 10 TDs for a single-game. Coach Brugh did not allow Mike to score more than five TDs per game. When he reached the five TD limit, Coach sat him down and PHS was usually leading.
One game Mike ran the ball six times the first half and scored six TDs. One TD was called back. A Cincinnati Red scout was the referee. On one score, in the end-zone, the referee, pulled him aside, while gasping for breath having trailed him for a long TD run, and said, “The Reds weren’t sure you could run.” Gasping he said, “I’ll tell them Monday….Nothing to worry about.” Brugh sat Mike down after his five TDs and the subs replaced him. “The Missile” could have easily doubled his national 1960 national record. For example, the 1960 season game scores reflected Coach Brugh’s ethical principle: Raceland 48-0, Jenkins 38-18, Louisa 32-7, Mt. Sterling Dubois 35-6, Catlettsburg 38-6, Paris Western 40-6, Pikeville 27-13, Elkhorn City 40-0, Wheelwright 35-0, Prestonsburg 20-6, Bellevue 21-0, Lynch 14-34. Paintsville, before the Class A system, was in the EKMC, East KY Mountain Conference, playing tough mountain teams. In 1960 PHS experienced difficulty finding Class A games.
The 1960 Paintsville, KY Tigers. Back row left to right: Gene Gamboe, John Porter, Mike Lyons, Mike Minix (18), Front row left to right: Basil Mullins, Dough Hamilton, Bobby Haney, Bill Herald, Delanoe Davis, John Daniels, Robert Jones. Below 1960-1961 PHS High School photo. 6ft 188lbs
Walter Brugh was an ethical, respected coach, who did not believe in running the scores up and padding an athlete’s numbers and records. “Shellacking” an opponent, unmercifully, was not fair-minded or honorable.
“The Missile” developed heat illness against Belfry in 1959. Thankfully, he didn’t have a full blown heat stroke. (Picture Larry VanHoose, Lexington Herald)
“The Missile” was one of the first to wear contact lens to play football. Dr. T.E. Walden referred Mike to Dr. Claude Trapp in Lexington for contact lens. His office was on Upper Street. Trapp examined him, wrote his prescription and referred him down the street to Tinder Krauss and Tinder Optical.
John Krauss made his contacts. In 1956 Krauss placed a funnel-like device under Mike’s upper and lower eyelids after eye drop anesthesia. The stem of the funnel projected up in the air away from the eyes. Semisolid liquid was injected into the stem and flowed down onto the entire surface of the eyeballs. It was allowed time to set-up like concrete. The funnels and molds were removed and the eye impressions were used to make plastic contact lens that were the full size of the front of the eyeball. They covered more than just the eye’s cornea as modern contacts lenses did. One hole was drilled on the inferior scleral shell for oxygenation of the cornea and sclera. The lens covered the entire white and cornea surface of the eyes and hurt like the dickens, after about 2 1/2 hours.
Many teams, including Pikeville, raked his eyes attempting to remove the contacts over the two-bar facemask when they tackled him and got him in a pile-up on the ground. In those days, the face and eyes were vulnerable to trauma during football. They were not protected by early face masks.
Coach Brugh was the “doctor” for “hurts”, cuts, bumps, bruises, strains, and sprains. He sometimes referred Mike and teammates to Paintsville Hospital doctors for serious injuries and infections and chiropractor Dr. Jim Wilhite for orthopedic problems. Coach used Merthiolate for all cuts and then covered the cuts with gauze pads and wrapped the trauma with gauze bandage wraps. Brugh used an atomizer to spray Merthiolate on sore throats. It seemed to be very therapeutically beneficial. Merthiolate, however, was a mercury-containing orange liquid substance, once widely used as germ-killer and a preservative in many different products, including vaccines, but is very poisonous when swallowed in large amounts. Thankfully, the team didn’t get lead poisoning.
Coach Brugh used an extremely hot analgesic balm for severe bruises. Once he rubbed-in analgesic balm on a deep left-thigh bruise Mike incurred from a hard tackle and then wrapped the injury with gauze. The gauze slipped off and the hot balm got on his testicles. He hopped around the coaches’ office after practice one afternoon, like a jackrabbit. He tried wiping and removing the balm from his scrotum. Lee Franklin, the football manager, a comical kind of youngster, said to Mike, “Now I know how you can run so fast. It’s that hot balm on your balls.”
The 1960 PHS football team was outstanding. The starting teams were tough and experienced. Coach Brugh drilled the offense and Coach Decker and Pat Dale the defense to perfection. QB Mike Lyons, who became an engineer, was masterful at faking and handing the ball off. John Porter (UK), an attorney later, was deceptive faking the belly play and run with the ball. Basil Mullins (UK) and Doug Hamilton (EKU) were experts at cross blocking the 6 hole, through which “The Missile” (UK) ran most of his touchdowns before cutting back against the grain in front of the linebackers and secondary. Pulling guards Bobby Haney and Delano Davis were hard-nosed blockers. Bill Herald was a massive center and stopped all defensive penetration up the middle, which was also crucial. Left end and tackle, Robert Jones and P-Jack Daniels were tough blockers. Most of the offense played both offense and defense. Jim Carroll (Georgetown College KY) was a defensive secondary specialist. Their defensive play was equally tough and excellent. A few walked on at Morehead University. Some severed gallantly later in Vietnam.
He was named to the 1960 Sporting News High School All American Team and named to the Scholastic Magazine All-American Team with other Kentucky prep-stars. The 1960-1961 Sporting News High School All-American Team was listed. It did not list the members in first, second, or third teams, just All Americans. The 13thannual All-American High School Football Classic was played at Lockhart Stadium, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, May 19, 1961. “The Missile and some muscle, the lean Southern kind, that doesn’t wilt under heat and pressure, as the Rebels, in 80-degree heat, defeated the North, 26-21.” 7. He was always in superb condition.
A newspaper report stated, “Mike the Missile Minix, deservedly named, was the contest’s outstanding back. He was the All-American Game Offense MVP.” “Minix never scored for the South, but he set up one TD with a brilliant catch and kept the North on edge all night long with his slip-hippy running.” He leaped up like a cat to catch the pass. Minix had nine carries for 42 yards the first half and nine carries for 57 yards the second half and 38 yards receiving for a total of 137 yards of the South. 7.
Previous All American MVPS were Bobby McCool, Ronnie Knox, Jimmy Taylor, Billy Cannon, Ronnie Hartline, Warren Maccaronie, and Jerry Rome to name a few. Previous All-American Game players who made a name for themselves were Les Richter USC and L A Rams, Jim Mutscheller Notre Dame and Baltimore Colts, Harry Agganis Boston Univ and Boston Red Sox, Marion Campbell UGA and 49ers and Eagles, Lou Tsioropulos UK basketball and Boston Celtics, Rick Casares Florida and Chicago Bears, Bart Starr Alabama and Green Bay Packers, Jery Tubbs Oklahoma and 49ers and Cowboys, Billy Ray Smith, Bears and Cardinals, Ronnie Knox UCLA and Bears, Alex Karras Iowa and Packers, Jimmy Taylor LSU and Packers, Nick Pietrosante Notre Dame and Lions, Billy Cannon LSU and Oilers, Marlin McKeever USC and Rams, Vikings, Redskins and Mike McKeever USC and Rams.
Mike’s South All-American team was coached by Horace McCool and Robert “Bull Cyclone” Sullivan. The North All-American team was coached by Sammy Baugh and Hugh “Bones” Taylor. Mike had great big holes to run through during the HSAA game, a tribute to “Bull Cyclone” who was known by Bear Bryant as the “toughest coach ever.”
1960 High School All-American Football Team
1960-1961 High School All American game photo. 6’ 190lbs. Offense MVP
Bryant said that he wasn't near as tough as "Bull Cyclone". Sullivan was so ornery that no big school would hire him as head coach. "Bull" was a mule driver coach, in Scooba, Kemper County, Mississippi in 1950.
"Bull Cyclone" was a gigantic person in that small, impoverished town. In 1961 during the High School All-American football activities Mike remembered "Bull" as a big man with a big, loud voice, but nothing out of the ordinary happened from “Bull” during his High School All American all-star practices and games. “The Missile” was accustomed to hot, tough practices.
“Bull Cyclone” had a big reputation. He was a mammoth man, who was around 6'5" and 285 pounds. He took no backtalk. The East Mississippi catalog said, ”We also teach good sportsmanship and self-denial in habits and attitudes.”
1960-1961 High School All American Certificate
"Bull Cyclone" would recruit many players and then begin to weed out the ones who did not fit his abusive system, during summer practice, and then "dress out" the survivors for the season. “Bull Cyclone” let everyone know his philosophy. A player would only get a scholarship if he didn't quit and often wasn't given the scholarship to sign until he got on the bus for the first game. This Bull maneuver of scholarships set the tone for the unethical SEC scholarship excess, of which Coach Dodd objected.
Frank Deford in his Sports Illustrated article said "Bull Cyclone" Sullivan of East Mississippi State was the first of the Bear Bryant clone of abusive coaches.
Deford said. “Running players off” was a fairly common football practice in those days. It was, for example, what cemented Bryant’s reputation as a copycat when he started coaching at Texas A&M in 1954. You didn't get cut, “you got ran off” the team. Yes, it was “ran off” not run off. Or perhaps, more often, you chose to run yourself off. "Bull ran off more All-Americans than he kept," says Don Edwards, who played quarterback at Scooba in the late 1950s.
"About 200 of Bull Cyclone's players became coaches, and he'd tell them, ‘Son, don't never worry about a player who leaves. The only thing for you to do is find out why he left and work on it for the next one comes along like that.’ Coaching, in the good old days, wasn't exactly like the ministry. The idea wasn't to save all the souls, but to win-at-all-costs.” The 200 disciples had many disciples and the beat went on.
"Yeah," says Bill (Sweet William) Gore, a retired postman who was Bull Cyclone's good friend. "They'd think he was killing a boy out there when all he was doin' was gettin' his attention...Sure, we broke some ribs and noses going one-on-one with ourselves at halftime, but understand that what Bull did didn't come out of cruel rural ignorance. He was a smart man and he was playing on the psyche.”…."Bull Cyclone made sure, though, that no one on the team felt safe. Sometimes he would advise his players, ‘I've killed more men while in the Marines than I can stack on this football field.’…. That usually got their attention.”
If he thought things were slack during a scrimmage, he would scream, "Get after it!" And the linemen were automatically obliged to choose up and start fighting one another.
“From his Parris Island days, Bull Cyclone borrowed the idea of an obstacle course, adding a wrinkle of his own, a trip-wire in the tall grass that the football managers yanked as the weary players came through making them trip and fall. From another part of the course, Bull Cyclone would hurl bricks at the players as they tried to regain their balance after climbing over a wall. Scooba boys were the last in the country to wear the outdated leather helmets because Bull Cyclone believed that the hard modern helmets caused more injuries than they prevented. He thought his players would be better off with the nice, soft leather helmets, especially if they were decked out with skull and crossbones.” 15.
That was a golden era of PHS sports, as supported by the gifted set of inductees, tied to Mike, PHS, and Paintsville, who were inducted into the Kentucky Dawahares KHSAA Hall of Fame in different classes: “The Missile” in the 1997 Hall of Fame class, his PHS superintendent Oran Teater 1992, his football coach, Walter Brugh 1991, his basketball coach, Billy Ray Cassady, 2002, and his niece Myra VanHoose Blackwelder 1991, Golf, were inducted. 8.
“Oran C. Teater participated in football, track, and basketball for Paintsville High in the late 1930s…After World War II, he returned to his alma mater and coached all sports…As an administrator, he reorganized the Big Sandy Conference to include all sports and was active in organizing girls' sports…He served two terms on the KHSAA Board of Control and served one term as president of the Association…He retired in 1978 as superintendent of Paintsville schools.”
“Coach Walter J. Brugh was an outstanding athlete at Paintsville High, playing football, basketball, and baseball -- "the only sports we had"…He made the varsity football team while in the eighth grade…Paintsville won the Big Sandy Conference football championship during his four years in high school, and he was honored as All-Conference three years…His life's work during 39 years at Paintsville has been coaching football, golf, baseball, track and assisting in basketball...But it is his success in coaching football that made him and his teams known across Kentucky…He is 22 victories shy of being the state's winningest high school coach…His teams have won 250, lost 111 and have had 5 ties…His colleagues have honored him with many Coach-of-the-Year awards…His motto:
"The strength of our country is shaping a young person's character through sincere coaching and direction…Football teaches boys to become men, teaches self-confidence, discipline, good attitude, character, dedication, movability, strength, and the will to excel…Coaching merely implements techniques utilizing talents in an honest effort to win.”
Mike’s niece, Myra VanHoose Blackwelder, was also inducted into the Dawahares-Kentucky High School Athletic Association Sports Hall of Fame - The name Myra VanHoose stands alone in the record books of Kentucky high school golf…Now married, Myra VanHoose Blackwelder is the only golfer -- male or female -- to win four state high school championships…Myra did it for Lexington Lafayette High School in 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1973…She also led Lafayette to the state team championship her junior and senior years…In the classroom, Myra was just as outstanding…She was graduated with high distinction (3.7 grade-point-average) and was a member of the National Honor Society…Her classmates elected her vice president of the senior class and she won a D.A.R. Good Citizen Award…She went on to a distinguished career at the University of Kentucky and is now a successful member of the women's professional golf tour. She was the first woman scholarship athlete at the University of Kentucky.”
Class of 2002 Billy Ray Cassady: In 1954 - Billy Ray Cassidy led Inez High to its second Kentucky State championship. He played on the University of Kentucky's 1958 national championship, team, coached by Adolph Rupp. 8.
In 1985 Mike, for his sports accomplishments, and his grandfather, Charles Wesley Wheeler for his “dynamic wholesale business” successes, founder of Sandy Valley Grocery, Inc. and Coach Walter Brugh together with three others were inducted into the Johnson County Kentucky Sesquicentennial Hall of Fame. 9. 10.
Paintsville High was ranked as the number one academic school in Kentucky on several annual rankings during Mike’s era. He was well prepared by his teachers, Betty Burchett for chemistry and physics, Jim Chandler math, Mary McClafferty government and civics, Loraine Wiley English and literature, June Rice library, Roger Lyon health, Pat Dale, assistant football coach, science and biology and many other very competent educators. Mike was truly blessed with excellent PHS teachers and mentors.
He was on one or more occasions was PHS class president. When he graduated he was Co-Valedictorian with Marda Dean Helton, a brilliant, beautiful, multi-talented young lady from a wonderful family.
He graduated PHS Spring Semester, 1961. He was courted by several professional baseball teams, but his heart was with college football. The June baseball draft began in 1963. So the draft was not an option when he graduated high school. He was scouted by many professional baseball teams. Hal Newhouser was a frequent interested scout who took particular interest in Mike’s career. Paul Fyfe WSIP Radio, Paintsville, Ky was a baseball aficionado. He was devoted to baseball, a minor league investor, and league president. Paul facilitated the beginning of the New York Yankees Class A minor league team’s move to Paintsville, The Tri-County Yankees. Paul expedited Newhouser interest in and scouting of Mike. Newhouser was a scout for the Houston Astros, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, and the Detroit Tigers and worked for the Astros’ organization. In 1961 his father had serious talks with Newhouser, Fyfe, and others about potential contracts and career for him in major league baseball. Those talks were halted, when Mike decided to continue his career in college football. He left two potential baseball contracts on the table his father had selected of the proposals and focused on his impending university education and football experience. He was determined to become a doctor like Dr. Paul B. and Dr. Bob and the other great doctors of that time in Paintsville and professional baseball right out of high school did not seem the correct direction.
“Mike ‘the Missile’ Minix, who concluded a fabulous high school football regular season career at Paintsville High School last night, may well be the best thing in Kentucky since Bourbon. Incidentally, Mike is considered a major league baseball prospect as a third-baseman and is a top-notch basketball per-former”
“Among the colleges and universities interested in his talents are sentimental favorite University of Kentucky. Also bidding are Duke, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia Tech, Florida State, University of Florida, Ohio State, Indiana, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt, and the list is growing.”
“His life’s ambition is to be a doctor so those schools with good medical programs will probably get the edge in the final outcome.” He is a prolific touchdown scorer, leads the state and nation in scoring, but “his highest output is 5 TDs, 30 points, and hasn’t scored an extra point” to run-up his totals in hopes of setting and breaking records.” 11. The fact that his highest output was five TDs, 30 points, was truly amazing when today’s records were considered, seriously augmented by opposing coaches, who “poured it on” vulnerable, weaker teams.
“To most football fans throughout Kentucky, Minix is ‘Mike The Missile’ – 180 pounds of power, speed, and brains who has devastated the opposition this season, but his success is certainly not confined to football, not to sports. He has made an outstanding impression as a student and a representative of his school and city. He has merited the praise of teachers, coaches, and school officials as well as athletic fans. “Mike is a student that anyone would be proud to have. You never get too many like him, whether he’s on the football field, in the gym or the classroom. His attitude toward any kind of training has always been excellent and he always does a good job. This is the opinion of Mr. Paul Trimble, Paintsville High School principal.” 12.
“The Missile” had other interests. “His favorite pastime is playing the most recent popular rock “n” roll records on his hi hi-fi set; his likes are sports, pretty girls, and eating. He dislikes are loudmouths, smart alecs, and conceited people. I wish to win a scholarship and attend college and become a doctor,” said Mike. 13.
During Dr. “Mike the Missile Minix” professional ophthalmology career two fellows spread the word and it was subsequently announced that “Mike The Missiles” PHS scoring record, 103 career TDs scored, had been “broken” (surpassed) by a young PHS football athlete. Dr. Minix was excited for the youngster, at first, offered to attend a ceremony crowning him PHS TD champion, until the actual facts were revealed. The young man was an excellent football and baseball player, but he didn’t break “Mike the Missile Minix” PHS TD record as announced. The young athlete later played baseball at Morehead State University, who also, erroneously, reported that he, not “The Missile”, held the PHS TD scoring record. Shame on Morehead State for not investigating the records and facts.
The deception proceeded as follows. During the Paintsville vs Pikeville 2006 football game at home, in which Pikeville defeated PHS 33-12, the announcer announced, over public address throughout the stadium, that “Mike the Missile Minix” PHS TD record had been “broken”. As was the usual mistaken case, the young athlete had nothing to do with the mistake. From what was learned, apparently, two overzealous fellows were ignorant of the definition of the word touchdown and ignorant concerning the Kentucky High School Athletic Associations records and the categories for TDs and requirements of the records kept. Coach Jim Tom Allen was the PHS head football coach in 2006. He apparently didn’t know the difference either. Mike didn’t know Allen. He wasn’t known to many in the Paintsville football community before his hire. PHS was 5-6-0 that year and 6-6 in 2007, his only two years as head PHS coach. The young player, a great all-around athlete made first team Courier-Journal All-State KY as a football defensive back, not offense.
The two overzealous fellows added his supposed career TD passes and his career TDs scored and arrived at an unsubstantiated 104 TD accounted-for. One TD greater than “Mike the Missile” record. The two overzealouts were prepared to post a plaque at PHS recognizing the feat, which would be incorrect forever. The Paintsville Herald sports reporter correspond by email that the TDs were unsubstantiated, according to her research. The KHSAA Scoring Categories follow. There is no category for Accounted-for TDs when totaled by adding scored TDs and TD passes. All TDs required the high school’s verification.
POINTS SCORED – CAREER, POINTS SCORED – SEASON, POINTS SCORED – GAME, TOUCHDOWNS – CAREER, TOUCHDOWNS – SEASON, TOUCHDOWNS – GAME, RUSHING TOUCHDOWNS –CAREER, RUSHING TOUCHDOWNS – SEASON, RUSHING TOUCHDOWNS – GAME, TOUCHDOWN PASSES – CAREER, TOUCHDOWN PASSES – SEASON, TOUCHDOWN PASSES – GAME, TOUCHDOWN PASSES – HALF, CONSECUTIVE GAMES WITH A TOUCHDOWN PASS –CAREER, TOUCHDOWN RECEPTIONS – CAREER, TOUCHDOWN RECEPTIONS – SEASON, TOUCHDOWN RECEPTIONS – GAME 16.
Files coming soon.
Sports reporters hastily reported, erroneously, the word of mouth unsubstantiated news, that “Mike the Missile’s” total career PHS 103 TD record had been “broken.” Everyone should have known, especially sports reporters and the media that the receiver got credit for the TD scored after a TD pass. Sports reporters and media should have known that the KHSAA records are categorized and there is no category for “TD’s accounted for”. The person who crossed the goal line with the ball or caught the ball across the goal line got credit for scoring the TD following a pass completion. The receiver doesn’t relinquish his credit to the QB for scoring his pass. Only Fantasy Football touted such scoring achievements. It was a fantasy.
Melinda Robinson, a sports reporter for the Paintsville Herald, reported in her article “Black and Blue” that “Mike the Missile” total career PHS TD record had been “broken.” She had not vetted the records properly, either. She subsequently reported that there was no documentation she found for the claim by the two fellows concerning the number of “TD’s accounted for.” She offered a quasi-apology and retraction of the record-breaking erroneous statements that she had reported. Troubling was that no one in the football community, coaches, former players, school officials noticed the error. He believed the Paintsville football aficionados, and there were many, had better sense than that fantasy. Unfortunately, they didn’t.
Only the Minix family discovered the mistake. One of the family said, “Who’s minding the store.” Thankfully, he called Mike before and erroneous award ceremony commenced and moved forward. Apparently, no one checked potential record-breaking performances at PHS, unbelievably. Once the mistake came to the attention of the school officials, they were embarrassed and disappointed with the PHS Athletic empowered, who should have known. Those in charge of PHS athletics were far removed from what was standard Athletic Department procedure. Soon a solution was announced. Paintsville Independent School Superintendent, Coy Sammons, in a 12/1/2006 letter to Melinda Robinson, Paintsville Herald Sports reporter, copied to Mike, stated, “In the near future, Paintsville High School will make improvements to the process of documenting and reporting our athletes’ performances in all sports. The KHSAA Record Book will be the standard used to obtain and document information for the PHS athletic program.”
PHS Principal, Paul Wade Trimble, Superintendent, Oran Teater, and reporter Larry VanHoose recorded and kept “Mike the Missile’s” TDs career touchdowns and reported them to the media, All-State and All-American committees. Trimble and Teater nominated him for Kentucky Dawahares KHSAA Hall of Fame including his records. Neither Mike nor his family recorded and reported his TDs. He and his family, frankly, were not actively worried about the records. He did not recall a conversation about TD records and didn’t even know where they were housed.
Traditions were changed, beginning in the 1990s, when coaches augmented the statistics of their scoring leaders, probably seeking recognitions. Many scoring leaders scored up to 11 TDs in one game. In lopsided games, coaches called plays to increase their leaders TD numbers. Coach Walter Brugh did not allow “Mike the Missile” to score over five TDs in a game. Brugh and many coaches in his era regarded overwhelming a helpless coaching colleague’s vulnerable team very improper behavior. PHS, during Coach Brugh and Mike’s era, never “poured it on” weaker opponents. Mike did not expect augmentations for the sake of records. Restraint and fairness were standard football procedure in those days.
Had Brugh increased his statistics he would have finished with more TDs than anyone, maybe forever (sic). Note that the KHSAA scoring leaders, that follow in the records, are all after the 1990s, except for Herbie Phelps, Reds’ baseball star, Don Gullet and James Fletcher. Mike concluded after 1990 it was “Coaches gone wild”. Coach Brugh and his colleagues would have disapproved and probably ostracized coaches for what they believed to be improper behavior, by not rescheduling the team and coach. Coaches might argue times were different after the 1990s and augmentation of records was important for scholarships and rankings. Mike didn’t know about those arguments per se. His record dates were during the “old days” 1956-1960. For example, Don Gullet (McKell) and Herbie Phelps (Old Kentucky Home) in 1968 scored 11 TDs in one game each and Shaun Alexander (Boone County) scored seven against Campbell Co. 1993 and seven against Lafayette in 1994. Some administrations were also opposed to running up scores against weaker foes. A Coach in Virginia was fired for running up the score. “The principal did not want him to embarrass the opposing teams.” 17.
TOUCHDOWNS – GAME, Mike was not in this category. Coach Walter Brugh did not pad his TD record with over five TDs per game.
10 Herbie Phelps (Old Kentucky Home) vs. Lou. Catholic Country Day, 1962
9 Monquante Gibson (Moore) vs. Shawnee, 2001
8 Jaylen Boyd (Caldwell Co.) vs. Calloway Co., 8-19-11
Three others
7 Fourteen were in this category including
Shaun Alexander (Boone County) vs. Lafayette, 1994
Shaun Alexander (Boone Co.) vs. Campbell Co., 1993
KHSAA Records as of 8/21/14, Note that there is no “TD’s accounted for” in the following KHSAA record categories.
POINTS SCORED - CAREER (Min. 500)
Player (School) Years
837 Domonique Hayden (Lexington Christian) 2006-09
722 Herbie Phelps (Old Kentucky Home) 1961-63
702 Kelvin Turner (Danville) 2001-04
696 Monquantae Gibson (Moore) 1998-01
680 Derek Homer (Fort Knox) 1993-96
676 Ryan Timmons (Franklin County) 2009-12
662 Shaun Alexander (Boone County) 1991-94
632 Josh Gross (Russell) 2001-04
618 Points Mike Minix (Paintsville) 1956-1960
POINTS SCORED - SEASON
326 Shaun Alexander (Boone County) 1994
313 Herbie Phelps (Old Kentucky Home) 1963
308 Damon Hood (Warren Central) 1990
302 Domonique Hayden (Lexington Christian) 2009
301 Scott Blair (Pulaski Southwestern) 1999
294 Rees MacShara (Boyle County) 2009
292 Herbie Phelps (Old Kentucky Home) 1962
288 Monquantae Gibson (Moore) 2001
284 Jeremy Simpson (Lincoln County) 1993
James Fletcher (Somerset) 1984
274 Anthony Wales (Central) 2011
272 Ryan Timmons (Franklin County) 2012
269 Derek Homer (Fort Knox) 1996
264 Ricky Buckler (Bellevue) 2009
Miles Simpson (Simon Kenton) 2008
Kasey Clark (Russell) 2006
Kasey Clark (Russell) 2005
Kelvin Turner (Danville) 2001-04
Calvin Bird (Corbin) 1956
Arliss Beach (Ashland Blazer) 2001
258 Josh Gross (Russell) 2004
254 Craig Lanham (Owensboro Catholic) 2003
252 Points Kentayvus Hopkins (Bourbon County) 2011
Shaun Alexander (Boone County) 1993
Mike Minix (Paintsville) 1960
TOUCHDOWNS - CAREER (Min. 75)
Player (School) Years
138 Domonique Hayden (Lexington Christian) 2006-09
116 Kelvin Turner (Danville) 2004
112 Ryan Timmons (Franklin County) 2009-12
Derek Homer (Fort Knox) 1993-96
110 Shaun Alexander (Boone County) 1991-94
Monquantae Gibson (Moore) 1998-01
105 Josh Gross (Russell) 2001-04
103 TDs Mike Minix (Paintsville) 1956-60
TOUCHDOWNS - SEASON (Min. 40)
Player (School) Year
72 Travis Atwell (Hancock County) 1999
54 Dusty Hall (Shelby Valley) 1999
Shaun Alexander (Boone County) 1994
49 Rees MacShara (Boyle County) 2009
48 Jeremy Simpson (Lincoln County) 1993
Herbie Phelps (Old Kentucky Home) 1963
46 Monquantae Gibson (Moore) 2001
James Fletcher (Somerset) 1984
45 Ryan Timmons (Franklin County) 2012
44 Kasey Clark (Russell) 2006
Kasey Clark (Russell) 2005
Arliss Beach (Ashland Blazer) 2001
Scott Blair (Pulaski Southwestern) 1999
43 Josh Gross (Russell) 2004
Kelvin Turner (Danville) 2004
Damon Hood (Warren Central) 1990
Derek Homer (Fort Knox) 1996
42 TDsRicky Buckler (Bellevue) 2009
Mike Minix (Paintsville) 1960
Craig Lanham (Owensboro Cathloic) 2003
Shaun Alexander (Boone County) 1993
Other categories in which “Mike the Missile” was not listed: Points Scored/Game, TDs/Game, Rushing TDs/Career, Rushing TDs/Game, TD Passes/season, TD Passes/Game, TD Passes/Half, Consecutive Games with a TD Pass/Career, TD Receptions/Career, TD Receptions/season, TD Receptions/Game.
Page 21 of the program for the 13thannual All-America National High School Football Classic, Lockhart Stadium, Fort Lauderdale, Florida Friday, May 19th, 1961 was the page for “Mike The Missile” Minix. Each player had a page.
On page three of the program, was the picture for the Frank Leahy Trophy, presented to the MVPs at halftime of the following years game. As life would have it, the 13th game, in which Mike played, was the last game of the annual series. Mike was the offense MVP of the 13thgame. Two others were defensive MVPs. The series was cancelled and there was no 14th game.
He didn’t receive the trophy hardware, even though he received the offense MVP title and recognition at the conclusion of the game and it was reported. It's never too late. Maybe he’ll finally receive the hardware. The MVPs, who received the trophy at halftime during Mike’s game were Jerry Rome offense and Buddy Hamic defense for 1960, 12th annual classic. Rhome, from Dallas TX, was with University Tulsa, Dallas Cowboys, Cleveland, 1964 College All American, Walter Camp Trophy Winner, 1964 Heisman Trophy runner-up. Garland (Buddy) Hamic was from Crowley, La. He was a standout linebacker and fullback for LSU 1961-62-63. LSU was SEC co-champs 1961.
Mike was a devoted supporter of the PHS football program throughout his medical career and made several pep-talks over the years to the football athletes before important games following the head coaches’ requests. Mike did hundreds of pre-participation physical examinations prior to PHS football practice in the fall and treated many injured PHS athletes, free gratis.
Mike coached the backs for the Paintsville Independent Middle School football team with line coach, Teenie VanHoose. The team was excellent and undefeated. Teenie was a childhood friend and an excellent football coach, who had many superb head coach positions and excellent won-loss records. Mike hoped he would one day be the PHS coach after Coach Brugh, but that never materialized. Amazingly, PHS politics were very carefully administered. His father, Tootie VanHoose, was mayor of Louisa, KY. Teenie’s brothers, James L. and Abbey J., were dear friends of Mike and well-respected businessmen. They had many family cousins in Johnson County, the epicenter of VanHooses in Kentucky
Mike announced that he would be extremely proud the day PHS Football Program returned to its position of prominence on the Kentucky football scene. He vowed he would proudly present the award to the new PHS TD legitimate champion, in person, health permitting and if he lived.
Dr. Micheal B. Minix, Sr., M.D. learned there are as many, and possibly more, detours and disappointments in the course of life’s journey as there are steps moving forward and rewards. Coach Brugh words to the wise: “It's not how you fall down. It's how you dust off your pants and when and how you get back up that counts.”
References:
- “King” Kelly Coleman By Gordon Moore (Prestonburg, Kentucky, North-South All Star Classic.
- [East KY Basketball History, J.R. VanHoose, Ashland Daily Independent, Nov 1, 2012]
- [Oral history from Sheriff Gene Cyrus]
- [The Junction Boys by Jim Dent 2001]
- [Paintsville High School Football Records]
- [by Jim Warren jwarren@herald-leader.comSept 18, 2014]
- [Joe Schabo, Bob Lynch, John Day (3 separate articles, same page) Fort Lauderdale News, Saturday, May 20, 1961]
- [Kentucky Dawahares KHSAA Hall of Fame]
- [1985 Sesquicentennial Hall of Fame (150 Years of Progress, 1834-1964), Carriage House Hotel, Paintsville, KY]
- [The Legend of Sandy Valley, by Arville Wheeler, biography, manuscript, 78 pages]
- [Fabulous Missile Age Ends At Paintsville, by Tom Miller, Nov 13, 1960, The Herald Advertiser]
- [Ability of Football Scoring Champ Mie Minix, Extends to Classroom, Other Spots, John McGill, Ashland Daily Independent Sports Editor, Nov 27, 1960]
- [Player Of Month,by Phil Haney,Sports,Paintsville High Echo,10/7/1958]
- [Tigers Downed by Belfrey 26-20,Phil Haney, Sports, Paintsville High Echo,10//7/1958]
- SI Vault - A CNN network site April 30, 1984 "The Toughest Coach There Ever Was" by Frank Deford
- [KHSAA Record Book as of 8/21/14]
- [From the Gym to the Jury, January, 2014]
- [Randys Record Shop,WLAC Radio1210AM,Anyone remember,Jim Lowe]
- [Self evolution: 1st domain of spiritual health, Neera Dhar, Suresh K. Chaturvedi and Deoki Nandan Ayu.2012 Apr-Jun33(2):174–177
- [The African Knowledge of Sickness, Backcloth to Music and Healing in Traditional African Society By Meki Nzewi Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, Vol 2, No (2002)]
- [Wikipedia]
- [DNA RESONANCE(123)--VIBRATIONAL New theories on the fundamental physics of space, matter, energy, and consciousness by CHARLES VIND]
- [Tuning Forks and Harmonics for Health, Toning for Health]
- [Ref: Electrical design in the human body by Craig Savige, Creation, December 1, 1999]
- [Characterizing the Effect of the Energy Emitted by Trinfinity8 on Human DNA – by Dr. Glen Rein, January 2012, Trinfinity8 Advanced Technology]
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY FOOTBALL AND PRE-MED
Mike was recruited in football by many, many college and university teams. He could have played with numerous highly ranked programs. Many came to Paintsville unannounced. For instance, he was playing golf and putting on Paintsville Country Club’s 10th green, when the Ohio State’s football coaches appeared without warning, “out of nowhere.” They had a lengthy, cordial, respectful discussion, but he made it clear he wasn’t going north to play football and they departed. Mike did not want to attend Ohio State, even though it was a tremendous school and football program.
Others showed up on his front porch without calling, including the Air Force Academy. It seemed some of the recruiting coaches feared calling because they suspected their visit would be declined. However, Mike’s focus was firmly fixed on medical education. He found it amazing the number of university pre-medical programs that were said to exist, whose medical programs didn’t pan-out when searched. Most coaches were not informed about the academic world at their institutions in those days, particularly pre-med.
Mike’s father, Morris, attended the University of Alabama. He enrolled in the 1930s. Bear Bryant attended Alabama and played football from 1932 to 1936. Bear Bryant was known as the "other end" because Don Hudson was the star end on the Alabama Rose Bowl team in 1936.
Interestingly, coaches negatively recruited athletes to thwart competitor Coaches’ recruiting success. Coaches generically recruited athletes for their own successes, but also to impress other recruits, parents, and set recruiting marks. The job for Mike and others was to ferret-out the positive, legitimate recruiters, who wanted him to play football and get a medical education.
After Mike became a football recruit following his success, his father stated that he would not participate in recruitment by Alabama, even though the Crimson Tide desperately tried to recruit him. He would dare not refute his father’s decision. Ironically, he’d find out later Charlie Bradshaw was in charge of recruiting the state of Kentucky his senior year. Many other schools, on the other hand, recruited and visited his home during the recruiting process. Every successful program from the PAC 10 to the SEC and Big 10 and so on had Mike on their recruitment list. Many visited tiny Paintsville, KY, probably after purchasing a road map to find its tiny, secluded location in East KY.
Morris refused to entertain Alabama recruiters in his home when they called and requested a visit. He simply said, “we’re not interested.” He advised Mike that the University of Alabama would not be the place for him to pursue a college football career while playing Bryant's brand of football and study pre-medicine.
Alabama’s Bear Bryant “was known as a master motivator when he coached.” 38. He had famous quotes that continue to be used. One of Bear Bryant’s best quotes: “What are you doing here? Tell me why you are here. If you are not here to win a national championship, you’re in the wrong place. You boys are special. I don’t want my players to be like other students. I want special people. You can learn a lot on the football field that isn’t taught in the home, the church, or the classroom. There are going to be days when you think you’ve got no more to give and then you’re going to give plenty more. You are going to have pride and class. You are going to be very special. You are going to win the national championship for Alabama.” 38. “Winning wasn’t everything, it was the only thing” in Alabama, (a quote wrongly attributed to football coach Vince Lombardi, who probably heard the phrase from UCLA coach Red Sanders).
Bear Bryant’s worst years since coming to Alabama were 1969 and 1970. Bryant said, “I did a real poor job recruiting and coaching. Every youngster in America was goin’ through a rebellious period. Nobody wanted anybody to tell ‘im anything. I remember a boy sitin’ right there an’ tellin’ me, ‘I just wanna be like any other student.’ Well, shit. He can’t be like any other student. The players have to take pride in the fact that football means that much to ‘em. That’s where the sacrificin’ comes in. That they are willin’ to do without doin’ some things. Without having some things other students have, to be playin’ football, to win a championship.” 39. Yes, and if a kid was lucky enough to go pro they might earn $11,000 per year, as Mike’s teammates later grossed.
Was Morris worried about Alabama's history of football brutality, win-at-all-costs philosophy, and lack of concern for athlete's academics when Bryant was the head coach? Morris knew “The Missile” could take the brutality and win-at-all-costs, but realized that Mike would be sorely disappointed if he could not pursue medicine. The facts were that Bear’s Alabama football athletes were only special people to him when they won national championships. The sole classroom they needed to become special was the football field. Student-athlete was not a Bear Bryant’s expression. The classroom wasn’t important and football players had to be willin’ to do without doin’ education. Charlie Bradshaw was his disciple. Bear and his football program were truly unique, but not what “Mike the Missile” had in mind. Mike didn’t sign with UK to play for Bradshaw; only Coach Blanton Collier. His future was medicine, not football primarily.
Morris was a student of many sports and a passionate sports fan and firmly believed in a good education for his children. He went to Alabama to study business and train for boxing. There were many great college fighters there at the time. Boxing was the second most important SEC sport in that period and very important at Bama.
Alabama had excellent, experienced bantam and flyweight boxers. Morris was flyweight in college. LSU’s Al Michael was the bantamweight boxing champion and SEC Bantamweight Champion in 1939 and 1940. Michael defeated Alabama’s (Governor) George Corley Wallace for the SEC Championship in 1940. Morris had knowledge of Alabama boxing and seemed to have knowledge about UA football, while he was enrolled there. He seemed to know the coaches did not emphasize academics for their football athletes at that time. Alabama was total football. He did not want his son to be mistreated and abused or his medical career threatened by Bryant’s total football. Morris must have gained knowledge about Bryant as a player, while at Alabama and must have had firsthand information about the bullying of Bear Bryant as a coach. Bryant called himself a bully in disclosing his biographical story. 1. 2. That was nothing new.
Was Morris concerned that there might be a disconnect between undergraduate studies at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where the Crimson Tide was located and played football, and The University of Alabama School of Medicine at the University of Alabama Birmingham, the UAB School? After all, the logistics from the beginning of the pre-medicine undergraduate education through the end of medical school and an M.D. degree were confusing to family planners, who had never attended med school. Mike was not exactly positive about Morris’ reasoning, but he was positive his father’s analysis was from intelligent, well-thought deduction. Morris was a planner.
Why would there be a university in the United States in 1961 that would not be suited for Mike to study pre-med and play football? As it turned out, during “The Missile’s” college football journey, he found the answer.
Mike’s two favorite books he owned were Bobby Dodd on Football by Georgia Tech head Coach Robert L. Dodd Prentice-Hall, 1954, Football, 344 pages, and Oklahoma Split T Football by Oklahoma head Coach Bud Wilkinson Prentice-Hall, 1952, Football, 246 pages. Mike and read those two books religiously.
As recruiting progressed, serious consideration was only given Oklahoma and Georgia Tech, because of renowned T-formation and read-option Coaches Bud Wilkerson and Bobby Dodd, respectively, and Duke and University of Kentucky, because of their coaches Bill Murray and Blanton Collier, combined with the long history of Duke Medical School and the commencement of the College of Medicine, University of Kentucky.
“The Kentucky General Assembly had approved the construction of the UK Medical Center and accompanying medical school in 1956. The Medical Sciences Building was completed and UK College of Medicine commenced in 1960, and four years later, in 1964, the College of Medicine graduated its first class of 32 students.” 3. Mike was very impressed with the new school’s mission, medical education for supplementation of rural Kentucky doctors.
He scheduled official visits to the four schools. All had excellent football programs. He visited Georgia Tech on Thanksgiving Day and watched a 1960 freshman game Georgia vs. Georgia Tech. The game and teams were very impressive. Tech knew how to operate the option and Coach Dodd took excellent care of his athletes. Tech had little to no contact during the week leading up to games, after the season began and saved their injuries for game day, a wise philosophy during a not so wise and brutal football era in the South.
Mike was “fired-up”. He sat with the master, Coach Bobby Dodd, and talked Split-T and read-option football half of the day prior to Thanksgiving game day. He was extremely impressed and sold on Coach Dodd and Dodd on him. He reminded him of PHS Coach Brugh. He was ready to commit. However, he learned valuable information about the connections and disconnections of university undergraduate pre-med programs and colleges of medicine. This was new territory for him. He learned from his Tech football player escorts, who were pre-engineering students, in the course of a lavish dinner at an exclusive restaurant in Atlanta, that a university doesn’t necessarily have to have a pre-med program and a college of medicine, just because it was a university. Georgia Tech had neither. He was disappointed and probably naïve, but he learned. That overshadowed his visit.
Mike then discovered, when he returned home, that the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine was established in Norman, OK, where the Sooners played football, as a two year pre-clinical school, but in 1910 merged with the Epworth Medical College in Oklahoma City and became the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, which was at the time of his recruitment located in Oklahoma City, where it remained. Epworth developed into large multiplex in central Oklahoma City, for the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and the OU Medical Center hospital complex. The disconnect between the football team in Norman and the College of Medicine in Oklahoma City was problematic for Mike. A valid concern or not, without the electronic information highway in 1960, it was a valid concern for him.
Thus he canceled his visit and didn’t visit Oklahoma because it dawned on him, after the Georgia Tech visit and Oklahoma Sooner research, that Georgia Tech lacked specific pre-med education and lacked a medical school and The University of Oklahoma College of Medicine in Oklahoma City was disconnected with Sooner Football in Norman, OK.
Serious academic and research ‘white coat’ medical schools, who employed full-time academic doctors for treatment of patients and research at their college of medicine, in those days, were attached at the hip with undergraduate universities for obvious academic reasons. Those serious medical schools were compared to ‘geographic full-time med schools and doctors’who did no sincere research and received only partial income for part-time teaching and administrative duties from the university with which they were associated, but not located. Most of their income was derived from private practice off-campus, where they treated their private patients in private clinics. Mike’s decision was set on the ‘White Gown Doctors’ not the intermittent ‘Town Doctor’ for medical education. It was the traditional ‘Gown versus Town’ philosophy in medical education.
Students who enrolled in sorted pre-med-like courses, not geared-for and not recognized by medical schools, not structured pre-medical programs recognized by med schools, not on the same campus where the university and med school were connected at the hip, were not seriously considered prospective schools and football programs by Mike. Coaches told recruits whatever the recruits wanted to hear, but were not sophisticated enough, at that time, to know the differences when it came to the study of medicine.
He learned that excellent pre-medical education was scarce when associated with first-rate medical schools and outstanding football programs, all on the same campus, in 1960. Mike was down to the wire with Duke and UK. In 1960 Duke’s football record was 8-3, a 72.7% win rate, and ranked 10th in Final AP Poll. Duke won the Cotton Bowl 7-6 against Arkansas. Well-respected Coach Bill Murray enjoyed many successful years at Duke.
Murray’s 15-year record at Duke was 93-51-9, .637%. Duke won the Orange Bowl in 1954 and 1957 and the Cotton Bowl in 1930. In those days there were only a handful of bowls and a handful of teams that participated. Murray was a gentleman’s gentleman and an excellent teacher. He was so highly respected that Jay Wilkinson, Oklahoma Coach Bud’s son, played for Murray at Duke. Jay was named All-American running back in 1963. He was Mike’s contemporary and could have been his teammate. 4.
So the history begs the question, why did “The Missile” cast his lot with UK and Coach Collier, who in 1959 were 4-6 and in 1960 were 5-4-1 with no bowl games or championships. In those days, after regulation time games might end in a tie. Were there only a “chosen few” top-notch medical and football combined programs? The answer was, yes.
Collier was the only coach, and that included Coach Bear Bryant, to have a winning record against Tennessee since World War II. Interestingly, that was tantamount to a successful season. As it turned out, the Kentucky football program had been given the green light to expand their recruiting to out-of-state during Mike’s recruiting. That was a definite plus. UK had been previously limited in recruits, unlike other SEC schools. Furthermore, Coach Collier was known for his mentorship of student-athletes. He, too, was a gentleman like Coach Bill Murray and his assistants represented the cradle of coaching, another big plus: Bill Arnsparger, Chuck Knox, Ermal Allen, John North, George Boone, and Leman Bennet. A year earlier Don Shula and Howard Schnellenberger were assistants and left their marks at UK.
Legendary coach and athletic director, Bill Arnsparger, attended the High School All-American Game, in which Mike participated, with his wife Betty and Mikes’ father and mother. His mother remained in the car and listened to the game on the radio, because of Mo’s previous concussion injury. Morris and Coach Arnsparger forged an excellent relationship. Years later Arnsparger called Mike when Morris died and commented on his admiration and respect for his father.
Coach Collier was particularly supportive of and enthusiastic about Mike’s medical career endeavor and especially excited about his football talents. Collier guaranteed him that he would be able to pursue medicine. Collier’s recruitment was extremely personal, individual, and patient. The College of Medicine was thriving and very impressive. The structures were an optical image on the same UK campus. The excellent veteran pre-med program and well-coached SEC football program were physically close. Mike could actually visualize in person each necessary structural component for his success from where he stood on campus when he visited UK. They were ever-present in the corner of his eye and mind. He was significantly impressed by the medical school and hospital complex’s grandeur.
Governor Bert Combs, a Prestonsburg, Eastern Kentucky native and friend of brother Mo’s eventual marriage family, during a governor’s luncheon with Mike and others was very persuasive. The pressure to stay home and attend UK was enormous, from his hometown, state, and family, other enormous factors. “The Missile” was additionally told that the other first Team All-State team members were waiting in the wings for him to commit and, once assured, they would also commit to UK. He was told that the UK recruiting class would be the best ever and depended on his commitment, another extreme pressure. Whether or not that was true, or pure bull shit, it was never questioned or verified. Mike had faith in the veracity of the UK coaches. The pressure on his university choice was brutal. He took the coaches’ word and committed to UK.
“The University of Kentucky signed 27 players to SEC grant-in-aids by December 1960. Eight griders from Alabama were signed. Those signings were viewed as retaliation for the raids into Kentucky by the Crimson tide, coached by ex-Kentucky Coach Paul ’Bear’ Bryant. ” Mike’s picture was the picture that accompanied the Lexington Herald-Leader signed players article. It appeared in the news and seemed to happen as the UK coaches predicted. He appeared to be typecast as the leader. 5. He was elated with his final choice. Forty-seven athletes were pictured in his 1961 University of Kentucky Wildcat Freshman Team picture.
“Mike The Missile” was number 17 front row, right. One player was missing. More than 16 were named Kentucky All-State. Many were named All-State in other states. Eight were said to be All-American. This team was remarkably talented and athletic. Most were excellent students, as well; the only way that Coach Collier would have been satisfied. After all, Coach Collier was later named to the University of Kentucky’s Education Hall of Fame, not the UK Sports Hall of Fame. He, himself, was a student-athlete and teacher, first and foremost. Kay Collier Slone described her father, his zeal for football and academics, and his humanity in Football's Gentle Giant, The Blanton Collier Story, by, 1985, Life Force Press. 11.
The pressure was off, or at least he thought it was. Real pressure was yet to raise its ugly head. He enrolled in the University of Kentucky, August 1961 in the College of Arts and Sciences, which administered the highly touted Pre-Medicine curriculum. The football players enrolled early and took preliminary tests and physical examinations. Mike wasn’t sure what the tests were named or what they verified. Lexington neurosurgeon, Dr. Ralph Angelucci, performed his physical examination and told him his ankles were prone to sprains. That wasn’t news. For goodness sake, they stayed sprained for much of his high school career. Mike played many games with both ankles sprained and other bangs and bruises. Angelucci served the University Kentucky Board of Trustees and was Chairman of the Executive Committee for 16 years, and the UK Alumni Association and National President for 19 years. He devoted time to the UK Athletic Executive Board and was a member of the Council on Higher Education in Kentucky, as well as the executive committee of the University of Kentucky Research Foundation. He also served on the Medical Center board. Angelucci was instrumental in hiring and firing the UK football coaches, too. “He knew what he was doing, or at least we thought he did.”[Mykaela Chaffin, editor]
When Mike first arrived for UK football practice, each football athlete was timed in the 40-yard wind sprint in shorts, t-shirts, and football shoes. He called Coach Walter Brugh about another subject, but while in conversation asked, “Coach, how come you never timed us in the 40 in shorts, when we were running wind sprints? You only timed us in the 100 yards in full pads. At UK and the High School All American Game we were timed in the 40 in shorts.” Coach paused... then he said, “Well, son...we weren’t stoppin’ at the 40... we were takin’ er’ to the house.” And Mike ‘took er’ to the house several times as did his teams and other football athletes at PHS under Coach Brugh. He hoped for similar success at UK.
Mike decided to major in chemistry. His high school teacher, Miss Betty Burchett, had prepared him well for chemistry and physics. But like most college freshman from Eastern Kentucky, he struggled the first semester with English composition, which was not on the good side of his brain. His composition class was conducted in the UK Guignol Theater auditorium with a hundred or more students. While he thoroughly understood math and sciences, English composition was “Greek” to him. The first composition he submitted was returned covered in red as if it was dipped in hog slaughter. Dr. Hatch was a great instructor, but Mike was not ready for serious English composition.
Thankfully, Dr. Bill McCubbin, a Ph.D. in education, was an academic advisor and directed Coach Blanton Collier’s academic and study hall program for football athletes. He graduated Louisville Manuel High, played football at the University of Kentucky and was named an assistant to “Bear Bryant” when he coached UK. He had been an assistant to A.B. Kirwin and Bernie Shively previously. He was a burly, soft-spoken gentleman and endeared by the UK football players including Mike. He was his team’s lifesaver and went to bat for several reasons for all the athletes. Without “Doc” most of the freshmen might have flunked-out. In Mike’s opinion, the football players’ academic program began with Doc Bill. Although, others later were suggested to the founders of the football academic program and took credit for its first development. But, in truth, football study hall and student-athlete academia began with Coach Collier and Dr. Bill McCubbin. Subsequent coaches in later times simply followed suit with more money and less passion.
The UK football team was blessed with an English composition and general course instructor, Kay Collier, Coach Collier’s daughter. Kay was a brilliant tutor and was able to teach Mike and his teammates how to compose a suitable English paper and prevent the “red slaughter.” She was extraordinarily patient, understanding, persistent, and pretty, to boot. Kay spent many hours teaching and beating fundamental English into the heads of the football athletes. Mike received a B in his first English composition class under Dr. Hatch, who was a stickler for details.
One semester, Kay was able to tutor and teach all the freshmen into passing English. She did such a magnificent job that it was suggested in the department that she assisted the players too well and had herself written many of the compositions. Kay, like her father, Coach Collier, was very moral, ethical, and principled. That behavior would never have entered her mind and was an insult to her integrity. After investigation, the accusers, who were embarrassed, apologized to Kay and everyone concerned. It was difficult for some academicians to admit that freshmen football players learned to write properly, even when from Eastern KY. After all, one All-American football player a few years before Kay had turned in a typewritten essay at the end of an in-class essay exam. Go figure.
Mike was elected, or maybe appointed by the coaching staff, president of the freshman football house and captain of the freshman football team. The coaches seemed to depend on him to be the leader of the new 1961 class of recruits. He roomed with Paul Pisanni from Alabama, Denny Bradford, Bellevue, KY, and Clyde Richardson, Millersburg Military Academy KY. The room had two bunk beds, top and bottom each, small by football lineman standards. The roommates got along harmoniously and became best friends. The four were very similar, yet different. One of the four was exceptionally “noisy” after lights were out, but the others rolled-over and took his hormonal stimulations in stride.
Next door was a rowdy group of loveable friends and guys. They just didn’t care much for studying. Most doors were open, up and down the football house hallway at night. Mike closed his door at night and studied. That wouldn’t do for the rowdy guys. One teammate, from the neighboring room, punched the door with his fists every night until Mike opened it. The door was punched so many times and incurred so many holes that finally it had to be opened and ultimately replaced. The same rowdy neighbor would arise every morning and take his desk chair, for which he had little need adjacent to his desk, prop its back against the wall in the hallway, then shot most players in the ass with his BB gun, as they hastened past him on their way to the shower. Mike was never shot, possibly because he was “president” and “entitled” to respect (sic), nothing was further from the truth, but he witnessed several dancing their way into the shower. The shooter also shot holes in most every football house window, but he was a lovable guy, a high school All-American lineman, and a big ferocious presence on the field. He could slobber-nock ball carriers when he was in the mood. Not much was made of his behavior. The windows silently were repaired and his gun removed. One of the upperclassmen in the varsity football house lost an eye the year before from a BB gun accident and never suited-up thereafter at UK. A tragic loss for both him and the team. BB guns were frowned upon thereafter, but linemen were not expendable.
The rowdy lineman was so ornery and tough, he would, for exhibition, show teammates how to stop the rotating blades of his stationary circular fan, which was hanging upside down in his lower bunk for air conditioning, with his index finger, without amputating it. He employed many incredible reckless stunts. Mike witnessed him breaking pole light bulbs at nighttime by firing out on the pole below out of his three-point stance. Grandest of all were his slobber-nocks of running backs.
When the team got disorderly and “players were gone wild” in the football house, Mom Frazier, the house mother, would call the coaches and they would call Mike, who was instructed to have a house meeting and calm the guys down. Mike was was 6’-1/2” and 190 lbs., decent size for a QB or running back in those days, but no match for the huge linemen, who were always the cause for the disruptions. He didn’t attempt to wrestle them to the ground and make them understand. He wasn’t stupid. “The Missile” was extremely diplomatic. Thus he appointed the two largest, strongest lineman as sergeants of arms to do the wrestling. When that didn’t work, the coaches penalized them with extra study hall, which was conducted in the new medical center, near the two football houses. Study hall and additional laps usually brought the disruptions to an immediate, but temporary halt.
When it snowed and the fraternity boys, called “frat-rats” took short-cuts to class behind the football house, some of the raucous guys would chase them down and tackle them and roll them in the snow. Then there would be more calls from Animal House Committees to the Athletic Director, then Mom Frazier, the coaches, more meetings and more study halls and laps.
When Christmas rolled around, there were gift exchanges. Most were gag-afied gifts. Two of the notorious jokesters decided to crap in a fruitcake metal container and give it to their roommate. During the football house Christmas party, when the “gift” was opened, the odor and reactions were colossal and all hell broke loose. Teammates were seen diving behind chairs, opening windows and running outdoors into the snow. The wicked jokesters, realizing their disgusting mistake, quickly cleaned up the mess and disposed of the cake tin. As luck would have it, the football house janitor found the can near the garbage outside the following week and retrieved the tin for Mom Frazier, who “don’t you know” collected cake tins and all hell broke loose again. There were more telephone calls; more and more meetings were conducted, but, in truth, many football players were wacko. There were other tomfoolery and ugliness Mike refused to report and there was never a dull moment.
Mike’s pre-med study buddy was Howard Mize, who later was a successful hand surgeon, and they signed-up for nearly every pre-med class together. They planned their classes strategically. Classes were enrolled by alphabetical order. Football practice time, training table time, study hall time were taken into consideration. By the time the M’s rolled around, most pre-med classes were filled. It took blood, sweat, and tears organizing their classes. Each hand-picked class was so important because it was required for pre-med. They allowed no interference with their schedules and studies, not even by coaches, because the coaches had no clue what their scheduling difficulty required.
Howard and Mike scheduled beginner swimming. They were confident they could swim well enough to get an A in swimming as novices. The course began slowly. The first two classes were simple water aerobics and stretching exercises. On the third day of class, they were asked to do what the instructor called a back layout. The pair of footballers had no clue what that meant. She told them to float on their backs, while completely straight and rigid, face-up on the surface and wave their hands beneath their hips to stay afloat. The instructor called it sculling. They were too heavy for that maneuver and were not very successful. Next, she instructed them to swim breaststroke 20 yards, dive down 10 feet in the deep end, fetch a 10-pound brick, resurface, and swim 20 yards back, tread water five minutes and exit the water without the use of the ladder or stairs. Something seemed “fishy” about the class to the two guys. When they inquired about the exact nature of the class, they were surprised when they learned it was a class in preparation for UK Blue Marlin women synchronized swimming team. The pair figured they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their excuse for drop-adding was that they didn’t need the extra endurance training before tiring football practice. Naturally, the two “jocks” didn’t admit they weren’t able to keep up with the young ladies in Blue Marlin training. Howard and Mike dropped the swimming class as soon as possible and added bowling. In those days at UK, two PE classes were required for graduation. They performed better tossing balls down the allies at pins than sculling.
Howard said he owed much to Mike for tutoring him in chemistry and physics. They studied and did homework together. Howard was very capable; he just didn’t have the teachers at Harlan High and instruction that Mike experienced at PHS. Howard, like Mike, made excellent grades, had a good memory, was intelligent, very dedicated, and worked diligently to achieve the success he acquired in later life. No one could out-work the two of them. Both were to become very successful.
Mike took General Chemistry 5 hours, Analytical Chemistry 5 hours, 430 Organic Chemistry 5 hours, 432 Organic Chemistry 5 hours and Physical Chemistry 5 hours, in pre-med, followed by Biochemistry 7 hours, Pharmacodynamics 2 hours and Medical Pharmacology 3 hours in med school or 37 hours of chemistry-related courses in pre-med and medical school. During his general chemistry course, his first chemistry course after high school, Professor Dr. Jake Meadows returned his first exam while in the chemistry laboratory. Mike was nervous when he saw the professor approaching his lab station while handing out the tests with grades in big red letters atop. Grimly, the Professor handed him his test, enforcing Mike’s fright. Atop the first page was a red 100. Dr. Meadows went on to explain that Mike’s 100 wasfirst perfect score he awarded since his beginnining.
Files coming soon.
“While Georgia Tech was in the SEC, Coach Bobby Dodd had an 83-43 record against SEC opponents and had 2 more than Auburn, Kentucky, Tulane, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, and Florida. The only squad with a winning record against Tech during Dodd's SEC tenure was Alabama, who were 5-2-0. Bobby Dodd pulled Tech from the SEC because its member schools treated their players like cattle not humans. Football was not worth torturing, humiliating, and ruining college-aged kids to Dodd. All Georgia Tech men have the utmost respect for Robert Lee Dodd because creating a better team on the field was second to creating better men off the field.” 36.
Bradshaw and his assistants’ preposterous abusive maltreatments of athletes and their decisions destroyed UK’s SEC championship possibility, ruined Mike’s team, and everyone’s chances for success. Bradshaw buried “The Missile” football career in a heap, never to resurface. Bradshaw was a rank amateur who had no previous experience as a head football coach and could only coach from the weakness of bullying and abusive misbehaviors. They only coached to the drums of “poor lesser players”. They were not intelligent enough to coach smart student-athletes in the manner of Coach Bobby Dodd, GA Tech, who “Bear” said, “look at him over there (on the sidelines) he’ll beat you with his brains.” 36.
Possibly, some of Bradshaw’s assistants grew-up later in life, but in 1962 Bradshaw and most of his assistants were abusive coaches who practiced verbal harassment, physical assault, endangerment, and manipulation. “The Missile’s” team was handed off to an incompetent tyrant. Bradshaw and some of his assistants were bully-boys, who did not fully understand the art of coaching football and student-athletes. They did not possess the knowledge of winning coaches. Not included in that group were the coaches leftover from Coach Collier who were desperately seeking other coaching employment. They moved on as soon as possible. Most of the 58 players were forced to leave the UK football program because of the horrific conditions. Only 30 out of 88 players began the 1962 season.
Leaving a corrupt football program was not quitting. Leaving was a form of self-preservation and enabled most of the team to play at the next level: life. Remaining was the only choice for some teammates. They had no way out. Some of the former assistants of Coach Collier experienced the same circumstances. They had no other job. They did not buy into the Bradshaw system either. They, too, knew that unethical, dishonest, immoral behavior should never be tolerated for the sake of winning. Bradshaw's record reveals that he only won 38.6% of his games during his brief tenure as head coach at UK.
“Mike the Missile” and teammates invested their football careers, education, and lives with UK. Because of the officials’ poorly-made decisions, they received no return on their investment with UK. Instead, the players were subjected to severe mistreatments and crimes. Grim, commando, win at all costs football coached by Bully Boys was their reward. Those actions had no place in football on any level. Bear Bryant had the decency to apologize to the Junction Boys for his abuse and mistreatments at Texas A&M. Bryant admitted to the “pigheaded” abusive mistreatment of his players. None of the officials or coaches ever apologized to “The Missile” for Bradshaw's mistreatments and crimes against Mike and the UK football players and team.
The reunion of the 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Football Class, the last UK football class recruited by Coach Blanton Collier, was organized by several dedicated teammates and held at Mike’s home, outside on the lawn, on a beautiful day, June 14, 2008, about one year after the publication of The Thin Thirty by Shannon Ragland.
Blue and white tents were erected, Blue Moon portable-pots were conveniently placed, games were organized and food and soft drinks were provided. Mike believed the event should be non-alcoholic, which was included in the reunion brochure sent to every teammate. The worst possible scenario in that quiet residential gated community would be a drunken brawl to breakout among the group of ex-football athletes. Pugnaciousness, rowdy behavior, competition, and mischievousness were common football players’ tendencies, which are never outgrown. After the events, in the course of the cleanup, however, many beer cans were gathered when the trash was collected. Football players just can’t help themselves. Most of the teammates were cordial. Differences of opinion often “broke out” but were welcomed. All, but one, had nothing but disdain for Bradshaw and his thugs. The one had suffered a severe head injury with coma and his memory was questionable. The reunion was very gratifying, memorable, and peaceful. Concern was expressed by teammates concerning the state of athlete morbidity manifest by each attendee.
The 2008 reunion group picture was taken with each 1961 UK freshman class teammates in his same seated or standing position, as the group football preseason 1961 photograph. Wives seated, empty seats and empty slots represented deceased teammates. Many had lifelong Bradshaw injuries and disabilities. Mike was seated in the last seat, far right.
For important emphasis the following title and author are mentioned: The Thin Thirtywas a remarkable book written by Shannon Ragland, published by Set Shot Press in 2007. It is a historical book about the University of Kentucky Bradshaw Football tragedy in 1962, untold and hushed until this book’s publication. All the teammates were thankful to Ragland, his wife, and family for its publication. It is a must-read for coaches about how not to coach football and everyone else for that matter.
As Mike’s team organized their first 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Wildcat Football Class Reunion, the authors of the team injury survey/study began gathering information. Questionnaires were mailed to teammates and answer-gathering began. Concerns about teammates reported experiences 52 years ago began to accumulate as teammates returned information for the reunion.
The authors realized their teammates suffered morbidity and possible early mortality from the reports submitted. That prompted them to survey their 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Freshman Football Team’s injuries. Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated reporter, said from his recollection it was the “first study of its kind,'' when asked to review the study.
Thus began the research group’s mission to discover the circumstances and pathology that compelled Charlie Bradshaw and his assistants to the vile, tyrannical, brutal, abusive, abnormal, and even illegal coaching behaviors they manifest in 1962 and the injuries that resulted.
The result was “A Longitudinal and Retrospective Study of The Impact of Coaching Behaviors on the 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Football Wildcats”, Kay Collier McLaughlin, Ph.D., Micheal B. Minix Sr. M.D., Twila Minix, R.N., Jim Overman, Scott Brogdon.
The Study’s Results: This study was about 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Football Freshman, only. From the studies, it appears that Charlie Bradshaw’s behavior was abusive and unlawful. The NCAA punished UK for his coaching malbehavior. His malicious behavior affected the players and continued to affect the players up to the reunion. The reunion began teammates healing process 46 years after the tragic events. Post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety reactions affected the quality for the duration of each athlete’s life in varying degrees as reported. Players had not confronted their PTSD, only buried it inside with lingering negative emotions. The following studies supported the hypothesis and theories and suggested that a more controlled, double-blind investigation should be conducted in the future.
The study found that some of the assistants appeared to identify with Charlie Bradshaw and his abnormal behaviors. The coaches were similar to Freud’s Pack of Wolves. Together they acted out Bradshaw’s abuse. They appeared to be maliciously sadistic toward the team according to some of the teammates’ reports.
“Human beings, like other animals, sometimes use aggression as a way to influence others to obtain what they want. Like other animals, we are predisposed by nature to respond to some social problems with aggression. Unlike them, culture has taught us many ways and means to restrain our aggressive impulses, and the rise of culture has produced many legal, moral, and practical inhibitions against aggression.”
“Cultured human beings are able to recognize that aggression will not be the best strategy in the long run. Aggressive impulses have not been eliminated, however, and sometimes they lead to violence, especially when people focus on the short term rather than the longer.”
“To illustrate: all animals must eat. Some eat mainly by dealing alone with their physical environment. Others use social interaction to improve their opportunities for eating in their physical environment, i.e. when a pack of wolves hunts and kills prey that no individual wolf could conquer by itself.” Please note like Bradshaw and his assistants, “that no individual wolf could conquer by itself.” In other words, bullies don’t function well alone. They needed a pack to gather the guts to bully.
“And a few animals, mainly humans, use culture to manage food acquisition i.e. enabling the modern citizen to purchase his food in restaurants and supermarkets. As a result of culture, most human beings eat far better and more regularly than most other animals.” 15. 16. Bradshaw did not have the wisdom to realize that behaving humanely, as Cleveland Brown’s Jimmy Brown noted, was a better course of action for winning football games, rather than acting like the leader of a pack of wolves.
In spite of Bradshaw’s malbehavior, the players’ post-traumatic stress disorders and anxiety reactions, and other mental and physical disorders that were the results of his and UK’s mistreatments, most of the surviving players became successful in their businesses, professional, and personal lives.
“Pulling out” of Bradshaw football was the only hope for success for most of the teammates. Reiterating, parents and athletic communities should never chastise an athlete who “pulls-out” of a corrupt athletic program. “Pulling out” might save that athlete’s life. That is not quitting. That’s living.
The successes that resulted from “pulling out” from the Bradshaw regime and moving in other directions away from him have been revealed in the book The Thin Thirty by Shannon Ragland. “The successes stand as a reminder of sweet revenge for many of the players.” 5.
About half of the players had forgiven Bradshaw by June 2008, the time the 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Wildcat Football Class Reunion rolled around. About 50% had not forgiven Bradshaw and did not intend to forgive him and his assistants. Some could not even fathom the question.
No player, who participated in the study, hypothetically, wanted Bradshaw in Bradshaw’s abnormal behavioral condition that he manifested in 1962 to coach their son. No player embraced Bradshaw’s system of bully-boy, brainwashing brutal abusive coaching method. Not even the ones who became coaches themselves. 16.
References
1. [Commando Total Football, Sports Illustrated, Oct 8, 1962 by Morton Sharnik and Robert Creamer]
2. [Alabama Encyclopedia][UKCOM: At a Glance". University of Kentucky College of Medicine: At a Glance. University of Kentucky College of Medicine]
3. [Archives, Duke University Blue Devils Athletics and Sports Information]
4. [The Courier Journal, Dec. 9, 1960]
5. [The Thin Thirty by Shannon Ragland, 2007]
6. [Minix Paced UK Freshmen in Offense for Season, Lexington Herald Leader, Nov 16, 1961]
7. [Pro-Football Reference.com]
8. [Obituary, Dr. Norman A. Deeb of Bowling Green, KY Mar 16, 2012]
9. [Kentucky Football Tales from the Dark Side: The Charlie Bradshaw Years - Part Four by Hank Rippetoe, A Sea Of Blue Nation, Aug 29 2013]
10. History of the Cleveland Browns, Wikipedia
11. [Football's Gentle Giant, The Blanton Collier Story, by Kay Collier Slone, 1985 Life Force Press 124.]
12. [Sports Illustrated August 15, 1966 by Allen Barra, Paul Bryant Part I: I'll Tell You About Football. Still fearless, America's No. 1 college coach begins here the remarkably candid story of his turbulent rise to fame]
13. [Arkansas Razorback History]
14. [Are Christian Coaches Tough Enough? by Motte Brown on Aug 5, 2008 at 9:56 AM in THE LINE 83. Bridging Southern Cultures, edited by John Lowe 84. John Henry "Barnie" Barnhill (1903–1973) - Encyclopedia of Arkansas History]
15. [Human Nature and Aggressive Motivation: Why Do Cultural Animals Become Violent? Roy Baumiester, Brad J. Bushman, Revue of Internationl Social Psychology, 17-2-2004]
16. [Freud, S. (1930) Civilization and its discontents. (J. Riviere,trans.). London: Hogarth Press.
17. [“A Longitudinal and Retrospective Study of The Impact of Coaching Behaviors on the 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Football Wildcats”, Kay Collier McLaughlin, Ph.D., Micheal B. Minix Sr. M.D., Twila Minix, R.N., Jim Overman, Scott Brogdon]
18. [The tyrant and the traitor SALON.COM Two Alabama football coaches, Bear Bryant and Dennis Franchione, mistreated their players. But at least Bryant didn't betray them. By Allen Barra
19. Rockne of Notre Dame : The Making of a Football Legend: The Making of a Football Legend, By Ray Robinson Oxford University Press, Sep 23, 1999, Oxford University Press, Sep 23, 1999
20. Are Christian Coaches Tough Enough? by Motte Brown on Aug 5, 2008 at 9:56 AM in THE LINE
21. Commando Total Football, Sports Illustrated, Oct 8, 1962 by Morton Sharnik and Robert Creamer
22. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (1871-1900)]
23. THE COFFIN CORNER: Vol. 25, No. 1 (2003), Hugh “Bones” Taylor, by Michael Richman, Redskins Insider Correspondent
24. Shmoop Editorial Team. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings What's Up With the Title?"Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 14 Dec. 2014
25. Praise for Hawpe the Sports Journalist June 18th, 2008 by Billy Reed
26. Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston 1935
27. Men As Beasts of Burden By Marty Nemko
28. "Beast Of Burden" by Rolling Stones (M. Jagger/K. Richards)
29. Shavetails and Bell Sharps: The History of the U.S. Army Mule by Emmett M. Essin (Author)
30. CC Sabathia Is Treated Like a Rented Mule in Milwaukee Blecher Report by Bob Warja (Senior Writer) Editorial August 19, 2008 Milwaukee Brewer's acquisition of CC Sabathia
31. SI Vault - A CNN network site April 30, 1984 "The Toughest Coach There Ever Was" by Frank Deford
32. Onward to Victory: The Creation of Modern College Sports By Murray Sperber
33. Razorbacks By Orville Henry Jim Bailey By Murray Sperber
34. [Football 101: West Coast Offense, by Mark Lawrence, 2002-2005]
35. [ Dodd, Bobby; Jack Wilkinson (1988). Dodd's Luck. Golden Coast Publishing Company. ISBN 0-932958-09-5]
36. [An Alabama Fan and Bobby Dodd by BirdGT@WFeatherston on May 6 2010]
37. [The complete Earl Cox review from the Voice Tribune, August 28, 2007]
38. [The Best Bear Bryant Quotes by Ben George, Jan 26, 2015 Tide99.1
39. [The Banter Gold Standard: Bear Bryant’s Miracles, by Alex Belth, Jan 7, 2013]
PATHOLOGICAL IMPACT OF BRADSHAW COACHING ON THE 1961 CLASS UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY FOOTBALL
Concerns for players’ welfare prompted our investigators to survey the 1961-1962 University of Kentucky freshman team: “A Longitudinal and Retrospective Study of The Impact of Coaching Behaviors on the 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Football Wildcats”, Kay Collier McLaughlin, Ph.D, Micheal B. Minix, Sr., M.D., Twila Minix, R.N., Jim Overman, Scott Brogdon. The results follow:
1. Psychological Athlete Abuse Survey:
The psychological (emotional) athlete abuses, from the policies, procedures, and maltreatments by Charlie Bradshaw and his assistants that were sustained by the last team, 1961-1962, recruited by Coach Blanton Collier and his assistants, were diagnosed with varying degrees of post-traumatic stress disorder. The PTSD had conditions similar in diagnostic criteria to Vietnam veterans, according to two psychologists close to the University of Kentucky football program in 1962 and professionally experienced with Vietnam veterans. Bradshaw’s abuses amounted to torture for some of the teammates and were indelible memories on youthful minds.
Additional results from the aforementioned study: 100% of the players who responded to the survey and who from recollections of their football experience in 1961-1962 manifested some degree of post-traumatic stress disorder from the physical and psychological athlete abuse from Charlie Bradshaw and assistant coach offenders and perpetrators. 100% suffered verbal and psychological (emotional) abuse. Other more serious emotional conditions were evident during the reunion from their discussions, but not surveyed. Shannon Ragland addressed many of the injuries in his book publication, The Thin Thirty, 2007 Set Shot Press.
Micheal B. Minix, Sr. M.D., was a member of the team. Bradshaw called Mike into the coaching office for two separate one-hour meetings. Past news reporters had previously narrated the meetings incorrectly. Mike discovered that reporters often tailored their reports according to the reporters’ needs and communities’ want for drama, many times inaccurately. Bradshaw demanded that Mike stop his botany class and begin attending a PE class concerning football 101 for regular students, but taught and demonstrated by UK football coaches and players. Bradshaw wanted him to demonstrate QB and running back techniques to the students. All regular and football athlete students were to receive class credit. It was a trumped-up PE course that amounted to another practice, according to teammates who “volunteered” for the course. Botany was a biological course Mike needed because it fulfilled a pre-med prerequisite. Since his surname began with an M and registration was predicated on alphabetical listings, registration had been difficult for prerequisites. Pre-med was difficult enough and registration for prerequisite classes added another dimension of difficulty. Bradshaw gave him an ultimatum. Bradshaw, during the last of the two meetings, became infuriated and slung his books toward an open window, as if he wanted to throw them out of the window, but the books bounced back onto the office floor. He couldn’t manipulate Mike. Frustrated, Bradshaw then told him to get in the corner “with God and work it out,” as he departed the office and pointed toward the corner.
Mike gathered his books, sat back down and waited for Bradshaw to return to the office. Bradshaw played the God and Christ intimidation and trustworthiness cards, pathetically, to influence him and his football teammates in critical situations. No one fell for his self-righteous hypocrisy after a short time with Bradshaw. Mike believed Bradshaw was simple-minded enough to think his acting-out would manipulate and shame him into staying with the corrupt football program.
Mike had been deeply and adversely affected by another circumstance that lingered on his mind. During a spring practice scrimmage, the coaches called a pitch-sweep right. Two coaches jumped into the huddle and instructed three players to “take out” the defensive end who was wearing a knee brace on his left knee. They instructed two offensive linemen to stand him up and the flanker to crack back targeting his knee. Crack backs were common called plays, but targeting an injured knee for devastation was not. The players followed instructions and the defensive end was severely injured. The meat wagon, an automobile with the doors and trunk lid off, was summoned, the player removed from the practice field, tossed inside, taken to the locker room and he was never seen by Mike again. That incident tormented Mike. He was very angry at the coaches, sickened by the assault, and pained for the injured player. The incident influenced his ultimatum decision.
Mike got in the corner of his mind with God and did just as he was told. He decided the best decision was to “pull-out” from Bradshaw football. He had his priorities in their proper place. His priorities began long before he enrolled at UK with his role model Paintsville doctors. When Bradshaw returned to the office, Mike imagined a silent reply in his mind, “Bradshaw you aren’t going anywhere in football and I’m not going there with you.” He told Bradshaw his decision. He would continue pre-med and become a doctor. Mike was too respectful, typical for that era, to openly argue and push back. Bradshaw again was enraged.
Mike “bowed his neck” a term the coaching thugs used, and concentrated on pre-medicine. He made an A in the 4-hour botany class. Every A and quality point was important for acceptance to med school. He was accepted after three years of pre-med studies and graduated ahead of schedule from the College of Medicine University of Kentucky in 1968. His med-school classmate, Wilson Sebastian, an extremely brilliant student, was admitted two years following pre-med studies. Acceptance after two and three years was unprecedented at the time. Wilson, the brain, and Mike, the ex-jock, were great pre-med and medical school friends. Wilson could have been, if he wanted, an MIT rocket scientist. Mike was only “The Missile” not a rocket or MIT rocket scientist.
Mike did everything Bradshaw and his assistants wanted. Proof was evidenced by the fact that he was on the 110% list, posted weekly on the UK football training center bulletin board by the coaches with the exception of one week when he was injured. "He fulfilled every academic requirement at the University of Kentucky.". He maintained a 3.3 pre-med GPA overall 1962 spring semester, during Bradshaw’s tyrannical preseason conditioning and spring practice. Football and academic studies were not incompatible and impossible for him. He managed both remarkably well. Another twisted form of athlete abuse was pre-med curriculum micro-manipulation and career subversion. Bradshaw attempted total control over him with total football, but Bradshaw’s weak mind over Mike’s what-matters did not succeed.
Bradshaw insisted on total commando football. He did not want Mike to invest any of his time on pre-med studies. After all, Bradshaw’s playbook must have been all of ten pages (sic). By contrast, Coach Collier’s playbook that he studied was three inches thick, while also studying pre-med. He demonstrated under Collier that he could do both because he had practiced, played football, and maintained a 3.1 overall GPA, which was not satisfactory pre-med grades for him, but acceptable for the university his first semester. He raised the GPA as time passed.
“The Missile” was interviewed by Sports Illustrated soon after “pulling out” from the UK football tragedy. He and the others sugar-coated the tragic situation. Athletes in those days were always taught that the less said, the nicer said, the better. Mike was taught by his father, Morris, to be particularly careful during telephone interviews while not knowing for sure who was on the other end of the line and many other reasons. No UK football player who pulled-out maligned the coaches at that time. His teammates were young gentlemen; loyal, naïve, inexperienced, and much too kind for the Bradshaws of this world. Pushing back against adult superiors was not common during that era. After 46 years the truth was told by all in The Thin Thirty.
2. Physical Athlete Abuse Survey: Micheal B. Minix, Sr. was the lead investigator.
The total population of players on the 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Freshman Football Team was ____48____at the beginning of the 1961 Fall season.
A total of ___47__players were mailed the questionnaire.
One of the players was never found. 47 of 48 (97.9%) of the players or their families were contacted and provided with study questions.
A total of ______24______players responded to the study questionnaire.
_____1___ player was excluded because of random error, meaning his traumatic brain injury precluded his accurate memory. He was impaired for months in 1962.
A total of ____23_____players made up the sample population in the study.
100% of the players were Caucasian.
The average age was ____18 ____ in 1961-1962.
100% of the players were male.
Their religious affiliations were not determined in this survey study.
___63__%__(30 players)__of the original 48 players were from Kentucky.
___37__%__(18 players)__were from outside Kentucky.
A total of ____55_____% team replied with answers to the questions.
A total of ____45____% team did not reply with answers to the questions.
A total of ____20_____% of team families replied with answers to the questions for their deceased member, because they knew the answers. They only answered the questions they knew. Of the population sample of players who replied to the questions the following were the results:
A total of __100____% of the players in this sample met at least one positive coaching abuse criterion as described in the method. Every player who answered received multiple forms of abuse.
“The physical abuse was so commonplace (20+ times per player per practice)…it seemed the coaches were gunning for them,” one player said.
100% of football athletes received no water during conditioning, work-outs, and practices
A total of __21___% were struck by a coach’s fist, or punched one or more times.
__26____% forearmed by coaches one or more times in the face.
___9___% kicked by the coaches one or more times.
___4___% teeth were broken by the coaches fists
___13__% received broken or injured bones
___13__% were head butted by the coaches one or more times in the face.
A total of ___61___% received no medical attention for their football injuries that occurred during practice one or more times. .
A total of ___52___% played while they were injured.
A total of ___52___% had improper medical or surgical treatment
A total of ___9___% were told according to personally sought out-second opinions that their treatments were improper by the team physicians at UK.
___30___% offered additional coaches’ mistreatments, not asked in this survey.
___9____% offered additional coaches’ physical abuse not asked in this survey.
Male life expectancy hit a record 75.2 years in 2004, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced.
13 of the 1961-1962 freshman team members continued with Bradshaw in the fall of 1962, according to fall football program.
One freshman, the last player signed by Coach Collier in late December 1961, who enrolled in the spring semester, January 1962, continued with Bradshaw in the fall of 1962 as a red shirt.
Another player was attending school on a football scholarship, but not playing football and not a member of the team in the fall of 1962. He finished UK having never played football under Bradshaw in an agreement facilitated by basketball head coach, Coach Adolph Rupp, who knew him because Rupp recruited his relative in basketball.
Only 10 players from the 1961-1962 freshmen team of the 13 were included in the Thin Thirty team pre-season picture.
2 Thin Thirty 1961-1962 freshman, who remained with Bradshaw, are deceased. Both suffered fatal heart attacks.
4 “Pullout” 1961-1962 freshman who did not continue with Bradshaw in the fall of 1962 are deceased.
Football players are generally in good physical condition. Most college football players are well taken care. Among the 8,961 pro-football players born in the last 50 years, at least 130 are already deceased.
Among 4,382 professional baseball players, 31 are known to have died. That means 1 in every 69 football players is deceased compared to 1 in every 154 baseball players in the last 50 years.
14 % of the pro-football players born in the last 50 years are deceased = 1 / 69
11.4 % of the last team recruited by Coach Blanton Collier are deceased. = 12 / 105 players. 6 upperclassmen and 6 freshmen in the fall of 1961.
27 % of The Thin Thirty are deceased = 8 / 30
These include both freshmen and upperclassmen. Their ages now would be about 65-66.
30 % of The Thin Thirty upperclassmen are deceased = 6/20
12.5 % Of the 1961 UK freshman football team are deceased. These include The Thin Thirty Freshmen members + Freshmen “Pull Outs” = 6 / 48
20 % of The Thin Thirty freshmen are deceased = 2 / 10
10.5 % of the “Pull Out” freshmen are deceased = 4 / 38
The percentage deceased for The Thin Thirty Freshmen was near double The “Pull Out” 1961-1962 Freshmen football players.
THE 2nd SURVEY STUDY RESULTS
The total population of players on the 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Freshman Football Team was _____48______
A total of ___47__players or their families, if the player was deceased, were mailed the questionnaire
______1______player was not found.
A total of ____31____players responded
______1______random error was excluded.
A total of ____30____players were included in the survey sample population.
The following were the questions and answers:
Would you want your son to play football for a coach like Charlie Bradshaw as Bradshaw behaved in 1962 ?
Yes________ No______97%______
No son ____ 3% or 1 / 30_______
Have you forgiven Charlie Bradshaw for mistreating you?
Yes___46.5 % ____ No___50 %____ N/A___3.5 %__
Are you working on forgiving Charlie Bradshaw?
Yes___14.8%____ No____51.9 % _____
“Mike the Missiles” therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder included the composition of a letter to the guilty parties, posthumously, who created the moronic, foolish coaching change from head Coach Blanton Collier to Charlie Bradshaw January 1962.
“To: Frank Dickey, past President of University of Kentucky, past UK Athletics Board member Bernie A. Shively and UK Athletic Director, past Head UK Football Coach, Charlie Bradshaw and his past assistants whom he brought from outside UK with him and past UK Athletics Board members: Dr. Frank Peterson, Dr. A. D. Kirwan, Dr. Lee Chamberlain, James B. Allen, Dr. Aubrey Brown, Robert Stephens, Prof. William Tolman, Prof Jack Kuiper, Dr. Ralph Angelucci, Dr. Thomas Clark, Dr. Lyman Ginger, Prof W. W. Haynes, Dr. W. L. Mathews, Jr., Dr. D.. V. Terrell, Floyd Wright and Jim Daniel:
Dear Sirs,
You disgraced the University of Kentucky, our state university, with the termination of Coach Blanton Collier as head football coach and the hiring of Charlie Bradshaw, his tyrannical replacement. Your unwise decision, making that coaching change, was obviously after very poor judgment, as revealed by Bradshaw’s history and NCAA sanctions and very foolish.
We football players were very saddened and shocked by the loss of our Mentor Head Coach, Blanton Collier. We had no forewarning. Coach Collier was more experienced than Bradshaw. Coach Collier knew both the Xs and Os and on-field football coaching. He was a trusted coach-friend, counselor, and teacher. He was interested in each player’s football career, academics, education, future career, and the player’s life after football. He knew most would not turn pro. Coach Collier was wise, influential, trusted, and the players’ supporter, guide, counselor, sponsor, advisor, and role model.
Please compare for yourself the subsequent career of Coach Collier and Bradshaw’s career. Coach Collier was immediately hired to coach the Cleveland Browns after UK, after your unwise decision and actions in 1962. After Blanton Collier became coach “in 1963, the Cleveland Browns finished 10-4, and Jim Brown broke the NFL’s single-season rushing record with 1,863 yards. The following season, the Browns went 10-3-1 and then upset the heavily favored Baltimore Colts 27-0 in the league championship. Another Eastern Conference title followed in 1965, but the team lost the title game to the Green Bay Packers. Despite Jim Brown’s retirement after the 1965 season, the Browns ran off another 4 consecutive winning seasons and went to the NFL championship in 1968 and 1969.
Coach Collier had great respect for black players, which helped endear him to Jim Brown and his teammates. He retired in 1970. Browns fans remember Collier’s tenure as a Golden Age of Browns football. The team was not shut out in any game, and Cleveland Stadium sold out for almost every game played during Collier’s stint in Cleveland.” 138.
At the time of Coach Collier’s termination, our UK team was poised for greatness and were prepared to make a run at the SEC Championship in 1962. We were very deep at each position before the annihilation and total destruction of our team by you men and Bradshaw. You, from your ill-gotten decisions, destroyed that possibility, ruined our team, our chances for success, and buried mine and others’ football dreams and careers in a deep impenetrable tomb. You hired a rank amateur, who had no previous experience as a head football coach and whose offensive schemes were grade school and immature, at best.
We players were handed off to a tyrant. Bradshaw and some of his assistants were abusive coaches, who practiced verbal harassment, physical assault, severe punishments, manipulation, and illegal human rights violations. Bradshaw and some of his assistants were Bully-Boys who did not fully understand the art of coaching football. They did not possess the knowledge of winning coaches. Not included in that group were a few of the coaches, who were “left-overs” from Coach Collier, who were desperately seeking other coaching employment. They moved on as soon as possible. Most of the 58 players (30 out of 88 players began the 1962 season) were forced to leave the UK football program because of the horrific conditions.
Leaving a corrupt football program was not quitting for us. Coach Roy Walton, Tates Creek High School, Lexington, termed it “pulling out” and redirecting our careers to rid ourselves of the worst scourge in SEC football history. Walton knew and followed the careers of many whom he had coached in high school and the KY East-West football game. Leaving was a form of self-preservation enabling us to play at the next level, called life. Remaining with that corrupt football program was not believing in Bradshaw and his system. Remaining was the only choice for some teammates. They had no way out and were trapped with the tyrants. Some of the former assistants of Coach Collier experienced the same condition. They had no other job. They did not buy into his system either.
Unethical, dishonest, immoral behavior should not have been tolerated for the sake of winning. You men in charge of this decision should be ashamed of yourselves. Bradshaw’s record reveals that he only won 38.6% of his games during his brief, and yet too lengthy, seven-year tenure as head coach at UK.
He and some of his assistants obviously did not know what they were doing. After UK, he did not move on to greatness, like Coach Collier. Answer me. How much time, thought, investigation, research, consultation, and vetting did you devote in preparation for such a change? Obviously very little. Bradshaw and you set the UK football program back 10 or more years. The Bradshaw Era and your administrations were UK football tragedies.
We players signed Grant-in Aide “Scholarships” to play football at UK under Coach Collier and his able assistants. After your reckless decision and the coaching change, we UK football players did not celebrate a Golden Age. Not only were we players who left the program and football, robbed of our football careers, we were forced illegally to give up our Grant-in Aides that would pay our tuition, room, board, and books during our college educations. Other SEC coaches divulged those rule violations to the legitimate media, not the hapless UK pundits.
Because of your administrative misrepresentations, we were fraudulently forced to sign illegal waivers giving up our scholarships. I borrowed and paid all my way through pre-med and med-school at UK, one of the few med-schools available to me, after I left your Bradshaw program. Interested football programs, after UK, had no comparable pre-medical and medical education. We teammates invested our football careers, education and lives with UK. Because of you and your decision to make a coaching change we received no return on our mental and fiscal investments with UK. Instead, we players were subjected to severe mistreatments and crimes.
Grim, commando, win at all costs football, coached by Bradshaw Bully-Boys, who severely mistreated our team, had no place in football on any level. Bear Bryant had the decency to apologize to the Junction Boys for his mistreatments of them at Texas A&M. UK’s football program was on probation in 1964 because of Bradshaw. “We have done nothing wrong of what we’re ashamed,” Bradshaw was quoted as saying in the article. You as a group and Bradshaw have never apologized for Bradshaw’s Bully-Boy mistreatments and crimes against me and our UK football players and team. Not even today.
“In ‘win at all costs’ commercialized football, it was not uncommon for Total Football apostles to believe God and football reconciled the brutality that common sense dictated was violative of civil rights laws and morally wrong. Even prison guards then and now cannot inflict excessive punishment on prisoners.” [Ragland]
I was devastated and fought post-traumatic stress disorder most of my life, that was diagnosed and discovered later because my investment in football and UK were so enormous and emotional and my loss was so severe and psychologically post-traumatic. Additionally, my teammates and I were framed as a “quitters” and shamed by you, your media, Ashford (Lexington Herald-Leader), for example, and your pundits, who piled-on and pinned the story proactively for UK, covered-up and hushed Bradshaw’s brutality for many years, adding to our PTSD. Our teammates were the winners, not the losers.
But the shame and disgrace are on you dishonorable men. We teammates who “pulled out” became very successful, not thanks to you and the University of Kentucky.”
Micheal B. Minix, Sr., M.D., F.I.C.S.
Life member UK Alumni Club
Blue-White Fellow Society Member
1968 UK College of Medicine graduate
1974 Chief Resident, UK Department of Ophthalmology and Residency graduate
Past Volunteer Teaching Staff UK Department of Ophthalmology
One of Six Founding Board of Directors, University of Kentucky Eye Foundation 2001
References:
[Football’s Gentle Giant, The Blanton Collier Story, by Kay collier Slone, 1985 Life Force Press]
[Official Site of the Kentucky Wildcats, Archives]
[A Longitudinal and Retrospective Study of The Impact of Coaching Behaviors on the 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Football Wildcats, Kay Collier McLaughlin, Ph.D., Micheal B. Minix Sr. M.D., Twila Minix, R.N., Jim Overman, Scott Brogdon]
[“The Rage to Win,” Morton Sharnik and Robert Creamer, Sports Illustrated, October 8, 1962]
[The Thin Thirty, Shannon Ragland, 2007 Set Shot Press]
[“Bear Bryant Purge,” Ed Ashford, Lexington Herald, September 13, 1962]
[“UK Can Win With 30, Ed Ashford,” Lexington Herald, September, 1962]
Conclusions suggested by the studies:
1. Coaches should not physically and psychologically (emotional) endanger, maltreat, and/or abuse athletes.
2. Athlete victims who suffer from physical and emotional maltreatment and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) should:
• Come to grips with the inciting trauma
• Come to grips with their persistent recurring symptoms
• Become educated about their physical and emotional mistreatment and PTSD
• Employ anxiety management, explore ways to cope with the emotional and physiological reactions that occur secondary to re-experiencing the trauma in their memory, other internal, and external reminders and situations.
• Should not bury the trauma in their mind
• Revisit the trauma
• Discuss the trauma with their teammates and others
• Pray about the traumatic events
• Write a letter to the perpetrator, wad it up, throw it in the garbage and move on
• Personal forgiveness of the perpetrators is different from reconciliation
• Reconciliation can occur when the perpetrator apologizes to them directly
• Realize that true justice is for God alone
• Deal with the trauma. Otherwise the trauma will “eat at them the rest of life”
• Seek professional medical and psychological help if indicated
The sobering facts about Mike’s UK football experience were that his obligations to the human race, his opportunity to practice medicine, God’s gift to him, were more important than football. Bradshaw brought him to a crossroad. Mike had to choose the high road.
Mike was dedicated to the administration of the covenants of his Oath of Hippocrates to all human beings, including Charlie Bradshaw. Thus his forgiveness of Charlie Bradshaw was the result of being a Christian physician. God gave him the gift and he forgave Charlie Bradshaw. It took many years.
In forgiving Charlie Bradshaw for his transgressions against him, Mike fulfilled the Gospel of God, as a physician. His forgiveness was from his heart filled with the connection with God, a manifestation of his spirituality during his Pilgrim’s Journey. His practice of medicine had always been from his heart, not his billfold. His practice of medicine, one of the eight fields of knowledge, was one of the main ways he worshiped God. The practice of medicine connected him spiritually with God.
One morning in 2010, after awakening Mike told his wife, Twila, that he had forgiven Charlie Bradshaw for abusing him because he finally realized that Bradshaw was mentally deranged at the time. As a physician, he sought to heal him, even after Bradshaw’s death. Even though Mike could not reach Bradshaw’s physical being, and didn’t fully understand the eternal promise God offered, Bradshaw’s soul was within the reach of a physician’s healing prayer.
The following day, Mike and his wife, Twila, went to the Centenary Methodist Church in Lexington, Kentucky Sunday to hear his nephew Mark Minix Jr. play the largest pipe organ in Kentucky. It was to be an event that no other teenager had accomplished. He was the local expert, for his peer group. He played all the songs for three services. Everyone was proud of his performance. During the service, the minister preached forgiveness. She used Forrest Gump and Jenny as an analogy. Jenny, who had been abused by her father. When walking with Forrest, she fell down in front of the home where she had been abused. She began throwing rocks at her old home.
After Jenny ran out of rocks, Forrest Gump said “there are never enough rocks to throw” at evil. The minister said, like Jenny, people needed to throw their heavy, burdensome rocks away and forgive their trespassers. Jenny had been sexually abused, a different form of abuse than the physical and emotional abuse the football athletes suffered. Even so, abuse, endangerment, and mistreatment are abuse.
After the minister instructed the audience, Mike, while walking out of the sanctuary, tossed a handwritten piece of paper into the trash can with the words. “I forgive Charlie Bradshaw for abusing me in football.” Since then, he experienced relief and more peace from the anxieties secondary to Bradshaw’s football trauma. His nightmares lessened. He had faced his adversary, PTSD.
Christian forgiveness is different from reconciliation. Christians, who forgive, were not required to associate with the offender, such as socialize or drink a beer with those, whom they have forgiven.
Mike received a wonderful education in medicine and ophthalmology at UK. He moved forward on the high road.
UK Football Records: From the Bear Bryant era, the two winningest University of Kentucky Football coaches are Bear Bryant and Blanton Collier. Coach Blanton Collier is the winningest coach against Tennessee. The records:
• “Coach Bear Bryant coached Kentucky 1946-1953 seasons. He compiled W-60 L-23 T-5 record in 8 years.
• “Bryant’s 60 victories are still a UK football record for head coaches.
• Bryant UK W- 68.18%.
• Bryant UK vs Tennessee W-1 L-5 T-2
• Blanton Collier coached UK 8 years and compiled W-41 L-36 T-3 1954 to 1961.
• Coach Collier is the winningest coach against Tennessee W-5 L-2 T-1.
• Coach Blanton Collier Career at UK W-51.25%
• Coach Blanton Collier at Cleveland Browns (after UK) W-76 L-34 T-2 W-69.1%
• Coach Rich Brooks W- 45.3% and Coach Joker Phillips W- 35.1%, for comparison.
Charlie Bradshaw (who followed Coach Collier at UK) only won 38.6% of his games during his tenure as head University of Kentucky football coach. 1. Bradshaw proved that athlete abuse, inhumane cruelty to athletes and the “lesser player” coaching philosophy were meaningless, illogical, and absurd football formulae.
References: 1. [Archives, Official Site University of Kentucky Wildcats]
RESEARCH DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY, UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
Dr. Minix was sad and reflective in 2012 with the distressing news of the death of his mentor, world-renowned surgeon, Dr. Ben Eiseman. Mike prayed Dr. Eiseman would rest in peace after he heard the reg
Files coming soon.
COLLEGE OF MEDICINE, UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
“Mike The Missile” had “pulled-out” from football at the University of Kentucky because Charlie Bradshaw gave him an ultimatum, either medical school or total commando football. Now what was “The Missile” to do? Now that he made his choice. His football accolades wouldn’t do him much good in the Ivory Tower. Slobbered knocked while toting a football was pale in comparison to first-year medical school, he soon discovered, where his mental acumen was hammered.
What gave him the notion that a small town, rural Kentucky boy could just waltz into med school, become a celebrated doctor and live happily ever after? In fact, he thought, did he jump out of the proverbial frying pan into the fire?
Now he donned a white coat, carried a stethoscope, not a jersey and a football, looked through an otoscope, and ophthalmoscope. He would not look at the defense, never shave his ankles again before they were to be taped, and he stopped using four-letter words, cursing, and acting locker-roomish. Mike began using long Latin diagnostic terms, felt cold soft tummies, and never saw a bright scoreboard light up after a touchdown again. He only saw bright chalkboards and O.R. lights after long, exhausting surgeries. Hell was about to break loose again.
Director Roy Jarecky, born and reared in New York City, of course, began the Office of Student Services, College of Medicine, the University of Kentucky in 1961. Wasn’t there anyone in Kentucky who could have handled the job? He was recruited by vice president of the College of Medicine, Dr. Bill Willard. It was a student affairs office and an academic affairs office. He had his finger in every student’s concern and business, so to speak. Mike’s East KY med student colleagues believed that there were many Kentuckians who were sufficiently intelligent and familiar with Kentucky to manage Kentucky’s College of Medicine students and their services.
The College of Medicine was originated for teaching rural Kentucky students to become doctors in hopes they would remain and practice in KY. However, the snooty faculty believed that the students from Kentucky did not have the academic background that they were accustomed to up East, where most of the professors originated. Students from Kentucky were told they were inferior in the beginning to students from the uppity universities. Mike realized he couldn’t quote much Shakespeare, although his PHS literature teacher, Mrs. Loraine Wiley, tried in vain to teach him. But Mike believed he was intelligent enough to become a doctor. Mike didn’t know when he might need to quote Shakespeare during the treatment of an Eastern Kentucky patient. In fact, he dismissed that notion. He wasn’t uppity and certainly not a geek, but thought he knew how to react to rural patients and treat them humanely with his heart, given the education.
Many students were recruited from up East to bolster his class’s brain trust, it appeared. Because one-third of his medical school class was from up East, a communications course was implemented. It was designed to teach the uppity East group to interview patients from the hollows of Eastern Kentucky. The class met on Saturday mornings and was another real pain in the ass. The most impoverished, toothless Eastern Kentucky family members and patients that could be found sleeping in the Chandler Medical Center Hospital waiting area were interviewed by teaching doctors, who were proficient in patient interview techniques, at least up East. Interviews in which, even Louisville, Kentuckian Diane Sawyer, ABC television journalist, would be proud to claim cast rural Kentucky Mountain people in exceedingly impoverished circumstances.
The up East med students and faculty finally learned to speak hillbilly so the students moved forward with the genuine curriculum. Needless to say, Mike already understood the words “holler”, “howdy”, “tore up”, “afeared”, “quare”, “plum”, “poke”, and so forth. He, however, was a “townie” and never lived in a “holler” and never used improper language. He was taught better at home and at PHS. His mother and all his family were very particular about elocution, as were his teachers. Loraine Wiley, his English teacher, was particularly fanatical about articulation and enunciation. His great aunt, Maude Arnett Bach, taught elocution at Lees Junior College, Jackson, Breathitt County, KY. She always “talked proud”. His great aunt Maude made certain that Mike’s proper forename was spelled Micheal and pronounced Mi KEEall’, the Swiss-German and European pronunciations. He lived with that spelling and the problems it created on every list and roll call throughout his career.
As time passed, the uppity schools and doctors learned that the Kentucky students were perfectly qualified for the hands-on practice of medicine and surgery. The students felt the faculty members were too snooty and uppity in the beginning, but faculty eventually warmed-up to the students’ Southern charm and genuineness. The students warmed-up to the faculties’ snobbishness and arrogance, but soon found there were many excellent, cordial faculty members. Even though the school was developed for the preparation of graduates to practice in rural Kentucky, students soon realized that the M.D. degree bought them tickets to anywhere, at any time, worldwide. They didn’t have to practice in a hollow in Eastern Kentucky as the school was intended. Jarecky predicted that it would take about 20 years, following the medical school’s beginning, for UK doctor graduates to finally begin staying in KY to practice. That came to pass as he predicted. He was actually very knowledgeable.
As far as the uppity, up-East students were concerned, one intern from a very prominent Ivy League school that Mike knew was a very incompetent intern. His general ineptness, lack of hand-eye skills and insubordination were rumored. He was finally tossed-out of the internship. Many of Mike’s classmates from Kentucky and elsewhere, including the uppities, were brilliant and could compete with the best from the most celebrated colleges and universities up East.
There was no Department of Family Practice in UK’s beginning. Most graduating doctors specialized in other specialties that took them out of Kentucky for practice. Every course was conjoint, interrelated courses of multiple specialties. 1.
The first day of med school Dr. Roy Jarecky, who spoke with a New York brogue, entered the classroom and began his student affairs instruction, or destruction if you will. He announced at the end, “look right and look left at you neighbors sitting beside you. About one-third of you will not be here at the end graduation day.” And so it came to pass that 58 graduated from the original class of about 68, but many of the 58 were repeaters from previous classes, trimmed from above. Mike lost a few real close buddies at the end of the first year. Yes, hell had broken loose and it wasn’t frozen over yet.
He had never associated with Jewish people before. He knew very little about Judaism, the religion of the Jews, which has its basis in the Bible and the Talmud, in which God is the creator of everything and the source of all goodness, which also struck a welcome cord with him. One thing about Mike, he was never prejudiced. He, too, believed that God was our Creator, Sustainer, and Judger. So, in fact, they had that much in common. In fact, he didn’t know what prejudiced actually meant to others or the reason humans would treat another human differently. He and his Jewish classmates were terrific friends as were his other classmates. Most of his Jewish classmates were from New York and New Jersey. His classmates, including the up-Easterners, respected him so much that he was elected class president and vice-president in different academic years. He could not remember the exact details and the years he was which class officer. Fourteen young women graduated among the 1968 med school class. The women and up East classmates were exceedingly bright and always willing to share information with others. He could not remember any of the women flunking or being held back to repeat. Surprisingly, some of his women classmates were very lovely.
The first year of medical school was very, very difficult for Mike. He enrolled after only three years of pre-med. He, therefore, hadn’t taken anatomy, histology, embryology, physiology, and other advanced pre-med courses in preparation for med school, as others had. He worked and studied diligently. He studied five straight days and nights for his gross anatomy final, without any sleep, and then slept for 48 hours continuously, missing the class dance Saturday night after the Friday anatomy final.
A couple of times he was called in by his professors, during his first 2 years, for special instruction and assistance. His instructors liked him and were very helpful and not malicious. He passed the first year in spite of having to catch up with the others. Ironically, Mike was always ahead of the game in sports. In med school, he was playing catch-up. He enjoyed studying and learning. He had a terrific memory and once learned he retained and could regurgitate the information on demand. His Latin background helped tremendously.
His second year was easier. All the students were on equal ground academically. None, previously, had the courses that were taken that year. Mike began getting encouragement from faculty members. He particularly scored well in pathology, neuropathology, and pharmacology. Biochemistry and genetics were more difficult, but he did well the second academic year.
Hard work in medical school began paying off as it did in sports. Mike had excellent third and fourth clinical years. He fully understood and could apply to the patients his course work. He easily followed the algorithms in his head and became an excellent hands-on student doctor and helped others who did not have the aptitude for starting IV’s, swallowing NG tubes, sewing up wounds, venipunctures, assisting in surgery, and executing laboratory tests. He spent many relentless hours teaching others when necessary in the study rooms in the library basement, locker rooms, and laboratories. He was amazed that all of his classmates were not capable of performing medical procedures, techniques he believed to be fundamental to medical practice. He loved the study and teaching of medicine. During his clinical years, third and fourth, Mike developed a love for ophthalmology, following an elective with Dr. Jonathan Wirtschafter, director of the Division of Ophthalmology. Wirtschafter recommended him for a clerkship in Miami, FL.
He completed a clerkship his senior year at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Jackson Memorial Hospital, Miami, Florida. World-renowned Doctor Edward Norton was chairman of ophthalmology at the institute. He fell in love with Bascom Palmer, his preceptors, and Dr. Norton, who were brilliant. Mike learned extensively about external eye disease from a very brilliant, inspiring resident teacher, Richard K. Forster M.D., who, in later years, became Professor of Ophthalmology and Chairman of The Richard K. Forster Corneal and External Ocular Diseases Department at Bascom Palmer Institute, named for Richard, which was a colossal honor and well deserved. Forster was the impetus for his continued study of external disease.
Dr. J. Lawton Smith was a legendary neuro-ophthalmologist, at Bascom Palmer, who presented neuro-ophthalmology rounds every Saturday morning in his South Carolina twang. Those teaching sessions were not required, but Mike attended every Saturday morning at 8:00 AM-12:00 noon. J. Lawton, as he was called, began his education at Emory University, then Duke Medical School, and Wilmer Eye Institute, John Hopkins University. Goooodness J. Lawton was stimulating as he preached neuro-ophthalmology. “He mixed evangelism with medicine and converted many young students to ophthalmology.” J. Lawton was a Southerner’s Southerner and a Baptist preacher. He founded the Christian Ophthalmology Association. He talked with that Southern draw and one-upped every other doctor in the large auditorium who questioned and commented on the subjects. Over 100 ophthalmologists from far and wide attended each presentation. Mike encountered many famous eye surgeons during his clerkship at Bascom Palmer in the spring, 1968. He was converted. J. Lawton furthered his passion for ophthalmology. 2.
“The Missile” was also instructed by J. Donald Gass, famous for his research of retinal macular disorders. He also forged a friendship with genius and electrical engineer graduate and med school attendee, Steve Charles, in 1968, who during his fourth year medical school, was upstairs in a laboratory developing some of his first discoveries in “clinical electro-retinography and electro-oculography, clinical pupillography, the early receptor potential in experimental retinal detachment, the effect of visual deprivation on the visual system, and clinical ultrasound, with Drs. J.T. Flynn, R. Machemer, O.J. Grusser. He had degrees in biomedical engineering and computer programming.” Steve was the geniuses’ genius. 3.
Later, during Dr. Minix’s private practice in Ashland and Paintsville, Ky, he referred patients for retinal detachment surgery and mailed fluroscein angiography film to Charles for interpretation. Dr. Minix performed the first real-time ultrasound, fluroscein angiography, contrast sensitivity, argon, and YAG lasers in Eastern Kentucky. Several patients said he was the “Father of Eastern Kentucky Modern Ophthalmology.”
Many took their precious time to teach Mike in Miami. The Bascom Palmer clerkship extended beyond the 1968 College of Medicine graduation which Mike was not able to attend. He, Dr. Bill Offutt, and Dr. Bob Sparks had a private graduation in a small room next to the Dean’s Office. There were a handful of attendees. He had no family in attendance. He didn’t care, because he was focused on receiving the sheepskin and getting the heck out of Dodge. UK basketball coach Adolph Rupp, who was a friend and neighbor of Mike’s classmate, Bob Sparks, attended. That was his first encounter with the coach in that building complex. They had crossed paths when Mike played football. He would see more of Rupp later in life. The ceremony was short. Some pictures were taken, none of which he later received. But he had the sheepskin gripped tightly, for safekeeping.
His football experience seldom entered his mind during medical school. Frankly, his mind had enough room for both medicine and the mundane, but he suppressed football for his safekeeping. He didn’t follow Kentucky football games or any football for that matter. He was too busy with medical education and cared very little for the scourge of Bradshaw football; graduated in the top 10 of his medical school class, though he was “The Missile” not a rocket or MIT Rocket Scientist.
References:
1. [Interview with Roy Jarecky, March 3, 1986, Louie B. Nunn Center of Oral History, University of Kentucky]
2. [Lawton, Legacy, J Neuro-ophthalmology, vol 22. No. 3, 2002]
3. [Steven Thomas Charles, Curiculum Vitae]
MEMORIAL HOSPITAL INTERNSHIP 1968-1969
July 1, 1968, Mike’s internship year began. He selected Memorial Hospital in Savannah, Georgia. The Match System was not in place at that time. Memorial paid their interns well and provided free housing in apartments across the street, behind the hospital adjacent to the nursing school. Breakfast was free seven days per week and weekend lunches and dinner were free. Memorial Hospital kitchen dished out some of the best Low Country food to be found: biscuits and gravy, shrimp and grits, gumbo, crab cakes, oyster stew, pork chops, fried chicken, fried catfish, mashed taters, fruit, and to-die-for homemade desserts.
The early caucasian Savannah pioneers were English, Scott-Irish, German, French and Swiss, who had fought in the French and Indian Wars, Revolutionary War, and patented land for cultivation.
Ebenezer was an early German settlement up the Savannah River around the Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Swabians formed the Bethany Colony of Georgia in Ebenezer. The settlement failed due to malaria, dysentery, and, most importantly, the inability to produce silk for the Queen of England. Silkworms and Mulberry Trees, the only leaf the worm will eat, did not survive. 1.
The pioneer “[c]ongregation Mickve Israel has a long and storied history, dating back to 1733, just a few months after the founding of the City of Savannah. ‘Forty-two intrepid Jews set sail from England aboard The William and Sarah with little more than their beloved Torah (which the Congregation still uses annually in our anniversary Shabbat service) and a special kit for circumcision.’ They arrived in Savannah, a border colony town with an innovative vision for religious tolerance, to start their lives anew in a land of freedom. These brave settlers went on to found Kahal Kadosh Mickva Israel: Holy Congregation, the Hope of Israel. Founded the first synagogue in Georgia.” 2.
“The early story of African Americans in Savannah is directly tied to the history of slavery in Georgia. When Georgia was founded in the early 1730s as the last of England’s 13 colonies, its Trustees had the experience of neighboring colonies before them, malaria, dysentery, heat, and humidity. To avoid the slave-based plantation economy that had developed, the Georgia Trustees outlawed slavery in January 1735. Economic forces proved more powerful than good intentions, and by the late 1740s, slaves from South Carolina were openly sold in Savannah. Georgia settlers petitioned the Trustees to legalize slavery, and this effort succeeded. At the beginning of 1751, the practice became legal in Georgia. By the time of the American Revolution, African slaves comprised nearly half of Georgia’s population.” The other Colonies, in the beginning, except for South Carolina, were primarily non-plantation economies.
“Savannah merchants obtained slaves through trade with South Carolina and the Caribbean. After legalization, slaves were mostly imported directly from West Africa directly to Savannah. The voyage across the ocean from West Africa to Savannah lasted between four and six months.” These slaves suffered the same as the ones before them, inhumane treatment. The old cobblestone streets and slave markets for slave auction on the Savannah River Street are visible today. 3.
Human pathology, morbidity, and mortality in Savannah were enormous in 1969. The diverse population attributed to the diseases. There were many very ill patients who lacked sufficient care. Doctors were in demand in Savannah. Malignant hypertension, uncontrolled diabetes mellitus, stroke, heart disease, sickle cell disease, malnutrition, tuberculosis, cancer, sexually transmitted disease, GYN cancer, and so forth, were widespread and untreated. Savannah was said to be owned by the Jews, governed by the caucasian Protestants, and populated by African Americans. The cross-section of cultures, races, religions, and people rendered Savannah an interesting, Southern cosmopolitan city in which to study, practice, and offer medicine and surgery as an intern. The interns, residents, and house staff at Memorial were very important to the health care of Savannahians.
Mike selected Memorial Internship because it was a “Rotating Internship”, the ideal rotation in preparation for general medical practice. He rotated and spent sufficient quality time in pediatrics, internal medicine, surgery, ob-gyn, and the emergency department. Once graduated Memorial interns were well prepared for the general practice of medicine, still popular in those days. Teaching was excellent and the opportunity for hands-on patient care was immense.
Mike frequently made rounds when he was on internal medicine rotation with Dr. James Metts, Jr., now 81, a remarkable physician. He was one of Memorial’s notable physicians who had practiced for 59 years in Savannah and Memorial. “From 1969 until last year, Dr. Metts led a local initiative that targeted cardiovascular disease by offering blood pressure screenings and other preventative treatments to the poor.” Dr. Metts was credited with slashing the rate of strokes and heart attacks in Chatham County. In 2010 the Georgia Legislature honored Metts with a resolution praising his "unselfish and dedicated public service." He had also been the coroner for the last 40 years and worked 20 years at the Curtis V. Cooper Primary Health Care Clinic, which treated indigent and uninsured patients. 5.
“The coroner, Dr. Metts, found himself featured in a chapter of ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," John Berendt's 1994 nonfiction bestseller that focused on a Savannah antiques dealer on trial for the shooting death of his young lover. In the book and movie, Metts describes the crime scene to a defense attorney. The coroner is quoted saying he feels sympathetic for the accused, considering the victim was ill-tempered and vitriolic: "Hell, I'd have shot Danny Hansford too." 5.
Dr. Metts and his colleagues were independent, rigid, and compassionate doctors at the same time. His and others’ knowledge, teaching, and charitable practice of medicine influenced Mike and the other Memorial interns and residents. Dr. Metts and Dr.’s John Dekle and Speir Ramsey, Ob-Gyn, Julian Quattlebaum, Jr., surgery, Dicky Timms and Maurice Whiddon, general surgery, Eugene Bargeron, orthopedics, Upton Clary, neurosurgery, Medical Education Director, Dr. Dan Cox and other attending physicians shared their time, teaching, and philosophies with him and the young doctors. Each specialty offered the interns and residents didactic medicine classes.
Mike’s first rotation was a month in the Emergency Department. The attendings had confidence in him from his intern class for the first rotation in the ER. He showed promise and confidence from the beginning. He delivered babies inside cars parked in front of the Emergency Department and treated patients who spoke only Geechee and Gullah, languages derived from West African Slaves. He did a tracheostomy the first night in the ED on an African American man who had been run over by a car, family only spoke Geechee, and had an obstructed airway from sustained injuries and then suffered a cardiac arrest after he was examined in the ED. He also had other multiple injuries treated by attending surgeons. The patient made it to the operating room. Mike and the other doctors didn’t understand a word the patient or his family said, but he survived and was discharged from the hospital sooner than expected and returned to his job as a line cook at a Hilton Head, SC hotel.
During his first few days in the ED, a young, male motorcyclist was hit twice in an intersection by a car that ran a red traffic light. By history, it was stated that the car hit the cycle, knocked it up in the air with the rider, and then hit him a second time when he and the cycle descended in front of the car. Near every bone in the rider’s body was broken including his skull. He was DOA.
Dr. Minix encountered another foreign language that posed difficult diagnostic and treatment problems. A severely 2nd and 3rd degree burned patient, from a Greek oil tanker ship that caught fire as it approached the oil terminal on the Savannah River, presented to the emergency department. Savannah was a port and received ships night and day. No Greek translator could be found. Fortunately, Memorial ED was equipped with the latest burn medications and the nursing staff were well trained in burn triage. There were many burn casualties on the ship, but the patient, who made it to and through Memorial ED, survived and was discharged from the hospital following arrangements to transport him back to Greece.
Another ED shift, during the early morning hours (each shift was 24 non-stop hours) a young woman presented to the ED with a bad vaginal discharge. On pelvic examination, the infection was found to be fulminating. Mike cultured and smeared the discharge. He then he found a $5.00 bill wedged up in the apex of the vaginal vault near the cervix, that he removed with a forceps. It, too, was submitted to the laboratory, since it was a foreign body. The smear results came back as Gonorrhea. He began IV antibiotics and transferred her to Gyn service for admission and hospitalization. PID, pelvic inflammatory disease, secondary to Gonorrhea was extremely common.
Many patients in police custody were brought to Memorial ED, intoxicated on “scrap iron”. The African American community in Savannah made their own “homebrew”. The problem with their brew was that they distilled the brew in discarded car radiators that contaminated the brew with lead. The patients were not only alcohol-intoxicated but had lead intoxication to boot, which rendered them extremely psychotic. These patients were paranoid, delusional, and dissociated from reality. They were first stabilized in the ED and then admitted to the Psych unit and, thereafter, followed for consequences of lead deposition in the central nervous system and other organs. One admitted patient set his bed on fire while smoking a cigarette, following admission. A code blue was announced and every doctor in the hospital, including Mike, attended the fire and the patient. They all survived. Many other patients presented to the ED with mental illness. He and the other interns learned to identify the four A’s of Schizophrenia: inappropriate affect, autism, withdrawal from the social surroundings, ambivalence, lack of emotions, and depersonalization and associations loss. He learned the use of psychotropic medication forwards and backwards.
Sickle cell crisis was a frequent disease that Memorial doctors treated. There was frequently a SS crisis in the ED and on the internal medicine ward. Interns learned how to manage and treat SS. Snake bites were a common occurrence. Memorial was a snake bite center. Memorial had a snake bite specialist on staff and all of the current medications and treatments available at that time. Mike treated a few, primarily rattlesnake bites, with the snake bite consultant in the ED. Patients were transferred to Memorial by ambulance and flown in by helicopter from nearby Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and other states. Memorial had a helicopter pad because it was a trauma center.
On Christmas Day he went on duty in the ED at 8:00 AM and all hell broke loose. He received 9 gunshot and stab wounds; one right after another, before 11:00 AM. Two died who were shot directly in the heart. Most Savannah GSWs were from 22 calibers. These small-caliber bullets often bounced around inside the chest and abdomen creating multiple organ injuries that required lengthy multiple surgical repairs. 22 caliber GSWs seldom killed the patient unless patients had been shot in the head or heart. 22 caliber GSWs created intense work for the doctors. Many of the knife and gun club assaults were near the areas around Montgomery, Henry, and East Broad streets. The doctors at Memorial were prepared for all hell to break loose every Friday and Saturday night. Even today, tourists to Savannah are advised to lock their doors when driving through certain areas of Savannah. 4.
To make matters more intense, Savannah was and still is a party town. The second-largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in the U.S. was and still is a huge event with sold-out crowds every year with standing room only on River Street where the green beer flowed. Hunter Army Airfield was in Savannah and Fort Stewart, the largest military base in the Eastern U.S., was 40 miles from Savannah. The weekends were and still are extremely busy in Memorial’s ED, because of the varied population in the city “letting their hair down.”
A very well known African American, owner of a very popular African American Savannah R&B music night club was a robbery victim. He incurred multiple 22 caliber GSWs to his chest and abdomen. His surgery was very long and tedious lasting about 16 hours. He survived and recuperated successfully following a few weeks in the hospital. He was grateful to the Memorial Hospital staff. He later closed his club to the public one evening and hosted a party for the staff. The all night long party featured R&B music, fantastic food, drinks, and dancing. The keyboard and organ played by the live band that night were said to be previously owned by Otis Redding, who grew up nearby, and died tragically in an airplane crash in 1967. The interns and residents never missed an opportunity or declined a free party.
The Memorial interns and residents worked intensely. Their work was grueling. About once per month, they would gather at a local dance club or night club and leave behind their doctor persona, inhibitions, and loosen-up their behavioral controls. Controlled disinhibition was a survival code of conduct. It was seldom, but doctors self-medicated themselves with alcohol, only intermittently, not on a daily basis in those days, not to feed an addiction, but to relieve the emotional pain and extreme hospital stress, occasionally. Alcohol is a coping mechanism for some who become stressed. Mike never observed or heard of illicit drugs among hospital interns, residents, or town doctors. The young Memorial doctors were very conservative and self-disciplined gentlemen. His era was blessed because it was prior to the outrageous drug disorders and dependents recognized later in life. Mike never, ever saw or used illicit drugs then or later.
None of the young doctors were alcoholics, drug addicts, or hoodlums. Mike never witnessed a doctor friend to lose consciousness from alcohol overindulgence. From their experience and knowledge, they dared not drink and drive. Law enforcement officers would drive them home upon request if they consumed too much, which was infrequent. They were cognizant of blood alcohol levels. The Memorial doctors and police officers had mutual respect for each other. The doctors often treated the officers, firefighters, and EMT all hours of the night and day when they were injured on their dangerous, important jobs. Savannah at times was dangerous. The officers reciprocated. They were on call for each other, as it should have been.
The residents and interns occasionally celebrated the survival of their on-duty struggles and comradery dining-out enjoying the Low Lands and Savannah plentiful cuisine. Tybee Island, a coastline resort was just outside Savannah and they enjoyed the beach, weather permitting. The interns and residents were often engaged by Memorial to take prospective interns and residents “out on the town” to eat on Memorial’s dime, a recruitment tool. It was also a dining extravaganza. Delmonico’s, Restaurant 1875, the Pirates’ House, Johnny Harris, and many more fine restaurants were available.
Mike performed abdominal paracentesis, thoracentesis, chest tubes, resuscitations, tracheostomies, and you name it during his time at Memorial. He wasn’t timid. He wasn’t shy, didn’t fear blood, and looked death in the eyes. He rolled up his sleeves and dug right in. He learned how to see one, do one, and teach one, hands-on. He’d seen hell break loose before and he loved the challenges every time hell broke loose afterward. Mike was naturally suited for intense action.
The Emergency Department (ED) was non-stop 24-hour shifts. Attending Doctors were extremely knowledgeable and excellent teachers. Mike had excellent ED, clinic, and hospital experiences, probably not available in many other hospitals in the U.S. at that time. Memorial Hospital, staff, nurses, and everyone was magnificent. He sincerely appreciated Dr. Dan Cox, director of Memorial Medical Education, for selecting him to serve as an intern. Many applied. Few were accepted. Dan was a wonderful, personable cardiologist and a former Duke football athlete, all the better for their get-along. They understood one another.
References:
1. [The Bethany Colony, by Dixon Hollingsworth (Partridge Pond Press, Sylvania, GA, 1974)," and "The Ebenezer Record Book, by A. G. Voigt, edited by C. A. Linn(Evangelical Lutheran synod of Ga and adjacent states, Savannah)].
2. [Congregation Mickve Israel]
3. [Countdown to Savannah: African Americans and Savannah - A Troubled Past, A Hopeful Future Written by AppalAnnie]
4. [Savannah Warnings and Dangers, The Virtual Tourist]
5. [Savannah coroner of 40 years exits under suspicionby Russ Bynum, Associated Press. January 11, 2013]
Files coming soon.
GENERAL PRACTICE OF MEDICINE
As the internship year was nearing the end, June 30, 1969, Dr. Minix began planning for the future. He needed to fulfill his military obligation first before he entered an ophthalmology residency. The draft was still active. The U.S. military draft ended January 27, 1973. Mike called the Pentagon to find if there were physician openings in any of the military services, but there were none. The “Berry Plan” saturated the military with young physicians who were obligated to the military following extensive residency training. The “Berry Plan” was a win-win for both the doctors and the military, because the doctors obtained their uninterrupted residency training, could not be drafted out of the residency program, and the military received doctors with advanced specialty education, after their residency was completed per their contractual agreement. Thus the military was surprisingly filled to the brim with doctors, an unusual occurrence. 1.
He had been impressively trained at Memorial for general practice, which was his contingency plan if ophthalmology residency was not available to him because of the draft or other reasons. Mike began checking general practice opportunities. He visited a general practice in Hardeeville, SC that had advertised for a physician at Memorial Hospital. To his surprise the clinic had a front entrance and water fountain for caucasians and a back entrance and water fountain for African Americans. He was thoroughly troubled by that arrangement. Dr. Minix treated all his patients the same no matter race, creed, color, or economic status. None were lesser. He did not believe in discrimination and refused to be associated with any form of prejudice. That medical practice was out of the question.
He visited Dr. Glenn Richard Powell in Paintsville, KY, who had a humongous general practice. Glenn Richard, a family friend, offered him, on the spot, $18,000 per year to see most the office patients, make rounds, treat the patients in the nursing home, and take all the calls too. Glen Richard on some days examined and/or treated 80 to 100 patients including the nursing home. What a deal? Mike realized he could not pay back his student loans and feed his family on that meager salary.
Interestingly, the majority of patients from Floyd County, KY, sought treatment in Prestonsburg at Prestonsburg General Hospital, the house that Dr. George Archer built, and Martin, KY, Our Lady of the Way Hospital. Patients from Johnson County, KY sought treatment in Paintsville and its hospital. The two county communities had an iron curtain that separated the two patient populations at the county line. Patients rarely travelled to the other county seat for treatments and the doctors did not associate personally or professionally with their peers across the line. It was strange in such a small geographic region, no doubt.
Dr. George Archer was the answer to the strange friction between the two counties. Dr. George began his practice in Paintsville with the Hall family. One morning he arrived at the Paintsville Hospital to perform a gallbladder removal that he had scheduled. When he entered the OR suite to scrub, the nurse told him not to bother because Dr. Paul B. Hall had already removed Dr. Archer’s patient’s gallbladder and the patient was recuperating on the hospital ward. Needless to say, Doc George was pissed-off. He pulled-out of Paintsville and began his practice in Prestonsburg, KY. Dr. George had made a sought after agreement with UMWA for outpatient and inpatient treatment or their coal miners and families, which was an enormous boost to his venture. He was overcome with the new volume of patients and Dr. Minix was just what the doctor ordered.
Mike visited Dr. George Archer in 1969 Prestonsburg, KY, who met him with arms wide open. Dr. George was very excited to have some additional help in the community. Possibly, the addition of a Paintsville hometown hero would attract patients to cross the county line. Floyd County was a huge county, four times the size of Paintsville and Johnson County. The only doctors in the underserved area were general practitioners: Drs. George Archer, Doug Adams, Jim Holbrook, Prestonsburg, KY, Drs. Lowell Martin, and Claude Allen (Mike’s cousin) Martin, KY, Ronnie Leslie, and Lloyd Hall Salyersville, Raymond Wells, Inez, KY, Ernie Holbrook, Urology, general surgery: Bill Cook. Mr. Chalmer Frazier was a very competent Prestonsburg Hospital Administrator. He and his wife, Kathryn Stumbo, were popular long lifetime residents, well-respected church going members of Prestonsburg society, and well connected politically and otherwise. Chalmer ran the hospital efficiently with an iron hand for Dr. George, whose hospital was up and running after his disagreement with Dr. Paul B. One could say there were some fairly strong personalities and egos among the doctors and hospitals in those days. Cool cordiality was the demeanor, which indicated extreme competition among the doctors and hospitals.
Paintsville, KY doctors included Paul B. Hall and Bob Hall for general practice and surgery, general practitioners, Drs John Turner, (who was featured in “Coal Miners Daughter”), Morris Hall, James “Jakie” Archer, Glen Richard Powell and pediatrician, Lon Hall. Paintsville Hospital wasn’t seeking additional doctors. For a significant early era, it was a ‘closed system’.
Many patients and families in Prestonsburg and Floyd County were members of UMWA, United Mine Workers of America. They were excellent, very loyal patients. They did not abuse or overuse their UMWA insurance. If grandma visited the doctor, everyone knew she was extremely ill. There were countless Medicaid and Medicare patients. Medicare began in 1965, while Mike was in medical school. “Under President Johnson, Congress created Medicare under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide health insurance to people age 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history.” 2.
Dr. Minix loved his UMWA, Medicaid, Medicare, and money-paying patients who soon became loyal regulars. Most had insurance cards for reimbursement. Filing a claim with a third-party payer was simple in those days. Doctors were trusted by their patients for the safest recommendations for their health. He was taught by Dr. George early-on that when a doctor in the community referred a patient for a specialty or second opinion to Lexington, KY, the doctor would earn trust from the patient. Referring was the principled course of action; not an admission that the hometown doctor was in any way inferior. Patients respected the referring doctor’s honesty and developed trust in the physician. Dr. George said, “For every patient referred, you’d get two new patients in return.” Medical practices were grown on emergency services and specialty referrals. Dr. Minix acquired considerable continuing medical education from the referral letters returned to him from specialty doctors.
The Prestonsburg doctors’ offices were located on the main floor of the “old Prestonsburg Hospital”. There was no room for Mike’s office at the hospital where the other doctors were located. The hospital was small and cramped for space. He found office space across the street on the second floor of a commercial building. It was tiny, but efficient and inexpensive. General practitioners in those days were equipped with a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, thermometers, weight scale, syringes and needles, disposable pelvic and pap smear kits, and usually two examination rooms with inexpensive examination tables, one chair, and a doctor’s stool on wheels. He was privileged to have an office in which to examine and treat patients, no matter how unimpressive.
Most importantly Martha White, wife of Bobby, had been recommended by Dr. George for his patient care assistant. She had nurses training and had assisted at the hospital. Minerva Arnett was recommended. She was hired as secretary. Both kept the books, what there was to keep. Cash-paying patients usually didn’t have any cash to pay and many didn’t ultimately pay. Mailing invoice statements to patients was fairly worthless. Dr. Minix, fortuitously, provided a fair amount of free service, but money wasn’t Mike’s priority or philosophy. Bill collectors were totally out of the question.
Martha and Minerva were the best possible employees a young upstart doctor could have had for beginning a new medical practice. They, too, were well known and trusted in Prestonsburg. Both were humble, kind to every patient, no matter how crowded the office was, and very efficient, hardworking, honest as the day was long, and loved the area’s people. Every patient’s history, diagnosis, and treatment were safe and secure under their supervision. Mike examined all the patients. He began his examination as they walked into the exam area. UK orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Tom Brower, taught him and other med students completely about the varied gates with which people walked. Brower could mimic every gate. He provided the med students with a visual of each gate. His lectures on pathologic gates were remarkable, often humorous and thus memorable.
Dr. Minix wrote all the patients’ notes by hand and placed the note paper in a simple manila folder with the name handwritten on the tab. They were stored in a common book shelf in the locked reception office for safekeeping. Dr. Minix actually looked and thoroughly examined patients who were disrobed, as doctors should. His pet peeve was doctors who listened to patients with their stethoscope through the patient’s shirt and coat. He was trained far better than that. Computers and electronic records were far off in the future at that time. On Dr. Minix’s average work day, Monday through Friday, he made rounds at the hospital, had coffee in the kitchen with the other doctors and told tall tales, treated 60+ patients in the office, and took call in the ER (in those days it was just one emergency room) where he treated another 15+ patients after hours. There were days he treated 100 patients, when the other doctor were OOT (out of town).
Many patients received contraceptives, IUDs (intrauterine contraception devices), penicillin, antibiotics, antihistamine-decongestant, anxiety, psychiatric injections, and prescriptions for every illness and condition known to man and woman. Some impotent men received testosterone injections before their weekend sales meetings. Amphetamine prescriptions were legal and recommended by authorities for weight loss, provided they passed required complete examinations and were cleared for usage. Not many patients sought diet pills. Medications were simple, inexpensive, and effective in those days and most were available by intramuscular injection. As the simple inexpensive effective medications were excluded from formularies, new more expensive replacements were FDA approved. Dr. Minix and other doctors, saw the “writing on the wall” and became very displeased with their costs and ineffectiveness. He delivered babies whenever the baby decided, made occasional house calls, ate and slept whenever possible. The work was intense.
Regular house calls were made for a patient who necessitated bronchodilation injections for his COPD. Black lung affected many retired coal miners in Eastern Kentucky. Following his examination and treatment, the patient routinely instructed his wife to “pay the doctor.'' She then rolled back a small rug in the living room floor, removed a couple of slats from the floor, fetched $20 from a box, covered it, as it was beforehand, and paid him. Mike then deposited it in his big black doctor’s bag side pocket, recorded the transaction and diagnosis in his little receipt book kept in the bag. Every morning Dr. Minix took his on-call-bag to the office and Martha and Minerva transcribed the book’s house call receipts and ER calls on to the day sheet. After the cost for gasoline, injectable medicine, alcohol swabs, gauze, band-aides, needles and syringes, employee time, and cost, little profit remained, yet it was a service he enjoyed and patients respected. Profit wasn’t his motivation.
Most nights and weekends, Dr. Minix took the ER call, because the established doctors left town to rest and recuperate. Each asked him to “cover” for them. Mike was young and full of piss and vinegar and he loved to practice medicine. Consequently, he delivered most of the babies on his call weekends. That meant that the established doctors received the pay for the delivery. Mike sometimes got a “thank you”. He was fairly naïve about business concerns and much too generous. Dr. Minix’s mother once said, “The women won’t leave you alone and you are much too generous.” Undoubtedly, she referred to women’s charitable organizations, who were continually seeking donations.
Prestonsburg was a small town. He and most of the Doctors lived on Arnold Avenue, down the street from the hospital. He and Dr. George worked the Floyd County Health Departments Maternal and Infant Care. Dr. Minix received about $100 for prenatal and post-delivery care, which included reimbursement for delivery, paid by the state, of course, which seemed like high cotton to him.
Early in his practice, he delivered a baby when the forewaters were bulging downwards into the dilating cervix and the head on its way. As routinely done in those moments, he pierced the amniotic sac to relieve the forewaters. The amniotic fluid gushed-out as usual, drenching his new trousers and Florsheim shoes, as the baby further engaged. A big, healthy baby boy was delivered. He returned home and changed into sleeping shorts (he never wore pajamas) and went to bed, after a job well done. From that point on, Mike always lounged around home in the evening and slept in scrub bottoms, ready for the instantaneity of deliveries, especially when there was a full moon. Dr. Minix made a living, but he was as frugal as possible.
The delivery room was exactly that, one room with one small delivery table. There was no such luxury as an anesthesiologist in rural Prestonsburg, KY. Interestingly, the anesthesia consisted of an ethrane filled tube connected to a wrist band. The mother-to-be sucked and breathed the ethrane from the tube during delivery. When she was perfectly sedated, she automatically dropped the tube, which dangled from her wrist, and was anesthetized for his painless pudendal block of vulva and labia majora, episiotomy, when necessary, delivery and suture repair of the necessary incision.
Mag Ackerman, the hospital’s director of nursing, lived directly behind the hospital. The home was separated from the rear of the hospital by no more than ten feet and seemed almost attached. A window was beside the delivery table and adjacent-to and visible from Mag’s home, but on second hospital floor near the archaic, dilapidated elevator. Mag was an excellent Ob nurse in addition to her other remarkable abilities. If a baby during delivery was determined to be breeched or “crossways” (transverse lie), Mike would have the nurse assisting to open the window and he yelled-out “Hey Mag” as loud as he could. “Hey Mag”…. She would come running and then assist turning the baby ab externo from above. Mag was an expert, reliable, dependable, and stern “old school” nurse. Occasionally, Dr. Minix caused her to crack a smile. They “got along” just fine, however. He didn’t use forceps for delivery. His deliveries always looked good. If forceps were necessary by some standards, after Mag, he instead called Dr. Bill Cook for C-section. Complications from C-sections were rare in the hands of Dr. Bill Cook. He remembered no complications. Bill Cook was the most particular, painstaking, exacting, slow, excellent surgeon on earth. One Saturday morning, Mike assisted Bill during a four-hour radical neck. It was a successful procedure on an elderly gentleman. Three months later Bill sent him a $75 check for his assistance fee. Times were different then. Many doctors practiced, as Dr. Minix did, out of the love for people and dedication to medicine. Doctors and growing families had to eat, but fee for service, then, was meager compared to what it became.
A young lady tried to commit suicide by medication overdose, which was a frequent occurrence in impoverished Appalachian communities. Mike was on call and rushed to the ER that Saturday to attend to her and administered stabilizing care in the ER. She was admitted to the hospital, transported by gurney, then onto and off the dilapidated elevator accompanied by him, the nurse, and orderly. After her transfer to the hospital bed, she experienced respiratory arrest. Intubation was impossible because of laryngospasm. Her voice box was closed off. After Mike performed an emergency tracheostomy in the bed, he inserted the tub into the trachea, but the surgical kit was minus the adapter to connect the ambu bag to the endotracheal tube. An adapter was in the ER the nurse exclaimed. In the meantime, the archaic elevator ceased working following their transport of the patient and the stairway was blocked for repairs. Exit to the ER was totally blocked-off. The nurse opened the window near the bed, exited, and descended the fire escape, ran in the ER, gathered an adapter, returned up the fire escape ladder. Fortunately, the nurse was the smallest, most agile nurse on duty. Some of the other nurses wintered well and were probably not as nimble. He had been insufflating her lungs via mouth-to-tube through the tracheostomy tube. Then he attached the adapter and began ambuing her lungs. The hospital had one ventilator, luckily not in use, which was sought, and, after a short hunt, found and assembled. It was then properly attached. The patient gradually improved on ventilation, medication, and IV fluids and, in a few days walked out of the hospital. She was referred to a psychiatrist in Lexington for evaluation and therapy.
As luck would have it, a deep impassable snow fell when Dr. George had his first myocardial infarction. Mike was on call and admitted him. The hospital had no ICU or Coronary Care Unit, just outdated rooms with no monitoring systems. The hospital had one ancient EKG machine. He learned to care for MI’s in Savannah and was competent for the stabilization of Dr. George and wanted to transfer him to a cardiologist in Lexington, because of an intermittent arrhythmia. In 1963, the Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway toll road had been opened, thanks to Prestonsburg’s Governor Combs, a good friend of Dr. George. The Parkway was a Blessing to East Kentucky. But, the Parkway was closed due to the heavy snow that day. Mike stayed in the room with Dr. George that day and night with exceptions, when he treated a few other emergencies in the main floor ER. Not much traffic was moving and not many patients made it to town that day. The following day mountain parkway was reopened. Yet, the highways were still treacherous. In those days snow plows and highway salt treatments were sporadic and highway budgets were thin. Dr. George’s son, Raleigh, a plastic surgeon in Lexington, by absolute willpower, arrived and accompanied Dr. George in the ambulance to Lexington St. Joseph Hospital and the Lexington Clinic cardiologist. Dr. George recovered, recuperated, and worked several years afterwards.
This autobiography hasn’t enough pages for narration of all Dr. Minix general practice experiences, but he diagnosed and treated lacerations, fractured bones, dislocated joints, gunshot wounds, collapsed lungs, ectopic pregnancies, appendicitis, referred brain aneurysms, heat attacks, strokes, car and bus wrecks, domestic and other altercations, to name a few. All were part of the general practice landscape. Thank God for Memorial Hospital, Dr. Dan Cox, and the many doctors who instructed him, including those in Prestonsburg.
References:
1. [The Armed Forces Physicians' Appointment And Residency Consideration Program]
2. 2. [Strengthening Medicare's Role in Reducing Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, National Academy of Social Insurance. July 17, 2013]
U. S. ARMY RESERVES, 810th HOSPITAL UNIT
September 10, 1970, Dr. Minix joined the U.S. Army Reserves, 810th Convalescent Hospital, Lexington, KY. He was commissioned as a Captain with duties of General Medical Officer; later commissioned as ophthalmologist when his ophthalmology residency was completed in 1975. His tour of duty was six years. The unit met one weekend, Saturday and Sunday 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, every month and two weeks every summer at designated U.S. Army posts.
Intensive didactic and clinical military medicine training was offered during summer camp when our 810th unit worked at:
● Brooke Army Medical Center and Burn Center, San Antonio, Texas,
● Hospitals in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
● Fort Knox, Kentucky, twice
● 21st Combat Support Hospital 1st Medical Brigade, Darnall Hospital, Fort Hood, Killeen, Texas. Fort Hood is the largest military installation in the world by area, 215,000 acres and the most populous military installation in the world.
Midway his six-year term of service, the 810th was transformed from a convalescent hospital to a field unit. More hospital professionals were recruited. The unit expanded with every type of hospital service: dentists, doctors in all specialties, hospital administrators, nurses, laboratory technicians, x-ray technicians, orderlies, cooks, transportation specialists, and so on. Rumor was the 810th was gearing-up for deployment, because of the increase in health care personnel. The unit was never deployed to active duty. The Vietnam War ended in 1975. The unit was later disbanded.
Dr. Minix performed induction physical examinations during weekend service, but performed general medical and ophthalmological examinations, eye surgery, and hospital duties during summer camp.
Recruits were brought to the reserve center in busloads. He positioned himself in a room in a chair, the recruits lined-up outside in the hallway, were ushered in and, seemingly, he performed vital signs, rectal exams, hernia checks, and the remainder induction examination on every recruit in Kentucky, during his six-year service. He was extremely busy, to say the least.
Mike enjoyed the military education provided by the U.S. Army Reserve. He was provided educational manuals and literature for studies concerning battlefield medicine, surgery, blood volume replacement after injury, and current burn treatments. The educational experiences in the military clinics and on the military hospital wards were vast and preparative for possible combat field hospital deployment.
Army Reserve service enabled Dr. Micheal B. Minix, SR., M.D. entrance into Ophthalmology Residency, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, because his military obligation was fulfilled. Ophthalmology residencies refused to admit to their programs residents who had not fulfilled or were in the process of fulfilling their military obligation. Draft of residents out of the residency programs was frowned-on because it left vacancies in the teaching programs. That potential was a deal-breaker for an applicant.
Dr. Minix was in a quandary. Dr. George, however, encouraged his specialization in ophthalmology, because Dr. George foresaw a Highlands Regional Hospital and Archer Clinic, named for him, with doctors trained in every specialty. He knew he would return in some capacity somewhere in Eastern Kentucky and serve his rural community, a dedication and principle of his.
Mike departed Prestonsburg, KY general practice, but continued working the emergency department in Prestonsburg at the new Highlands Regional Hospital on alternating weekends. He continued his army reserve meetings and summer camps while doing his resident duties. He was a busy man, but young enough to keep up the pace and he enjoyed staying busy and loved practicing medicine in any and every capacity.
OPHTHALMOLOGY RESIDENCY, UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
Dr. Jonathan Wirtschafter became the first chief of the Department of Ophthalmology, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky. His credentials were impeccable. His training began with his graduation from Reed College, Portland, Ore, in 1956. He then attended Harvard Medical School, graduating in 1960. Following a master’s degree in physiology from Linfield College in 1963, he completed residencies in neurology at Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland in 1963, followed by an ophthalmology residency in completed in 1966 at the Wilmer Eye Institute, an internationally-renowned eye institution for the diagnosis and management of complex medical and surgical eye disease at Johns Hopkins. Those trainings were followed by a fellowship at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in neuro-ophthalmology. He was board certified in both ophthalmology and neurology.
Following his extensive training, Dr. Wirtschafter was recruited to start a residency training program in ophthalmology. In the beginning, he was the director of ophthalmology, which was a division of the Department of Surgery and under the direction of Chairman Dr. Ben Eiseman. Mike was in UK Medical School when Jonathan arrived at UK. Jonathan took “The Missile” under his wing.
During Dr. Jonathan Wirtschafter early organization of the Division of Ophthalmology, during Mike’s ophthalmology elective in medical school, he trailed the professor around the UK Med Center on consultations, into surgery, and routine clinic examinations. Unfortunately, space for an ophthalmology division was limited, but, amusingly, the professor would sniff (sic) around every floor in the med school and hospital and ferret-out a room here and a broom closet there, until he had enough secure space to place the sophisticated equipment that he purchased from his grant monies. His education dictated grant money. Not many were trained as Jonathan was trained.
Wirtschafter acquired an exotic pupillography machine for measuring the size and reactions of the eye pupils with documented still photography and videography and housed it in a broom closet he scavenged. As was often the case, the professor used Mike as his first examined guinea pig for the equipment. His plan wasn’t immediately apparent. The professor acquired enough space that he had it pieced together in an accumulated square foot layout, and submitted the layout to his administrators including the equipment required for the formation of a new, legitimate Ophthalmology Department. Wirtschafter was so well respected, he received permission from the board and the Department of Ophthalmology, UK College of Medicine was birthed. Dr. Jonathan Wirtschafter, subsequently, began the resident training program and was the first chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Chandler Medical Center in Lexington, KY. Felix Bongiorno, MD, was the first resident.
Dr. Wirtschafer was an extremely dedicated, energetic, caring, empathetic, respected physician with an unyielding passion for ophthalmology. When he first arrived on the scene at UK, Mike immediately took an ophthalmology elective under his instruction during his junior year of med school in 1967. During the elective, he learned how to use complex ophthalmology equipment, about eye disease, and eye treatments. The professor gained respect for his enthusiasm and work. Jonathan recruited Dr. John Garden, who became a geographic part-time instructor and simultaneously private practiced with Dr. Claude Trapp in Lexington. John was very popular among the residents and students. Had there been funding, he would have been a full-time “white coat” because he loved teaching and had a remarkable capacity for unusual eye disorders and minutia. John and Mike clicked academically because John enjoyed teaching and Mike appreciated learning.
Mike sought to model himself after Dr. Wirtschafter. He soon became his mentor of human mentors. Of course, Jonathan was a member of the Mensa IQ society, the oldest high IQ society in the world, open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardized, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence tests. Dr. Minix was impressed with intelligence and enjoyed learning from the maestros. Mike, of course, was “The Missile”, not a rocket or MIT Rocket Scientist. However, he was intelligent enough to become a doctor, extremely passionate for ophthalmology, and very industrious, but not a Mensa. 1.
Wirtschafter participated in the early trials of botulinum toxin injections (Botox), developed the use of doxorubicin hydrochloride, a chemomyectomy agent, pterygia and neovascularization, the cause of papilledema and muscle satellite cells. Wirtschafter was a scientist, a great clinician, teacher, and researcher and an extraordinary human being, who loved the world and everything in it. He had a scientific processing mind. One of Mike’s greatest honors was to be able to study under Jonathan and not only learn ophthalmology, but Jonathan’s philosophies on life.
The “Missile’s” residency class was the third ophthalmology group and totaled three residents. UK ophthalmology residency involved significant hands-on difficult work and study. Eye trauma surgery was a huge portion of resident training. Many patients were referred to UK for routine eye examinations, injuries, diseases, and primary, secondary, and tertiary surgeries.
He was taught the art of refraction for eyeglasses and contact lens prescriptions. That was not a stimulating area of ophthalmology for him, but a necessary discipline. Prescribing eyeglasses was not his idea of the practice of medicine. Use of the slit lamp, intraocular pressure measurement for glaucoma, and handling the direct and indirect ophthalmoscopes were more down his alley. Of course, ophthalmic trauma surgery, cataract, eye muscle, glaucoma, and other important surgeries were extremely interesting. Eye surgery was very intriguing, fascinating, and exciting. He had good, precise, meticulous hands and obvious surgical ability. Wirtschafter recognized his ability.
Consequently, Mike was often called on to assist the chief and often took over the surgical case with Wirtschafter’s supervision. Eventually, he was the first surgeon on eye cases. Other advanced residents had innate surgical skills and shared their knowledge with him. Acceptance to an ophthalmology residency was difficult. Only a small percentage of doctors who applied were accepted. Ophthalmology residents were the cream of the crop. Many pursued an eye residency, but few slots were available and few were accepted. Mike was blessed and thankful.
During the second residency year, UK’s Drs. Minix and Al Jolsen, who was also a board-certified internist, attended the Stanford University Basic Science Course in Palo Alto, California. The course was the best in the nation. The didactic curriculum was complete with educational topics for every aspect of ophthalmology. Renowned professors from around the U.S. lectured. Dr. Jerome W. Bettman founded the Stanford Basic Science Course in 1970 and taught. The course included Dr. Phillips Thygeson, who lived to be 99 and “who served as director of UCSF's Francis I. Proctor Foundation for Research in Ophthalmology from 1957 to 1970. He worked as a consultant to the World Health Organization and established the Alta California Eye Research Foundation in 1968 and began working with Dr. Francis I. Proctor, and the two discovered that the cause of trachoma was a filterable microbe, now known as chlamydia. In 1939, the pair discovered that sulfonamides cured trachoma.” Trachoma was the leading cause of blindness in the world at that time and a vital discovery. 2
The teaching staff included many other notable ophthalmologists. Dr. Minix was over-awed by his leaning opportunity at Stanford. He befriended Gary, his surname forgotten, a resident from Texas and former football athlete. They studied together and “aced” nearly every exam. Mike didn’t see much of his residency colleague, Al Jolsen, who doodled around on his own. Many attended the course from across the nation and many foreign countries.
Mike and his buddy excelled in ophthalmic pathology, a specialty for post mortem examinations of eyes, similar to the entire body autopsy. Dr. William Richard Green was a world-renowned ocular pathologist-ophthalmologist and influential teacher and head of the eye pathology laboratory of the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where many enucleated (removed) eyes were referred for autopsy. Green instructed the Stanford eye pathology course. He and Gary did very well in his pathology course and Green, to their surprise, invited both of them to apply for his ophthalmology pathology residency program. Green was, to Mike’s amazement, a graduate from Paducah Tilghman High School in KY 1952, and earned a bachelor's degree from Centre College in Danville, Ky. 1955. However, neither accepted his offer. Gary had plans for a retina fellowship and Mike planned for a general ophthalmology practice in Eastern Kentucky. It was truly a small, wonderful world.
Dr. Micheal Minix was a very sociable, outgoing, and friendly person. He met many people in Palo Alto, as usual. He chatted with many doctors during breaks in the Stanford Course. However, an unexpected meeting happened on Mike’s way to completion of the Stanford basic science course. He met a doctor who was also a Hell’s Angel. Yes, he said he was a legitimate Hell’s Angel. He told Mike his shocking requirements for admission into the club. The requirements were “eye-openers” (sic). The young ophthalmologist said that he trained in cornea transplantation at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York under Ramon Castroviejo, M.D, who had performed the first-ever cornea transplant in 1936. One weekend evening he took Mike and another person to a Hell’s Angel dance club in a warehouse on the wharf in San Francisco. Mike wasn’t forewarned, but all the attendees were Hell’s Angels. That was exactly where he did not need to be. There were a few tense moments when his friend left Mike sitting at the table. He became suddenly surrounded by members with nasty on their minds. Mike’s friend saw the situation and returned to the table in time to diffuse the problem. “The Missile” decided soon after that he should, with proper guidance, propel out of that space.
Wirtschafter gave “The Missile” an assignment during his rotation with the professor. Mike researched all of the literature concerning pterygia and neovascularization of the eye, areas of Wirtschafter’s concentrated research. He learned in the process that neovascularization, a pathological reaction in the body resulting in eye, kidney, other secondary organ dysfunction, bleeding and neovascularization, also supplemented tumor growth. Neovascularization inhibition factor was hypothesized as the answer to many neovascular conditions and the answer to the starvation of cancerous tumors, that became the focus of many research projects.
Jonathan, during academic years 1973–1974, took a sabbatical leave with his wife and five children and traveled throughout Europe in a Volkswagen bus. At the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, he worked at a Jerusalem hospital providing care to all wounded, regardless of nationality.
Dr. Micheal B. Minix, Sr., M.D., Ophthalmology Chief Resident, standing furthest left. Seated in front of residents are the Ophthalmology faculty, L to R - George Chin, cornea and anterior segment, Richard Kielar, Glaucoma and Ocular Pathology, Jonathan Wirtschafter, neuro-ophthalmology, and Department Head, Wilbur Blount, Retina.
Dr. “Mike the Missile” Minix was named Ophthalmology Chief Resident his final residency year, which was accompanied by many responsibilities, including hospital rooms for inpatients, organizing and scheduling patients for the UK ophthalmic surgery schedule, and other clinic duties.
Beds were a premium in the UK hospital. Thus, he spent many hours communicating and visiting the hospital admissions office. The President of Morehead State University had been kicked in the face and eye by his trusty horse and required surgical repairs. The ER doctor at St. Clair Hospital, Morehead, called Mike. There were no empty beds in the UK hospital. The hospital was running over with patients. He was desperate to find a room for the President. Thankfully, his friends in admissions were able to switch and squeeze other patients, who were not as critical, around among rooms. Their kind attention to this problem was not required. A very quiet, private room became available. The President’s wife was very appreciative. His injury was very serious and he could have sustained loss of his vision, but he was blessed. The surgery was successful and he fully recovered. Politics and socialization during medical school, internship, and residency were very important. Servicing the outside referral doctors and hospitals was important to the ophthalmology program. Mike was an expert in PR, had many contacts, was well known to community docs because of sports and general practice. Thus he helped the program grow. Hospital bed appropriations, admissions, and scheduling surgery in the overcrowded UK hospital and OR often took some doing. Dr. Minix wasn’t a rocket or an MIT Rocket Scientist, but he was “The Missile” and a skilled “schmoozer”.
Dr. Minix and Dr. Wirtschafter performed right intracapsular cataract surgery on a famous college basketball coach. He complained that he could no longer see the far end of the floor and scoreboards. Curiously, he also complained that he could no longer see bobby pins lying on the sidewalk outside the hotel that he sought for good luck prior to away games.
In those days, cataract patients were hospitalized for five days and lens implants had not been approved by the FDA and were not available. Cataract surgery was very uncomfortable post-operatively in those days because black silk sutures, much larger in size then and painful, were the only FDA eye approved sutures stout enough for eye surgery. Hence, recovery was more painful and lasted longer. Improved sutures began gaining FDA approval after 1976.
Therefore, the heralded coach was aphakic. He had no lens in the right eye and was anisometropic. “Taking it to the goats,” his two eyes had unequal refractive or eye correction power. His right eye was extremely farsighted, requiring a high powered plus lens, which was normal following cataract surgery in those early archaic years. Since he did not have a cataract in the left eye, that did not require surgery, the left eye had near-normal lens power. That left him visually unbalanced. Restoration of his visual balance required the next best device.
Continuous extended wear contact lens had recently been FDA approved. Coach was treated with the new lens in the right eye to reduce his farsightedness. That balanced his vision, both eye images were equal in size and he required no eyeglasses. With the lens on his right eye, the powers of each eye were near equal, which was perfect for him, since he was so vain he wouldn’t wear eyeglasses anyway, even when they were necessary. A former player stated that during basketball practice before surgery, he and his teammates shot layups on the other end of the floor. Coach could not see that distance down the other end of the floor. After they completed the layup, they continued their run into the tunnel under the bleachers, where they took turns drinking water and resting. His cataract surgery with continuous wear contact lens halted that trick, he said.
That was just the beginning. Sometimes on the weekend, after an arduous “post-game analysis” with his assistants, he would lose his extended wear contact lens. Mike and the other residents were frequently meeting him at the UK ER and inserting a new extended wear lens in his right eye. Every resident knew in which clinic cabinet to find the Coach’s special lens. It was just part of the drill. He was very important and our “eye team” was dedicated to keeping him seeing.
Dr. Minix trained in real-time ultrasonography ophthalmology under Richard Dallow M.D. at Mass Eye and Ear, Boston, Mass. Another Kentucky phenom, Dr. Richard Dallow was born in Kenton County, KY. He was a very patient, good-natured, and intelligent instructor. Contact ophthalmic ultrasound was a new diagnostic tool, but real time under a saline water bath was revolutionary. Few were adept at real time. With the patient supine, a water bath was created with a plastic eye drape sealed and watertight around the brow, nose, and cheek. After it was tented-up like an open trash bag with the uppermost edges supported on a metal ring and open, saline was poured into the bag, forming a bath on and above the closed anesthetized eye. The eye was then opened by the patient under the liquid saline solution. The ultrasound probe was supported two inches above the eye with the tip beneath the saline liquid surface, sounding like an egg beater and shooting ultrasound waves through the saline and down through the open eye. The system was similar to a submarine shooting high-frequency sonar at a target under ocean water.
Graphically, the reflected sound waves revealed the eye and its contents from the cornea in front to the retina and optic nerve in the back. Still pictures were taken and live videos were recorded. It was the same principle for visualizing submarines, torpedos, and ship bottoms beneath the ocean. It was a remarkable, revolutionary diagnostic ophthalmology tool. The eye, its contents including tumors, retinal detachments, cataracts, and many other pathologies could be visualized and recorded. It was an amazing diagnostic innovation. 3. 4. 5.
Dr. Minix was the first in Kentucky and one of the first in the nation to purchase a real-time ophthalmic ultrasonographic instrument and make it available for his patients in Eastern Kentucky and rural Appalachia. He was determined to practice ophthalmology in the manner he was trained, state of the art, no matter the rural impoverished location and cost. Mr. Bill Lindgren founder of Xenotec and Linscan produced and marketed the first real-time A and B Mode ultrasound, sold and installed it for Dr. Minix in 1978. Mike utilized this diagnostic tool frequently. Because there was so much pathology in East KY, the ultrasound enabled him to diagnose many unusual eye conditions, locally, without distant referral.
A fine gentleman referred from Ashland, KY became a patient of attending, Dr. Richard Kielar, M.D., in the UK Eye clinic. Mike was on Kielar’s ophthalmic service at the time, working-up and treating patients. Dr. Kielar was a UK ophthalmology faculty member, who specialized in ophthalmic pathology. Dick was an excellent instructor and an extremely talented eye pathologist. In other words, he autopsied eyes like Dr. Richard Green did at Johns Hopkins.
The elderly gentleman from Ashland, KY had a malignant melanoma beneath his retina in the choroidal layer in the back of the eye. Dr. Minix and Dr. Kielar removed his eye and Kielar did the post-mortem examination, which revealed the pathology required for the melanoma diagnosis.
Dr. Minix and Dr. Kielar took excellent care of the patient. Both were very kind and compassionate to the patient. The patient’s friend, Doc Lenard Layne, retired pharmacist and owner of Layne’s pharmacy, corner of Blackburn and 13thStreet, was particularly struck by Mike’s superb bedside manner and care. He did the daily patient care that residents usually accomplished and Layne learned he was soon to complete his residency. Ashland was underserved, as was the entire Eastern Kentucky area, for ophthalmology doctors in particular.
Dr. Minix continued to work the Highlands Regional Medical Center Emergency Department on alternating weekends during his residency. He drove 120 miles from Lexington to Prestonsburg after finishing Friday’s resident duties and time with his family. He usually arrived Friday evening at about 7:00 to 8:00 PM. Dr. Minix worked Friday night, Saturday, until Sunday evening and then traveled back to Lexington. His residency duties began at 7:30 AM Monday. Mike didn’t fear hard work. That and moonlighting were commonplace among doctors in training.
One horrible Friday evening, a Prestonsburg physician called Mike aside from his ER duties. He revealed to Mike that a man said he “was going to kill all the doctors in Prestonsburg.” The assailant was not known but thought to be deranged. When Mike inquired about the reason, the physician told him Dr. George, the doctor that he had admired and dearly loved, had been shot and killed the Thursday night before. The physician thought he’d better warn him to be on the alert. Mike was shaken and saddened by the bad news.
“Dr. George P. Archer was found dead of a single gunshot wound through the heart Thursday, July 12, 1973. The Prestonsburg physician was slain near his car in the parking area of the new Archer Clinic near the city limits
Files coming soon.
His body was discovered about 9 p.m. by Judge Henry Stumbo, longtime friend and associate who was driving by the clinic and saw the doctor's car.”
“Dr. George P. Archer graduated from the University of Kentucky and received his medical training at the University of Louisville Medical School, graduating in 1941. He began his practice in Paintsville but later moved to Prestonsburg, heading-up the Prestonsburg General Hospital. Dr. George headed a project to establish a new regional hospital. That facility, a $6 million medical center, became Highlands Regional Hospital, between Paintsville and Prestonsburg, with Dr. Archer at the helm.”
“The new doctor's clinic, where he met his death, was a result of Dr. George’s latest efforts to develop better medical facilities for the area. Completing his third full term as Prestonsburg's mayor, he was scheduled to enter a fourth term without opposition.”
“Dr. Archer was considered one of Eastern Kentucky's most active civic leaders. He had served as chairman of the Big Sandy Area Development District's board of directors since officially formed. On the Big Sandy Area Council, Dr. Archer was credited with being a prime force uniting neighboring counties and communities in Eastern Kentucky. A surgeon, he served as president of the Kentucky Medical Association, had been a member of the Kentucky Board of Education and the Citizens Commission on Aging, and as a member of health planning bodies for the area and state.”
The sorrowful, heart-rending news of Dr. George Archer’s death shocked and affected Dr. Minix terribly. Mike was duty-bound to work the ER at Highlands. He called his father and asked him to bring him a pistol to carry in his pocket while he worked the shift. Instead, his father decided that he would sit with his hand on the loaded 38 caliber pistol in a brown paper bag in his lap in the ER waiting room, not to create any drama and disturb patient care. Morris sat there dutifully the entire shift, for several hours. The Minix custom didn’t allow for threatening one of Morris Minix’s children. Thankfully, there was no drama and no shooting in the ER. Dr. Minix ER shift ended that weekend without a disturbance and he returned to Lexington.
Mike was co-author of tworesearch publications following research during his clerkship and residency. Each, as usual, required a few years following review to reach publication:
Dislocation of Lens Diagnosis by Ultrasonography, Minix, M.B., Wirtschafter, J.D. and Cantor, H.E., Journal of the American Medical Association, J.A.M.A., 207:1354-1355, 1969.
Persistent Primitive Trigeminal Artery and Ipsilateral Acquired Blepharoptosis Phillip A. Tibbs, MD; John W. Walsh, MD; Michael B. Minix, MD, Archives of Neurology, Arch Neurol. 1981;38(5):323-324.
References:
1. [Mensa is 65 years a Society, on 1st October – how Brilliant is that?". Mensa International. 30 August 2014]
2. [Ryan Kim, S. F. Chronicle, August 5, 2002]
3. [Dallow RL (ed): Ophthalmic ultrasonography: Comparative techniques. Int Ophthalmol Clin 19:4, 1979]
4. [ Introduction to Ophthalmic Ultrasonography" Diseases of the Orbit, edited by Ira S. Jones, M.D. and Frederick A. Jakobiec, M.D., Harper and Row, Inc., New York, NY, 1979, Chapter 4, pp. 63-72. D. Jackson Coleman, M.D. and Richard L. Dallow, M.D.]
5. [Ultrasonic Evaluation of Intraocular Tumors" Ocular and Adnexal Tumors, edited by F.A. Jakobiec, M.D., Aesculapius Publishing Company, Birmingham, AL, 1978, pp. 281-310. Stanley Chang, M.D.; Richard L. Dallow, M.D.; and D. Jackson Coleman, M.D.]
OPHTHALMOLOGY PRACTICE
When Dr. Minix completed his residency Prestonsburg was ruled-out as a practice site because of Dr. George’s murder and other events that impeded the progress, office purchase and management of the Archer Clinic, that Dr. George had envisioned. He, like others, sought offices in Archer Clinic. However, because of many happenings, he considered other locations. He was recruited seriously and impressively by Doc Layne and the Ashland patient, cured of melanoma. From Ashland, he was able to serve the entire East KY area. Paintsville and Prestonsburg were approximately 1 hour and 1-1/2 hours, respectively, south of Ashland down Highway 23.
He had also been seriously recruited with other UK graduate residents to begin a multispecialty clinic in 1974 near the Manatee Memorial Hospital, an acute care facility near Bradenton, FL begun in 1954, but he was dedicated to return to the Eastern Kentucky area to practice. His ophthalmology services were desperately needed there.
King’s Daughters Hospital and Dr. Gordon Gussler and Pikeville Methodist and Dr. Charlie Wilson were performing eye surgery, but neither used a microscope for surgery. King’s Daughters had no surgical microscope. Dr. Minix took a few more wide-ranging procedures to the area, such as retinal detachment and laser surgery, among others, that Gussler and Wilson had no interest in performing. Both senior doctors were excellent surgeons and taught Mike many varied aspects about the practice of ophthalmology. They were both Dr. Minix’s great friends and encouraged his start-up practice. They needed help, particularly for the great numbers of emergencies, and appreciated his emergency coverage.
Additionally, Marcus Stephen Minix, Sr., his younger brother, became a trained optician while Mike finished his ophthalmology residency. Mark was the first Nationally Board Certified Optician in Kentucky. “Taking it to the Goats,” that meant he made glasses and fit contact lenses. At that time, Mark was the best optician in Kentucky and possibly is today.
Following attendance at the University of Kentucky, Mark enrolled in The Durham Technical Optician two-year program in Durham N.C. At that time it was the best program in the Southeast. Mark was taught how to fill eyeglass prescriptions and make lenses, cutting them to fit into an eyeglass frame. He learned to adjust finished glasses to fit the customer and surfacing which consists of blocking, fining, polishing, and inspecting both plastic and glass single-vision and multifocal lenses. He mastered bench work, which included edging, hand beveling, safety beveling, heat treating, chemical tempering, tinting, and mounting lenses and dispensing, which included measuring, adapting, and fitting eyeglasses and contact lenses to the patient. Mark was trained for teaching, manufacturing, and retail opticianry.
Upon completion of the five-semester sequence of courses Mark received the Associate in Applied Science degree in Opticianry. Mark was a schooled optician, not an apprentice optician; others were apprentice types. Mark knew the entire scope of opticianry. He was so skilled that he taught at Durham school after graduation, before he moved to Ashland.
Mark provided opticianry services in Ashland and other offices with Dr. Minix. Mike didn’t particularly care about the eyeglass prescription part and the “eye business” but it was a necessary pain in the neck. There were no free standing optical companies in East KY. Thankfully, Mark took modern opticianry to the area also, and Mark took excellent care of patients. Until Mark, there were no schooled opticians in the state of KY.
Dr. Minix and his family moved to Ashland, KY, July 1975. The community was very receptive. The city of Ashland had in the past attempted many recruiting efforts, entertaining prospective doctors prior to 1975, with no results. Out of the blue, six doctors began practice in Ashland near that time: Dr. Charles Watson, ENT, Dr. Bruce Stapelton, internal medicine, Dr. Oren Justice, general practice, Dr. Jerry Ford and Bob Tackett, Ob-Gyn, and Dr. Micheal B. Minix, Sr., ophthalmology.
Doc Layne remodeled an office beside Layne Pharmacy that Dr. Minix leased. Mike also leased a starter home from Doc Layne, who was a wealthy businessman. Doc Layne and his melanoma patient friend, who were very generous and considerate, hosted an enormous reception at the Bellefonte Country Club, Bellefonte, KY adjacent to Ashland. Most of the Ashland Oil Inc. executives lived near Bellefonte and Russell, KY. AOI Headquarters were located there. That was the time that AOI was in high gear in East KY. Most of the who’s who in the area, including the doctors, attended the reception. He and his family soon after became members of the club.
Dr. Minix purchased and had installed very expensive, modern ophthalmology equipment i.e. two Argon-Green Only-Yag laser combinations from Coherent Radiation in Palo Alto, California, for his offices in Ashland between 1974 and 1976, and eventually in Paintsville, an A and B-mode ophthalmic real time ultrasound, fluorescein angiography, visual field equipment, contrast sensitivity, ERG, surgical and other equipment. No other private practice in Kentucky at that time had such state-of-the-art equipment. He decorated his office at 13th and Blackburn with the expertise and pieces from Hubbuch & Company Lexington and Louisville, KY. Soon his family out-grew the starter home and he purchased a larger home and it, too, was decorated by Hubbuch & Company. Micheal B. Minix, Sr., M.D. ophthalmology practice was booked-out with 25 new patients per day, five days a week, for the first eight weeks, when he arrived in Ashland. His first schedule emphasized the need in the underserved area for his ophthalmology practice. His practice rapidly grew.
Ward Beecher Hale, son of Jailer Lawrence Hale, Prestonsburg, KY was the first trained by Dr. Minix and certified in ophthalmic assistance. He was very talented in refraction and ophthalmic testing. Dr. Minix trained several ophthalmic assistants, who studied the text books and passed the standardized certification examinations provided by the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Mike knew the training would be helpful for their complete understanding and work in his office and provide them future job opportunities. Dr. Minix had a teaching bone in his body to which he often referred. Several moved on later to excellent jobs assisting ophthalmologists.
King’s Daughters Medical Center (KDMC), Ashland and Our Lady of Bellefonte Hospital, in neighboring Russell, KY were excellent hospitals with superb OR, ER, and hospital staff. Both operating rooms were superior and ahead of their time and provided up-to-date equipment, that Dr. Minix and others required, including surgical ophthalmology microscopes and other up-to-date equipment.
An example of the excellent cooperation was the kind attention that the KDMC kitchen provided for an elderly woman who had malignant melanoma that necessitated urgent right eye enucleation (eye removal) by Dr. Minix. The diagnosis was confirmed with post-mortem eye exam by Dr. Kielar, UK eye pathology laboratory. The 80 year old woman failed to thrive post-operatively, even though her surgery was without complications and her laboratory analyses were within normal limits. Dr. Minix devoted considerable time trying to determine the problem. Her aged, loving sister spent an entire week before and following surgery in the hospital room, never leaving her sister’s side. Dr. Minix finally concluded that questioning the sister might be the appropriate detection method. When in doubt ask further patient history, he had been taught. Dr. Minix learned that the patient literally survived on homemade cornbread and milk. He went to the kitchen, talked to the cooks and requested cornbread for every meal. Miraculously, in just a few days the patient was ready for discharge and survived many years following her surgery.
Mike learned at some point in his training that “a physician should be caring, compassionate, question and listen and care more for the person who suffers an illness, than care more for the disease that is tormenting the patient." 1.
An elderly, amusing gentleman was examined by Dr. Minix, who had a fabulous answer while he was taking his medical history. He asked, “Jimmy, are your eyes bothering you today?” Jimmy replied, “Yes, Doc, I have cataracts.” Dr. Minix first assessed his ability to see, otherwise known as visual acuity. Dr. Minix said, “How far can you see, Jimmy?” He replied, “I can see the moon, Doc. How far is that?” Mike nearly fell off his examination stool with laughter. Jimmy’s cataracts were not severe enough for eye surgery at that time and never became severe enough during Dr. Minix ophthalmology practice, but he was on guard for Jimmy’s humor and jokes every time he was examined in follow-up. Jimmy and several other patients provided him with countless humorous encounters throughout the years. Mike was very surgically conservative and only performed surgery when absolutely necessary.
Demographically, the population that Dr. Minix served was from Lexington, KY in the west, Portsmouth, OH in the north, Ironton OH and Charleston, WVA in the east and Williamson, WVA and Kingsport TN in the south. Patients, referred from family, came from many other states and some from foreign countries. Patients realized that he was very conservative, only operated on people who were injured, diseased, could not see, or whose vision was jeopardized and that his practice was well equipped. Even though he was associated with Minix Optical, he did not prescribe eye glasses unless necessary. He greatly respected his patients. They trusted him to do what was right and best for their care.
Dr. Minix appreciated Doc Layne’s kindness, but after his first four years of practice, he was bursting out the Layne office building and parking lot seams. The parking lot was so small that patients were wrecking in and around the office. Mike was concerned for their safety. He purchased the 2nd Mayo Mansion, 1516 Bath Avenue, which had become an unoccupied, vacant eyesore. With one exception, Mrs. Stapelton resided on the third floor. She was the widow of Bruce Stapelton. He purchased the Mansion in 1978 from the Bruce Stapelton Estate. He granted her third-floor residence until her death.
Following the death of her husband, John C. C. Mayo, Alice Jane (Alka) Mayo married Dr. Samuel P. Fetter of Portsmouth, Ohio. Alka wanted to buy Ashland Central Park and build another mansion. However, during the World War I rationing period, construction of new homes was prohibited in Ashland. Instead, the Fetters purchased the Victorian Gartrell-Hager House in Ashland, Kentucky, 1516 Bath Avenue, which was constructed in 1864. Dr. Fetter died following an extended illness. Alka received permission to remodel the Gartrell-Hager home.
The “remodeling” was in reality new construction, which required two years. The G-H home was not demolished, but the 2nd Mayo Mansion was built around the home. The G-H home remained within the mansion walls until this day. Using the wealth amassed from the Mayo Companies, Alka “remodeled” the G-H home and transformed it into a 17,000 sq ft Italian villa a'la French Beaux Arts Mansion. Some of the materials, including the tile and marble were taken from the 1st Mayo Mansion in Paintsville, Kentucky. A large pool house attached to the original mansion, but was demolished in the 1950s because of maintenance concerns.
A three-story marble staircase with curved mahogany rail that connected the main, second, and third floors, was the largest stairwell in Kentucky following construction. Mike hired a master mahogany carpenter to refinish and refurbish the rail. Mahogany reigned in the old mansion. The flooring was a mixture of Italian mosaic tile, terracotta, and hardwood. The third floor housed a ballroom covered with Tiffany stained glass, an entertainment kitchen, and servant quarters. The second floor included one small apartment with sitting area, bedroom, and kitchen and a second larger living quarters with kitchen, den, living room, two bedrooms, tiled steam bath and sauna, and outside concrete deck.
The main floor had multiple rooms and two guest half-bath rooms separated by a Tiffany stained glass rendering of the Breaks of the Big Sandy. The entrance doors were two mahogany 20 feet tall doors. The hallway was covered by Tiffany stained glass over Italian mosaic tile. It contained decorative crown molding. A hallway connected the front and back portions of the building. An elevator in the rear hallway conveyed people and deliveries to the basement, first, second, and third floors. It was serviced regularly and even though it was ancient, it worked extremely well. The original heat was very clean steam heat generated by a huge steam heat pump in the basement and radiators throughout the mansion. The parking lot was extensive. Additional street parking provided ample safe patient parking and privacy for Dr Minix’s patients. Minix Optical occupied the rear section of the main floor.
In the course of remodeling, Dr. Minix insisted that the walls of the Gartrell-Hager House be visualized by curious visitors and tourists. It was a historical structure underneath a historic mansion of interest too. A hole in the wall of the main floor office was preserved and covered by a surround sound speaker, that could easily be removed, so the G-H House could be visualized by the curious. The Mayo Mansion was within the Bath Avenue Historic District of Ashland, KY, which was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. When Ashland was thriving, Bath Avenue mansion ownership and living were stylish and snobbish. Mike, however, was not a snob. He primarily needed more room to work. Ashland is not the same today.
Files coming soon.
Copies of Dr. Minix’s signatures were ordered by the Judge from files stored in the businessman’s records for comparison. They were compared with the photocopied signatures on the phony photocopied Letter of Intent. The judge ordered his business records to be opened, contrary to procedure, for copies of Dr. Minix usual and customary signatures to be compared by the writing expert, who the Judge called to examine and testify about the photocopied letter’s signature authenticity. Naturally the signature photocopies matched the other signature photocopies, which the expert affirmed. That was a no brainer. Photostatic copies are replicas of photostatic copies! No wet ink original signature was on any letter exhibit at trial. Attorneys objected to opening his files for evidence that was not introduced as exhibits by a witnesses as part of the case. Those objections were to no avail. However, the signature expert qualified her testimony stating the signatures were not original, but they were photocopies. That was the important testimonial fact.
Anyone who has conveyed property knows that parties who engaged in property conveyance must have signed and had witnessed and notarized the transfer documents. Rules of Evidence stated to prove the content of a writing, recording, or photograph, the original writing, recording, or photograph is required. Every state adopted a version to the Rule of Evidence. 22. Dr. Minix testified he did not sign the letter, author the letter, or have the original, because there was no original. His secretary said she did not type the letter, witness, or sign the letter, as alleged by the fired businessman testimony. No one maintained an original existed. Thus a second justification that a photocopied signature was not relevant. The letter of intent, at the center of the kangaroo trial, was for the acquisition of a mere $5,000 roofing grant for the Mayo Mansion from the Kentucky Heritage Council. Mike had donated over $200,000 in more than six years.
Meanwhile the following conditions and rumors prevailed in the mill: the IMS had turned down KHMS Inc. grant monies. The community had not supported the museum with donations. Mike would surely not continue to donate after he had been sued. So the only explanation that made sense followed: if the court granted the KHMS Inc. title to the Mayo Mansion, a building they could not maintain and administer according to the IMS, the conspiracy rumor was correct, observers close to the discussions stated. The KHMS Inc. was rumored to have cut a deal underneath the table to sell the Mayo Mansion, once conveyed to KHMS Inc. by the court, to Dr. Paul Evans businessman associate, who owned three-fourths of that city block where the Mansion was located, since he already owned two-fourths of that block and property on the other end of Bath Avenue. The observers’ rumor continued, thereafter, the KHMS Inc. would purchase a smaller mansion a few houses down on Bath Avenue from the board president, who owned it, who wanted to sell, and continue more economical and quasi museum operations there. The businessman had expressed to some his desire to own the mansion and advance his Bath Avenue monopoly. He was opposed to historic properties, which prohibited community progress in his opinion and had constructed modern buildings on 1200 block of Bath Avenue terminating the historic district on that end of the street in years past. See page 194. The businessman was just doing business that businessmen do. His intentions did not appear to be illegal. The businessman was the former circuit judge of the trial court and was influential in his replacement’s election, also rumored. The rumors appeared to clarify the hard-hearted deception by the board since they and the Heritage Council had dissociated their potential funding relationship. Mike had heard many rumors about the Mayo Mansion and its board he could not fathom. But he was reminded that Albert Einstein said, “Reality is merely an illusion, unless it’s a very persistent one. Then it's very real.”
The trial lasted four weeks and the phony letter of intent remained central to the testimony. Dr. Minix ophthalmology practice was disrupted for eight weeks with preparation and the actual trial. The frivolous trial was a fiasco. The exact testimony would require another book for completeness. It was headline high profile daily news. John Leathers, Esquire, former UK law professor, then in private practice, represented Mike’s first ex-wife, who claimed total ownership following his legal sale of the Mayo Mansion to her. The Minix’s were married when the Mayo Mansion was purchased in 1978 and for the following two years of the ten-year mortgage. Leathers anticipated a verdict for the KHMS Inc. based on his experience with rural Kentucky courts. He asked very few questions as he silently sat in court and prepared his appeal. He knew an appeal was forthcoming. The testimony varied from hilarious to impolite and every possible in-between.
During cross-examination of his first ex-wife, she was asked to read a document. From the witness box, she replied that the print was too small. From his defendant table, Dr. Minix loudly asked if she wanted to borrow his reading glasses, as he held them high in the air. Needless to say, the audience, jury, and most everyone in the room, and probably the judge, too, who remained snugly hidden behind the bench the entire trial, many of the Dr.’s patients and others, who knew he was associated with Minix Optical, laughed rowdily.
The trial was such a high profile frivolous lawsuit that the Atlanta Constitution called Dr. Minix for interviews mainly for the amusement it seemed to garner. He refused the interviews. Leather’s prediction was correct. The case would require an appeal of the Kangaroo Court’s verdict. On May 10, 1990 the ADI reported that the trial commenced for title to the property and after four weeks of testimony, the “Jury Awards Manor Title To Museum.” 10. Mike was flabbergasted.
Calmly and confidently, Leathers submitted his appeal. Unlike the Boyd Circuit Court, the appeals court applied the facts and law of the case and reversed the 1990 Boyd County Kentucky verdict. After one of the appeals court judges scolded the KHMS Inc. attorney for the frivolousness of the case, the judges proclaimed that the procedures, precedents, and violations of due process and failure to uphold Kentucky property law were extremely egregious. The appeals judges approved the sale of the Mayo Mansion from Dr. Minx to his first ex-wife and awarded her title to The Mayo Mansion and awarded her back rent that the KHMS Inc. had ignored and failed to negotiate.
The appeals court judges agreed that The Letter of Intent was not valid and the appeals judges declared that it was “set aside, null and void and held for naught.” They further decided that the August 8, 1988 deed and mortgage to Mrs. Minix became valid and binding instruments to be recorded in the Boyd County record books.” The appeals court held “The Letter of Intent was not a deed and the January 20, 1987 note clearly ran afoul of KRS 382.010.” The appeals court went on to say, “a written promise, authentic or invalid, is clearly not a deed or will. The only 2 methods that property can be transferred are by deed or will.” [private attorney client communication]
The most important statement about the law of the case for citizens to remember was that property conveyance was only by deed or will. A judge and a jury of grownups should have known, been instructed, and followed the facts of the case and the rule of law in good conscious. Both the facts of the case and the law of the case were ignored. The KHMS Inc. Boyd County Circuit Court conveyance for title was a sham. It was a shameful waste of time and taxpayers' money. Dr. Minix had donated enough money, sufficient to pay the KHMS Inc. rent and overhead for more than six years, to facilitate the museum’s beginning. Their gratitude was expressed with a frivolous lawsuit, which in addition to the citizens, cost him significant time and money. KHMS Inc. confirmed that “no good deed ever goes unpunished.”
The museum found another site, the Paramount Arts Center, but neither the Mayo Mansion or the unsuccessful, irresponsible legal action was mentioned in their printed history. Most of the original board resigned. They were probably ashamed, as they should have been. The benefit of Mike’s monetary gifts to the museum didn’t survive the attempted legal enforcement of a deceptive Mayo Mansion conveyance by the KHMS Inc. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. The events were analogous to the scripture, John 10:32: “Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?” He, of course wasn’t anywhere near the magnitude of Jesus in the course of his journey, not even close, but he reiterated, “No good deed ever goes unpunished.” PHS football Coach Walter Brugh taught “Mike The Missile” life lessons i.e. to be humble in victory and gracious in defeat. Coach said, “It’s not how you fall down, but how you dust-off your pants and how and when you get back up that counts.” “The Missile” followed Coach Brugh’s sagacious instructions throughout his journey and proceeded on his journey living and loving life, focused on his faith, family, patients, and targets; not his or others’ failures. PEI was a courageous experiment. McPeak had proved in Glasgow, KY that an ophthalmology-only surgery center offered effectiveness, efficiency, and value to both eye surgeons and patients. Patient and third-party monies saved were astronomical. Dr. “Mike The Missile” Minix was locked-on his number one target.
He purchased Dr. Glenn Richard Powell’s Clinic on Euclid Avenue, Paintsville. Glenn Richard had retired. Ironically, he had been the GP for whom Dr. Minix had sought employment. Minix constructed a surgery center adjacent to the rear of the clinic and purchased the pharmacy building adjoining to the side of the clinic. Brown Construction, Paintsville, KY constructed an impressive surgery center that housed two surgery rooms: one for cataract, implant, and all other invasive eye surgeries and one for non-invasive laser surgery. The center also included a sterilization room with the most up to date sterilizer, where the best eye instruments available were store and sterilized. Across the OR hallway was a two-bed recovery room and patient receiving and instruction area. Wall-mounted oxygen, suction, and resuscitation equipment were installed. All construction, including seamless tile floors were in accordance with Medicare and Joint Commission Accreditation and Certification Free Standing Ambulatory standards, which were inspected and approved prior to undertaking the venture.
Dr. Micheal B. Minix, Sr., M.D., F.I.C.S. performing PEI laser surgery
A wheelchair and gurney ramp was constructed to the rear office hallway. Many surgeries were performed. They included cataract, implant, trabeculectomy and drainage pumps and tubes (for glaucoma), cancer excisions and biopsies, blepharoplasties and other eyelid plastic surgeries, tear duct surgeries, and so forth in room one and argon lasers for diabetic retinopathy, argon laser peripheral iridotomies for glaucoma, and YAG laser for opacified posterior lens capsules, Green only for macular conditions, and so forth in room two.
This photo is the first YAG Laser probably performed in the United States, maybe the world, July 1984, on a totally blind, in both eyes, six month-old infant, who could not even fix-on or follow light pre-operatively due to congenital membranous cataracts comprised of the remaining anterior and posterior lens capsules, but nucleus and cortex absence from bodily reabsorption before birth. He was able to fix-on and follow light and see his mother for the first time after YAG Laser Surgery, YAG purchased by and performed by Dr. Minix in an Eastern Kentucky hospital. At last report the child was able to see to read and had good distance vision when ten years old. He is now about 32 years old. He also had retinal disease from the eye disorder that also reduced his vision somewhat, but overall he was able to see approximately 20/80 for distance and read for near, marked improvements from total blindness.
The anesthesiologist gave him rectal ether anesthesia and held him in his lap up to the YAG delivery system and maintained his airway so the surgery could be performed. Both the YAG surgery and anesthesia to facilitate the procedure were miraculous.
The National Eye Institute funded Diabetic Retinopathy Study (DRS) began in 1971 and laser photocoagulation for diabetic retinopathy began to save patients’ eyesight. Dr. Minix purchased and installed his Argon laser for his Ashland office between 1974 and 1976. 23.
Yttrium Aluminum Garnet (YAG) posterior capsulotomies for after cataract capsule opacification (cloudiness of the capsule) were developed in the early 1980s by Drs. Aron-Rosa and Fankhauser. In November 1980, Fankhauser did his first adult YAG capsulotomy. Dr. Minix purchased and installed in his Eastern Kentucky office his second laser with Argon, Green-only and YAG frequencies, soon after YAG development. 24. Dr. Minix found no reported infant bilateral membranous cataract with cloudy anterior and posterior lens capsule with the lens nucleus and cortex reabsorbed, that had been reported, before the infant treatment by Dr. Minix described above.
Medicare and other insurances encouraged the development of free-standing ophthalmology-only outpatient surgery centers because these facilities saved millions of surgical dollars. Customarily, two bills were submitted for all eye surgery performed in operating rooms i.e. the surgeon fee and the facility fee.
The government and insurances incentivized surgeons with an agreement to pay 100% of the approved surgery fee, when performed in outpatient free-standing surgery centers. PEI’s outpatient surgery center facility fee was approximately 50% less (and sometimes even astronomically less, more than 50%) than hospital facility fees for cataract and implant surgery in the East KY area. The savings began to work for Medicare. PEI was saving enormous monies for Medicare and other insurances.
Dr. John Turner, who was an experienced doctor, who began as a GP, provided local stand-by IV anesthesia, that worked perfectly during invasive eye surgeries. He was featured in the movie “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and had delivered Loretta Lynn, eons before. One day Dr. Minix performed a triple procedure on Dr. Turner, a right cataract, implant, and trabeculectomy for his cataract and glaucoma conditions. It was a successful procedure. After a cup of coffee, Dr. Turner then gave anesthesia for the four remaining surgeries on the schedule that morning with the post-op patch on his eye. All fared well. Needless to say, Dr. Turner was tougher than nails.
Dr. Howard Newmark, an Ashland, KY cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon, and his wife Mary, specialized R.N., performed very innovative carotid artery examinations at PEI. They examined patients, who revealed signs of carotid artery obstruction, observed during examinations of the eyes by Dr Minix. Ophthalmic surgeons often detected potential stroke victims when their eyes were examined following emboli into the retinal arteries, which could be seen in the eyes on exam.
The Newmarks utilized examination equipment seldom found in large medical centers at that time called Carotid Artery Duplex Scans, aka Carotid Artery Doppler Ultrasonography. Using two modes of ultrasound, Doppler and B-mode, the studies measured and videoed and still-recorded the blood flow, non-invasively, through the carotid arteries to the eyes and brain. When carotid artery obstruction was discovered, carotid artery surgery to remove the arterial plaque obstructions was recommended and usually performed preventing strokes and blindness from poor blood supply to the brain, eyes, and central nervous system.
Bill Salyer, nicknamed, “Blood Bill,'' was well known and popular because of his vast experience drawing blood at the Paintsville Hospital. He owned, managed, and operated a hematology, EKG, and other tests laboratory in an examination area at PEI, after the old Paintsville Hospital closed. Patients on the PEI surgery schedule were required to have a CBC, Blood Glucose, Urinalysis, EKG, and physical performed by Bill in compliance with the standard of care. The EKG was read by a Lexington cardiologist following telephone transmission. Other labs were scrutinized by Dr. Minix. All patients were required to be in top condition to undergo eye surgery. Dr. Minix cancelled patient surgery if they were not physically fit for surgery. If patients were not healthy enough for surgery, he referred them for more extensive work-ups. The laboratory, too, was an innovative concept for an outpatient eye surgery facility. A hospital nurse administrator described Dr. Minix as an “Eastern Kentucky Medical Icon”.
As time passed, hospitals complained nationwide about the loss of eye surgery revenue because of the new certificates of need and free-standing surgery centers. Reganomics (Regan administration economics) subsequently included regulations to reverse that brilliant directive that saved millions of health care dollars. Dr. Minix refused to use cost saving inferior instruments, fluids, implants, and other surgical necessities that were not standard of care in order to slash costs. His implant, the best manufactured, was an estimated $200.00 more per eye than many implants used in Kentucky and elsewhere in the U.S. over a period of time, the surgical fee was reduced back to 80% (and less) of the approved surgical fee by the government for Medicaid and Medicare patients, while reimbursement for the facility fee remained at its reduced level. PEI could not cash flow with the new federal and state governments’ directives for reimbursement of both fees and continue excellent care to endure. Additionally, the monies lost by Dr. Minix, the Kentucky Highlands Museum’s only benefactor, who gave the KHM Inc. its start, thanks for his generosity, following the Mayo Mansion frivolous trial, financially strapped PEI. It was forced to close, because PEI was not sustainable. Dr. Minix was compelled to return to the hospitals to perform all invasive and non-invasive eye surgeries. Fortuitously, his efforts to introduce modern ophthalmology in the underserved East KY area had succeeded. He continued to have a huge practice. Every cloud has a silver lining.
Sub-specialist University of Kentucky Ophthalmologist, with whom Dr. Minix contracted, had been offering secondary and tertiary specialist care at PEI while operational. Many other new ophthalmologists flocked into the area and offered their much needed ophthalmology expertise, including many ophthalmology sub-specialists, following the demise of PEI. The new-to-the-area ophthalmologists hoped to emulate the success of Dr. Minix. The new ophthalmologists also began accepting Medicaid, as well as Medicare reimbursement for surgical services, as UK doctors had at PEI and UK. Vast more patients received first-rate care locally. Indigent patients’ Medicaid insurance then provided them coverage, previously not offered by itinerant eye surgeons. Dr. Minix was one of the few who had accepted Medicaid, prior to the new ophthalmologists, that he had drawn to the area. His continued Medicaid participation was the main requirement by the state during PEI certificate of need hearing in Frankfort, KY, the capital.
Dr. Minix sold his ophthalmological surgical equipment, including lasers, to the hospital. Administrators had beforehand refused to purchase the sophisticated equipment. More Medicaid insurance coverage and patient care were ironically wonderful benefits of a failed PEI experiment and blessings for needy and indigent patients.
Trickle-down Reganomics was good and bad for Eastern Kentucky ophthalmology patients. The increased facility fees were bad for those who were prosperous. Some paid more out of pocket. Special interest groups and hospitals got their way. However, Medicaid, underserved and indigent patients were provided ophthalmic surgical services, they would never have experienced, beforehand, which was good. More patients received sub-specialty eye care in Eastern KY. Dr. Mike “The Missile” Minix struck his ophthalmology target dead-on. More ophthalmologists joined “The Missile’s” number one advocacy, which was modern ophthalmology for the underserved, indigent patients in rural Eastern Kentucky who were suffering from blindness. Children especially thrived with the new modern eye care. One optometrist said, “When the elephants start dancing the mice get off the floor. We (optometrists) moved aside, when the Walmart (Dr. Minix) of ophthalmology arrived in Eastern KY,”
Always on the cutting edge of eye surgery, Dr. Minix began one stitch cataract and implant surgery September 1990 at the hospitals. The procedure with foldable implant lens was FDA approved in November 1989. After he returned to the hospital setting to perform cataract surgery, following the closure of PEI, he and hospitals “teamed to offer the newest innovation to cataract patients in the region, which included Southeastern Ohio, Western West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky.” 17. Dr. Minix remained extremely busy.
During his era, malpractice litigations were a common occurrence. While Dr. Minix was performing the general practice of medicine, emergency medicine, and eye surgery, Dr. Minix endured only one malpractice claim filed against him. The suing patient underwent cataract removal and implant in his visually-impaired eye. His vision was improved to 20/25 for distance and 20/20 for near. Visualization of the retina was obscured until after the cataract was removed. The patient had delayed cataract surgery until it blinded his eye and made retinal visualization impossible for Dr. Minix. Oddly enough, after the surgery and once he could see the back of the patient’s eye, Dr. Minix discovered a nevus, a dark spot beneath his retina in the course of follow-up examinations. To be on the safe side he referred the patient to a retinal specialist for second opinion and further testing to rule out melanoma. Dr. Minix was very adept at melanoma diagnosis and was positive it was not a melanoma and the retinal specialist concurred. The patient somehow believed Dr. Minix had failed to diagnosis and/or had caused the lesion. To make a long story short, the jury cleared Dr. Minix by a not guilty decision 12-0. But, as the other frivolous Mayo Mansion suit, the litigation cost him valuable time and money. Frivolous suits were an ongoing medical problem and were increasing the cost of medicine.
In 2004, Mike’s mentor, Dr. Jonathan Wirtschafter (1935-2004) died from Lou Gehrig’s disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), ironically, a disease he researched for many years. Again, Dr. Minix was saddened by the loss of one of his mentors.
References:
1. [Salvador Cruz-Flores, M.D., neurology]
2. [Form No. 10-300a (Rev. 10-74) U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Inventory – Nomination Form. Historic Resources of Ashland]
3. [Roadside History: A Guide Top Kentucky Highway Markers]
4. [Please see The Thin Thirty, by Shannon Ragland, 2007]
5. [Ashland Oil and Refining Company selects site for a big terminal here--to cost $2.5 to $3 million, Record 595581, Local History Index, BETA, 06/04/1963]
6. [Record 588387, Local History Index, BETA, 07/12/1983]
7. [“Ashland Oil reports record $14.5 million quarterly loss", Local History Index, BETA, Record 595823, 04/26/1983]
8. [“Ashland Oil Co. Begins Move to Lexington With Ceremony," Local History Index, BETA, Record 595672, 07/15/1980]
9. [Hard Coal Facts, under-main.com]
10. [Jury Awards Manor Title To Museum by Jim Todd, Ashland Dailey Independent, May 10, 1990.]
11. [Bath Avenue Historic District overview Retrieved on 2014-06-17.]
12. [Powers, James C. (1992). John E. Kleber, ed. The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky. p. 503. ISBN 0-8131-1772-0. Retrieved 2014-06-14.]
13. [She donated her mansion to the church but then sued to get it back Appalachian History. Retrieved 2014-06-17]
14. ["Eyesore of a Mansion Restored to Grandeur". The Daily News. 1995-07-30. Retrieved 2014-06-17.]
15. [A Brief History Highlands Museum and Discovery Center. 2014-06-14]
16. [Didn’t Sign Paper To Donate Mansion, Ophthalmologist Says, by Jim Todd Ashland Daily Independent, April 25, 1990]
17. [volume 1. Number 5, September 1990 Healthline, HRMC]
18. [American Society of Notaries, Definitions]
19. [Brooks, Andree (October 3, 1982). "Debunking the Myth of P. T. Barnum". The New York Times. Retrieved April 27, 2014]
20. [Melvin Aron Eisenberg, Donative Promises, 47 U. CHI. L. REV. 1, 1 (1979)]
21. [ERIC A. POSNER, LAW AND SOCIAL NORMS 46 (2000) (claiming “that rational choice theory can shed light on social norms by focusing on the reputational source of behavioral regularities to the exclusion of their cognitive and emotional sources”). Because another Posner, Richard A., has many important things to say about the topics addressed in this article, I intend to refer to Eric Posner as “Professor Posner” and Richard Posner as “Judge Posner.”]
22.[Colin Miller, Evidence: Best Evidence Rule, Published by CALI eLangdell Press. Available under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 License, The Best Evidence Rule, contained in Article X of the Federal Rules of Evidence (Rules 1001-1008) and state counterparts, is a Rule that requires a party seeking to prove the contents of a writing, recording, or photograph to produce the original (or a duplicate, with no objection) or account for its nonproduction. Through a series of cases and hypotheticals drawn from actual cases, this chapter gives readers a roadmap for how to address any Best Evidence Rule issue in practice.]
23. [Preliminary Report on The Effects of Photocoagulation Therapy. The Diabetic Retinopathy Study Group. Am J Ophthamol. 1976 Apr. PubMed]
24. [[Nd-YAG Laser Capsulotomy, by Harish Raja; Chief Editor: Hampton Roy Sr, MD]
Files coming soon.