Herman Clark “Clarkie” Mayfield
There were 58 players who quit the UK football team between the end of the 1961 season and the beginning of the 1962 season due to the grueling conditioning program set up by new coach Charlie Bradshaw. It seemed more like cruel and unusual punishment than a conditioning program. The survivors became known as “The Thin Thirty.” Some of the guys who stuck it out were mountain boys. Jerry Woolum, Red Hill, and others. Herman Clark “Clarkie” Mayfield of Black Star High School in Harlan County was another.
Clarkie was the star quarterback at Black Star High School in Alva, Harlan County, Kentucky, graduating in 1959. The school closed in 1961. He played in the 1959 East-West Kentucky High School All Star game. He knew his way out of the coalfields was football, and he chose UK over Tennessee, who had also offered him a grant in aid. He would become a kicker at UK and play some at defensive back for the much-depleted Wildcats.
Under the program set up by Bradshaw, Mayfield had gone from his previous year’s weight of about 205 pounds to around 160. Bradshaw used him as his whipping boy, treating him even worse than the others, yet he stuck it out. Bradshaw told him he wanted him to leave. He considered it, but he would not quit.
As a sophomore at UK in 1960 Mayfield kicked a late field goal to beat LSU 3-0 and later in the year he kicked another late field goal to tie Tennessee 10-10. That was all under Coach Blanton Collier. His heroics really came into play In 1962 under Bradshaw. With 20 seconds remaining he kicked a field goal to beat Tennessee 12-10. That was Kentucky’s biggest rivalry and the winner took home a beer keg as the winner of that game, a tradition that has since come to a halt.
After his college days Mayfield coached at LaRue County, at Franklin-Simpson, and later at Jacksonville State in Alabama, a Div. ll school. He began as an assistant to former UK coach Charlie Pell and later became head coach. Pell was subsequently an assistant at Virginia Tech and head coach at Clemson. After taking over as head coach at JSU in his first three seasons, Mayfield’s teams were 7-4, 6-3 and 7-4. He knew how to coach the game. From experience he also knew how not to coach it.
Clarkie Mayfield was the son of Herman and Ona Mae Mayfield. Herman had worked in the coal fields and when he retired, he and Ona Mae moved from Kentucky to Ohio. She was a at Black Star elementary in Harlan County and upon moving to Ohio, she continued teaching at Wayne Township Elementary.
Clarkie later went to a surprise retirement party for his mother, who had retired from teaching. He was a football coach at Jacksonville State University at the time and took his young son out of school for a couple of days and traveled north to the sprawling Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, near Cincinnati, on May 28, 1977.
A fire broke out that night and it moved swiftly. There were no sprinklers and few emergency exits. Mayfield, his wife, his son, and his parents made it out with Mayfield’s aid but others in the retirement party were still in the burning building. Clarkie went back after them, but he never made it back out. He died a hero’s death much as he had lived one on the gridiron. He had nerves of steel. Reports from the University indicate that he lost his life while trying to rescue others from the flames. 165 people lost their lives in that fire. He was 35 years old.
