We have been experiencing some bitterly cold temperatures in recent days, with snowy and icy road conditions that have kept many people inside their homes. If you are a Corbin Redhound football fan, one good way to avoid cabin fever would be to check out the over 170 videos that have been uploaded so far to the new Redhound Archive YouTube page.
Lance Freeman (CHS, Class of 2009) is the man behind Redhound Archive, which went live online last fall. A member of the school’s football team between 2005-2008, the project began about four years ago when he was trying to collect games that he himself had been involved in.
“It was getting farther and farther away, and I just thought that I would love to have copies of the games that I played in,” Freeman said. “It was getting harder to find them, and I was running into a lot of roadblocks.”
Freeman approached the high school about spending some time in the Redhound Productions archive, which is where he would eventually find the majority of the footage that has been uploaded to YouTube so far. He said that it has required a considerable amount of time and effort, but the response that he has received has made it all worth it.
“I just went to the school and explained the vision,” Freeman said. “I wanted to find the games, digitize them, and then bring back the physical copies. I was originally just looking for the four years that I played, but then I thought, ‘Why should I stop there?’ I knew that people in the community would be interested in seeing these old games too, so I made the YouTube page so that it can be shared with families, friends and old teammates. I have had a lot of really cool interactions, and have just been reconnecting with people because of it.”
Freeman said that he is happy to be playing a role in preserving history for future generations, and hopes that his efforts will have made it easier for his children to be able to watch him in action as a Redhound. In the course of compiling old footage for the YouTube page, he unexpectedly came across videos that contained highlights of the 1976 and 1980 state championship games. It was a special surprise in more ways than one.
“I just lit up, because my dad played in the ’76 game,” Freeman said of his father, Brent.
While the 1980 highlight video does not have sound, the ’76 video features narration by the News Journal’s own Don Estep, who was a longtime broadcaster of CHS athletics and was widely known as the “voice of the Redhounds.”
Currently, Redhound Archive offers viewers the above-mentioned state championship highlights, many games from the early-to-mid-2000’s, a few contests from the late 1990’s, and many highlights from more recent seasons. Freeman said that assistant coach Jared Martin, Athletic Director Tackett Wilson and Roy Taylor have all been extremely helpful to the project, among others who have agreed to contribute by tracking down old broadcasts or highlight compilations.
If anyone might be able to provide Freeman with films of games that are not already featured on the Redhound Archive YouTube page, he said that he can be reached by e-mail at redhoundarchive@gmail.com.
