Here at State Line Co., in the few short months we've been in business we've had an opportunity to get to know quite a few athletes and celebrities, and the one similarity and correlation that they all had in common was that their refuge from the madness is The Outdoors. I told Cody and Hugh that while we would remain an Outdoors Videography Company that sells hats, I'd also like to start a series where we interview some of the interesting people that we get to know and tell their stories. While we watch them on SEC Network, ESPN, YouTube, or Tik Tok, on the other side of those apps - they're people just like all of us. We want to tell their side of why they spend time in the outdoors, while also capturing what makes them different than the average person whenever it comes to their blessings and God given abilities.
With that being said, the three of us are from here in Kentucky and when I mentioned this series - I wanted our pioneer blog and our first article to be about someone the three of us spent years watching on Saturdays here in The Bluegrass, Kash Daniel.
Regardless of where you live in the World, if you're a Kentucky football fan - you've heard of Kash Daniel, but if you're from Appalachia, you know Kash. The Four Star Linebacker from Paintsville is all anyone from the area could talk about during his High School days, but the impact he would have on Kentucky Football would exceed manys expectations. But while there's no shortage of stories about Kash on the football field, we are here to tell you about Kash the Outdoorsman. The avid bass fisherman and thunder chicken connoisseur is who we are here to talk about today!
The football field was Kash's Colosseum, and the water & timber were his sanctuary. This is where Kash found peace during all the madness. When asking Kash how he got into the outdoors, it was a quick and simple answer that many of us can relate too, he said "My dad got me into bass fishing since he was a former pro angler in the 90's, and my Papaw got me into hunting through Quail and Grouse. Then I found out there was more to hunt, but I had to teach myself because they didn't hunt anything else."
- Kash with Papaw, Kenneth Layne
Those of you reading this that hunt probably share a similar story of how you were introduced to the outdoors. Many of us were fortunate enough that the outdoors was a place we could spend time with our fathers, step fathers, grandfathers, or a mentor who wanted to pass down a sport that height, weight, and speed didn't matter in. However, the sport of hunting and fishing is where Kash went to get away from blitzes, the rivalry games, and the hustle and bustle of sports.
After beginning to teach himself to hunt other species other than the ever elusive Eastern Kentucky game birds, he fell in love with turkey hunting. There's several different type of turkey hunters, there's folks who hunt in a blind, setup on decoys and sit all day, or the folks who are in it for a challenge - the run and gunner. The Run and Gun style of turkey hunting hooked Kash from the beginning, he said "It's the closest thing I could find in the woods that I could relate to football. The thrill and rush I get from going after them can only be compared to being lined up on the defensive side of the ball. Running and gunning is like playing defense in football in the sense, on the defensive side of the ball - you react to the offense. You read your keys, make adjustments, and your job isn't to trick the Offensive Coordinator, it's to trick the Quarterback and get him to make a mistake. When running and gunning, I'm trying to make a gobbler make the mistake. He wakes up in the morning on the roost and has a plan for the day, it's my job to trick him and change his plans." While this article is being published during deer season, if that doesn't get you ready for a sunrise and that first gobble of the morning - I don't know what will. The one thing Kash said during this entire interview that I could relate to the most was this, "I think of the cold winter like death, and the spring as life - turkeys are gobbling, the trees and grass begin to turn green, it begins to get warm, and the world comes back to life. It's where I feel closest to God, and it's a divine feeling just being out there watching the sunrise and being in the creation of it all." I've told many people over the years, I've heard many great speakers and met a many good man who preached, but there's no building or church I feel closer to God than being in his creation and watching everything he created come to life as the sun rises.
As many of you know, only the elite athletes in the world are given an opportunity to play Division 1 Sports, and that's how Kash wanted to be described at an early age - elite. His father played basketball and baseball at ETSU, and that's a shadow Kash didn't want to live in forever - he wanted to create his own legacy in Eastern Kentucky. When talking about his High School recruiting experience, and how it all shook out to land him in Lexington, he said "I never knew I would go to Kentucky until the Spring of my Junior Year" and after being heavily recruited, he said the moment was clear to him when in Columbia, South Carolina, when "I took a visit to South Carolina after they'd already offered me for three months and Steve Spurrier didn't know me or my name. Then, I knew it was Kentucky." Kash would never get his personal revenge on Steve, but he sure took it out on his Gamecocks for the next couple years.
With one of the more memorable four years of college football here in The Bluegrass, Kash walked away from the field with an unbelievable 32 wins and 20 losses, and two extremely memorable Bowl wins, one being the 10 win season that ended beating Penn State on New Years Day at the Citrus Bowl. When I ask him which game stood out to him the most, I assumed it would be something like Penn State 2019 in the Citrus Bowl, The Swamp in 2018 with the famous water bottle celebration, or beating Louisville three out of four years. But it wasn't that at all, it wasn't one particular game when we ask this question, he said what any of us that have played sports should've said, "There's a lot of games I can list, but I can tell you the why behind those games were so special - it was because I loved my teammates like they were my own brothers." Kash goes on to elaborate, "I didn't have a brother growing up and I always wanted one, so I got to choose mine and it happened to be 105 of them from all different backgrounds which is the best part." If that doesn't make you miss the people you played sports with, I don't know what will. When we pried even more into his time at Kentucky looking for one special game, he continued to emphasize his love for his brothers and the staff, "What I remember most is the time spent in the locker room, the pregame meals, bus rides/plane rides, hotels and the movie nights - Coach (Mark Stoops) would take us to a movie the night before games, all this was what made it special - the love we had for one another."
All of us here at State Line Co. being huge Kentucky fans wouldn't let him leave it at that. We had to know which game meant the most to him, and he finally said, "But obviously kicking the shit out of Florida, Penn State and Louisville was definitely the icing on the cake." And to that we say, "Gator Chomp your way home, and L's down." We don't really know a lot about Penn State that doesn't involve Sandusky and that's still too soon.
We appreciate any of you who have taken the time to read this, share it, like, comment, or subscribe, and we are forever indebted to Kash for taking the time to talk with us and give us this first article of a series we're calling "Athletes and Outdoorsman."
- Kash with Father, Scott Daniel
- Johnathon K. McClure