What happened from 1979 through 1997 will likely never be repeated in Indiana high school football history.

Hobart went 222-30 in that stretch, playing in 11 state championship games and winning four state crowns.

Head coach Don Howell was the leader. Defensive coordinator Tom Kerr was the tackler. And offensive coordinator Jerry Hicks was the guy who changed the Brickies' "3 yards and a cloud of dust" mentality to a quick-scoring, misdirection attack that few could stop.

All three of the coaching legends will be inducted into the inaugural Hobart Football Hall of Fame on Friday night when the "Brickie Ball" commences at The Ambassador.

"It was a special, unbelievable time," Kerr said.

"I don't know if anyone will ever be able to do what we did," Hicks said.

The 1980s were unbelievable in Hobart. The Brickies went 119-14 and won 71 consecutive home games.

The Brickies were Class 3A runners-up in 1979, 1980, 1982 and Class 4A runners-up in 1984 and 1985. But all the pain of loss came to an end in 1987, when Hobart beat Jasper for its first state title. Another state title in 1989 was followed by a runner-up showing in 1990.

Howell's team won state again in 1991 and 1993. One final trip to Indianapolis came in 1996. Howell would retire two years later, then pass away less than a year after that.

"It's awesome for my family and me," said Roz Howell, Don's wife, who will be at the banquet with her daughter, Marilyn, and three grandchildren -- Patrick, Morgan and Josh.

"I'm not going to talk about his successes and achievements because that's already been noted and well reported," Roz said. "I'm going to talk about the person and the man. My husband didn't do it alone. He always said he had the best assistant coaches in the state."

And they all had the same philosophy. "All my life I want to be a Brickie, work, work, work."

"It wasn't something in our water like a lot of people said," Roz said. "We had great families, great kids and a lot of support from our community. We couldn't have done it without them. Don was special but it wasn't all about football. It was about the boys. Don used the football field like a class room to teach life lessons."

One former Brickie told Roz that he got a phone call on Thursday night before the first game of the year. It was Howell. He told the youngster that he had worked him hard all week for a reason. He had watched the effort and he believed it was going to pay off. The player told the coach's wife that one phone call changed his life forever.

Howell and Kerr lived next door to each other. They were best of friends, mowing each other's yard when the other was on vacation. Or shaking hands over the fence if a disagreement from practice had found its way to their homes.

"We were close, like brothers," Kerr said. "Sometimes we agreed, sometimes we argued. If we did we'd end up hugging each other in the backyard. What we did was something special."