Highland's Ken Bye resigns as football coach

HIGHLAND | Ken Bye knew it was time to walk away.

Highland's third-year football coach had his resignation accepted at Tuesday night's school board meeting.

The Trojans were 2-8 this season and 4-26 in Bye's tenure at the Northwest Crossroads Conference school.

"No, we never won the number of games we would've liked to have won, but I think we became much more competitive," said Bye, 68, who will stay on as Highland's athletic director.

"We had very few problems with our kids and the number of kids in our program grew, which made it enjoyable."

Highland's last winning season was 7-4 in 2001.

No successor has been named, but the next coach must find a way to turn this program around.

"If I had the answer, we would've done it already," Bye said. "I really think all we need is a breakout season or a few victories and the others will come."

Bye inherited a program that had lost 34 of its last 42 games, including 10 by shutout.

"We believe in ourselves to a certain point but we certainly don't have a killer instinct or believe we're a winning program because we're not at this point," he said.

"The kids have to get that belief. We made some strides toward it."