It was 10 years ago that two schools came together for one memorable football season.

The 2006 Mercer County team reunited to mark the 10th anniversary of its Class 2A championship season, and members of the team were recognized Friday at Alvis Johnson Field prior to Mercer’s game against Marion County.

Brandon Ford, the leading rusher for a team that averaged 51 points per game, said it doesn’t seem like that magical season was 10 years ago.

“It seems like it’s been four years, honestly,” Ford said.

Neither Mercer nor Harrodsburg had won a championship prior to their merger, though Harrodsburg was a runner-up three times.

Only a couple of months they merged, the Titans began a march to the state finals that saw them play only one truly close game. They scored 43 points or better in all but two of their 14 games prior to the title game in Louisville, where they edged Russell 15-12.

There was division in the community when the two schools came together to form one, both along territorial and racial lines, but there was no such division within a football team that relied on former Harrodsburg Pioneers and Mercer County Scotties alike.

Ford, who now works in Lexington with people who are trying to overcome traumatic brain injuries, said he thinks the way the Titans successfully came together and their success on the football field helped smooth the transition for the school.

“As a brotherhood, as Titans, we didn’t see color. We saw personality, and we grew together as a unit to where we could use that on the field and bring it out in our community,” he said.

He said he wants to bring the team together once more Nov. 5 for a youth football tournament he wants the ’06 Titans to organize.

“I want to have everybody here from the 2006 championship team to be part of it and have their hands in it,” he said.

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