A ceremony is planned to dedicate the Coach William Falls Memorial Bridge where the Hopkinsville Greenway spans LaFayette Road and Country Club Lane.
Hopkinsville City Council recently approved a request to name the existing pedestrian bridge for Falls, who was the head basketball coach at Attucks High School from 1935 to 1967. With a win-loss record of 663-223, he was posthumously inducted into the Kentucky Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019.
The ceremony will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 4, on LaFayette Road near Dell Drive. Community members are invited to mark the dedication with city officials and former players.
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The dedication will celebrate Falls’ “legacy as a coach, educator and unifier,” city spokeswoman Amanda Brunt said in a press release.
During his tenure at Attucks, a school for Black students during segregation, the Attucks Wolves won two state titles in the Kentucky High School Athletic League Championships and four times advanced to a national tournament for Black schools during segregation.
After Attucks closed with the desegregation of local schools in 1967, Falls became at assistant coach at Hopkinsville High School, where he also taught industrial arts.
Falls and one of his students died on Dec. 13, 1973, when a train struck his car at the tracks on LaFayette Road. The accident occurred in the area where the pedestrian bridge now spans the road.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
