Stephen Rutledge Sullivan

Stephen Rutledge Sullivan, age 73, of Danville, Kentucky, passed away unexpectedly Tuesday, April 28, 2026 in Florence, Kentucky. Stephen was born on Wednesday, August 20, 1952 in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was the son of the late Leo and Isabel Dillion Sullivan. Before retiring as the District Technology Coordinator for the Boyle County Public Schools, he taught math and computer science at both Lincoln and Garrard County High Schools. While teaching, Stephen was the assistant and head football coach for Lincoln and Garrard Counties. He married his loving wife, Billie Edwards Sullivan, on Sunday, May 29, 1983, where they remained together for 42 years. Stephen and Billie were active members of Pleasant View Baptist Church, in Waynesburg, Kentucky, where he served as the Senior Adult Class Teacher and supported the running of their sound system for services for many years.

In addition to his wife, Stephen is survived by one son, Patrick Owen Sullivan (Ashley), of Frankfort, Kentucky; one daughter, Julie Sullivan Lee, of Independence, Kentucky; and six grandchildren, Owen Lee, David Lee, Jackson Sullivan, Noah Lee, Elijah Lee, and Madeline Sullivan.

Public Visitations will be held 5-8PM Friday, May 8, 2026, and 11AM-1PM Saturday, May 9, 2026, at Pleasant View Baptist Church. 

A Public Funeral Service will be held 1PM Saturday, May 9, 2026, at the church.  Bro. Brad King & Bro. Scott Hughes will officiate the service.  The Funeral Service will be livestreamed on Stephen’s memorial page of the funeral home’s website.

Burial will follow in Buffalo Springs Cemetery in Stanford, Kentucky. Wes Cornett, Don Story, Dan Story, John Calvin Peek, Travis May, Brad Petrey, Shane Morgan, and Josh Brown will serve as Active Pallbearers.  Jay & Lisa Maslaney, along with the Senior Adult Sunday School Class at Pleasant View Baptist Church, will serve as Honorary Pallbearers.

Fox & Friend Funeral Home, Stanford, is entrusted with Stephen’s arrangements.  Guest Book at www.friendfuneralhomes.com.

We’ve Lost Coach Sullivan”

By Jonathan L. Smith

This keeps getting harder.

Until three-and-a-half years ago, all former Lincoln County head football coaches were still alive. We lost Robbie Lucas in November 2022, then Bill Ed Leedy in December 2024, Larry French just three weeks ago, and now Steve Sullivan.

Stephen Rutledge Sullivan (1952-2026) came to Lincoln County High school in 1976. He was two years out of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. His father managed a factory in Augusta, Wisconsin and that is where he attended school from the 5th through 12th grades.

He was a honor student and multi-sport athlete, participating in football, basketball, baseball, and track. After college, he took a job in Sand Hills, Nebraska, where he taught all levels of math to students in grades 8-12 for two years. He was, in essence, the district’s whole math department.

His mother was from Crab Orchard and his parents planned on retiring in Lincoln County so Steve applied for a job at Lincoln County High School and started teaching math and coaching football and track during the 1976-77 school year.

He did not coach football that first fall as a teacher, but he was the head track coach in the spring. He also held some organizational practices for a wrestling team at LCHS, but a wrestling team never got officially started.

When he took over the track team, it had been in existence the two previous seasons, but the two-year-old school did not have a running track. Space had been left for one around the football field, but it had never been constructed.

In 1978, the school board allocated $7,000 to pay for gravel and materials to build a running track. It was laid out by Steve Sullivan, who was a math whiz, and the excavating and gravel spreading was done by Mike Candler, who was athletic director at the school. The track dimensions, as laid out by Sullivan, were perfect.

I became personally acquainted with Steve Sullivan the year the track was built—47 years ago—in the spring of the 1978-1979 school year. He visited all the county’s elementary schools and invited 7th and 8th graders to be on the high school track team.

My neighbor Mickey Goodwin and I decided to participate. Every day after school Mickey’s mother, Sheryll, drove us from Stanford Elementary School to  LCHS for practice.

Sullivan was tough but fair, and as an 8th grader participating on a high school team, I appreciated that very much. He knew how to require more of the older team members and allow the younger members to have fun and get acclimated.

He remained the head track coach until the spring of my senior year, when he resigned to become the head football coach. He was my head track coach for four years and I enjoyed every part of it.

He was also my position coach for three years of varsity football.  As the line coach he made sure we were in great shape and he made sure we were tough, physically and mentally.

We beat the daylights out of each other with tackling and blocking drills. Then, we worked our guts out running sprints and pushing the blocking sled.

He taught us our assignments and made sure we knew what to do, and how to do it, on every single play. He also made sure we had the stamina to do it for an entire game.

Being a good coach requires being a good teacher and being a teacher is what Steve Sullivan was born to do. He was probably the best classroom teacher I had at LCHS.

I took his sophomore geometry class as a senior because I had been in advanced math classes my sophomore and junior years.  I was amazed at how meticulous he was with his lesson plans and how he always effectively covered the day’s material.

I remember his organizational skills and preparedness from my very first track practices as an 8th grader, too. He always posted a written practice schedule and followed it to the minute. He gave all of his effort to whatever he was doing.

We rarely held home track meets because it was laborious to mark our gravel track. Several times, though, Sullivan spent countless hours laying out and marking with sprayed chalk or paint, like that used on a football field, the track’s multiple running lanes, staggered starts, relay handoff zones, and hurdle locations, for us to host a home meet.

There was no economic benefit to hosting the home meet for Sullivan. He was not paid any extra for marking the track or hosting a home meet and he probably paid for the marking materials out of his own pocket.

As soon as the track was used, it would start ruining the marking job. Using the track kicked up the loose pieces of gravel that had been marked, and before long all the markings were gone.  Any kind of rain had a further negative effect on the markings, but it was nice while it lasted, and Sullivan did it all for his team.

The fall after I graduated, I took over the football play-by-play announcing duties on WRSL. In a matter of months, I went from former player to journalist covering the games.

I recorded a weekly interview with Coach Sullivan and we worked well together. He treated me like a peer, which I always respected.

As the head football coach, he will aways be remembered for his one-off single-wing offense and jersey switching in the Danville game.

The Patriots were big underdogs but came out ready to play with a new offense that resulted in Lincoln holding a lead most of the game and finally suffering a close overtime loss. Facing long odds, he devised a plan to allow his team to be competitive. 

I will also always remember that he let his seniors have fun during their last game of that season. They had a big lead over Jessamine County, so he let some of the linemen be running backs late in the game and they had the time of their lives.

He resigned after one season as the head football coach, then spent another season as an assistant coach with his successor, Larry Phillips.

During that 1984-85 school year as an assistant, he started the very successful computer math team. By May 1985, the LCHS computer math team was ranked 1st in the country out of 120 schools and finished 5th in the national competition in Pennsylvania.

Later in 1985, Larry Woods resigned as the head coach at Garrard County High School to be an assistant at Lincoln County. Sullivan applied for the head coaching job at Garrard and was hired.

He remained there as the head coach for four seasons (1985-1988). By 1990, he was back at LCHS and was an assistant coach with Larry Phillips on the AAA state runner-up team.

Altogether, Steve Sullivan coached football at LCHS for 9 seasons; as the head football coach in 1983, and as assistant coach from 1977 through 1982, then again in 1984 and in 1990.

In addition to his one year as head coach, he was an important assistant coach on the school’s first district championship team (1979), the first undefeated regular season team (1981), and the first state finals team (1990).

He was an assistant coach under Bill Ed Leedy, Donald Wooldridge, and Larry Phillips. He was a big part of the early years of Lincoln football.

He was the head track coach for 6 seasons (1977-1982) and literally designed and helped build the school’s first running track. He grew the program by recruiting younger participants and then providing high quality instruction and organized events.

In recent years, he kept up with Lincoln County sports and always followed the football team’s games and results. He still had a genuine affinity for LCHS.

I last communicated with Coach Sullivan by text message last August. I told him that the next time I was in town I would try to visit. He said, “Great! Sounds good.”

Regretfully, and despite my good intentions, it never happened.

Steve Sullivan had a positive impact on the life of many students and student-athletes. He will be long remembered by all of them, including me.

Fox and Friend Funeral Home is handling the arrangements with visitation on Friday May 8th from 5-8 PM and Saturday May 9th from 11-1 at Pleasant View Baptist Church, with the funeral following the Saturday visitation at 1:00 PM.

May God bless and comfort his wife, Billie, their son, daughter, and grandchildren.

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