Ray Dunbar was 51 years old then. He'd been coaching taekwondo in Harlan County for 20 years, teaching kids who mostly had nowhere else to go after school. He didn't recruit, didn't advertise. Word got around.
Reagan's father brought her one Saturday morning after she'd gotten into her third fight at school. Not because she was a bully. The opposite. She kept defending other kids and then not knowing when to stop.
Dennis Holloway sat in a plastic chair in the corner and watched his daughter go through her first hour with Coach Dunbar.
At the end of it, Ray came and sat next to him.
"She's got something," Ray said.
"I know," Dennis said. "I just need somewhere to put it."
So, she came back every week. Then twice a week. Then four days a week, and Saturday mornings, for 11 years.
Ray Dunbar never charged full price. He never said that out loud. He just always seemed to have the math come out a little different when the Holloways paid. Dennis never mentioned it. Reagan figured it out around age 18 and never mentioned it, either.
Some gifts are best received without making a fuss.
By the time Reagan was competing at the regional level, by 17, she had won three Appalachian regional championships and a bronze medal at the junior nationals.
There was a short piece about her on ESPN Regional. Twenty-three seconds. The anchor called her coal country's quiet champion. Coach Dunbar had recorded it on his phone, watched it so many times the video had a worn path in the data.
When Caldwell College offered Reagan a full athletic scholarship in taekwondo, full tuition, room, board, Dennis Holloway sat at that kitchen table and read the letter three times. Then he folded it very carefully, set it down, and didn't say anything for a while.
Reagan watched him from across the table.
Finally, he looked up. "Your mama would have made a lot of noise about this," he said.
Reagan said, "I know. I'm going to make it on her behalf, then."
He took a breath. "We're going to celebrate tonight."
They had dinner at the diner on Route 38. Dennis ordered the chicken fried steak, which he almost never did because of the price. Reagan had the same.
It was the best meal she ever ate.
* * *
The scholarship had one condition. Standard language, buried in paragraph four of the agreement.
The recipient must maintain a minimum GPA of 2.8 and must not receive any formal disciplinary action during the academic year in which the scholarship is active.
One disciplinary action. That's all it would take.
Reagan had read that paragraph carefully. She understood what it meant.
Coach Dunbar had understood it, too, when he called her the week before she left.
"You know how to fight," he said. "That's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried about someone knowing that and using it against you."