I found my friend Dickie V. in a strange place before Tuesday’s Louisville-Butler dedication game for the KFC Yum! Center. He was in a dressing room just off the court. Alone. This was odd for a guy who usually works the media room before games, collecting gossip and giving interviews and generally yukking it up […]

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My longtime friend David Kindred, best wordsmith of my newspaper generation, has a new book out about one of his former employers, The Washington Post, and how it has coped with the swift and startling changes in the communications business. Those who know Dave’s work will not be suprised to learn that it’s beautifully written […]

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The Courier-Journal never published a special Kentucky Derby section until 1974, the year of the 100th running of the world’s most famous race. I know, because my friend Jim Bolus and I collaborated to write the lead story about Cannonade’s front-running victory for trainer Woody Stephens and jockey Angel Cordero Jr.
From then until 1986, the […]

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Shame, shame on The Courier-Journal for not including Earl Cox in its otherwise outstanding special <a href=’http://www.courier-journal.com/section/sports0202&template=fullpage’ >Sunday section</a> about the end of the University of Louisville’s reign in Freedom Hall.
For those who have asked, it doesn’t bother me that my former employer, which I served as sports editor from 1977 through 1986, did not […]

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Freedom Hall was opened in 1956, three years before I began covering high school sports for the <i>Lexington Herald-Leader</i> at age 16. We have grown up together, literally, and I freely admit that the arena has aged far more gracefully than I. Heck, it’s still my favorite place to watch college basketball.
Yet after the current […]

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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – My first hero in journalism was Ernie Pyle, a man from rural Indiana who became the most popular and beloved news correspondent of World War II. Instead of hanging around with diplomats and generals, Pyle went to the front lines and wrote about what the guys in the trenches were thinking and […]

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INDIANAPOLIS — I never took a journalism class. When I once proudly told that to my friend Bob Knight, he said, “Yeah, it shows.” So now here I am, at the age of 66, getting ready to teach two classes at the new National Center for Sports Journalism on the campus of Indiana University Purdue […]

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My compliments to John David Dyche, part-time token right-wing columnist for The Courier-Journal, for calling out Arnold Garson, the paper’s current publisher and president, in his op-ed piece Aug. 5. It needed to be done and nobody else with a forum has the gumption to do it, with the possible exception of Francene, the morning […]

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On the morning of Sunday, August 23, 1959, my 16-year-old heart was racing as I grabbed The Lexington Herald-Leader off the front steps at 329 Mentelle Park in Lexington and pulled out the sports section. I hurriedly thumbed through the pages until I found the story headlined, “53 Henry Clay Grid Candidates Prep for Opener.”
It […]

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As always, I thoroughly enjoyed being the emcee for the Governor’s Cup press conference and luncheon on Thursday at the Cardinal Club. Under the direction of Randy Whitt, the event has developed into a first-class forum for celebrating the Kentucky-Louisville football rivalry, reconnecting with old friends and legends, and kicking off the upcoming season.
In years […]

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