The day after Western Kentucky dropped a two-point overtime decision at home to Louisiana-Lafayette on Jan. 5 – a game in which the visitors inexplicably had six men on the floor for the last 20 seconds – Ken McDonald was fired as the Hilltoppers’ head coach and replaced by Ray Harper, a native of nearby […]

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“If you look closely at the various forces at work in basketball at every level of the sport—the AAU programs that funnel players to college programs, the agents looking to land players as early as NBA rules allow, the shoe companies, coaches, franchise owners, front-office executives, players—it eventually dawns on you that they have one […]

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As a player, coach, parent, student, alum or just plain fan, this is the best of times to be involved with the Trinity High School football program. Even with six – six! – KHSAA classes, the Shamrocks are in a class by themselves. They are well on their way to an unbeaten – no, make […]

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It was on the afternoon of Dec. 23, 1978, that I met Dave Gavitt for a cheeseburger at the Executive Inn near Freedom Hall. In a few hours, his 10th and last Providence College basketball team would play the University of Louisville. At the time, U of L belonged to the Metro Conference and Providence […]

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I don’t know about you, but, frankly, I’m thrilled that the national basketball team of the Dominican Republican is training in Lexington for the FIBA Americas Tournament Aug. 30-Sept. 11 in Mar del Plata, Argentina. I am not sure what this tournament is all about, but I think it has something to do with the […]

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LEXINGTON, Ky. – A typist who lives long enough to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his high school graduation has earned a bit of slack, the way I see it, so I want to tell you now about the 1960-’61 Blue Devils of Henry Clay High School, a team that was pretty danged good, if […]

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Standing on the backstretch last Sunday at Churchill Downs, it was sad to view the desecration at Kentucky’s most famous landmark. I’m not talking about the barns that were ripped asunder by the recent tornadoes. They will be rebuilt after the current meet, and, unless Churchill management does it on the cheap, always a possibility, […]

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LOUISVILLE – At a Kentucky Colonels reunion before Artis Gilmore’s induction into the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame, the biggest man in the room sat quietly in a corner, listening and laughing as old friends and former teammates told stories, some of which may have even been truthful, about the late, great American Basketball Association.
It […]

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It’s too bad that no news outlet had a reporter stationed in the jockeys’ room during the 137th Kentucky Derby because it would have been priceless to watch the reaction of Robby Albardo as Animal Kingdom, the horse he was supposed to be riding, won the roses with John Velasquez in the saddle.
Albarado rode the […]

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Good morning, class, and welcome to Character Building in College Sports 101. Our topic today is Mr. Tony Woods, a former student-athlete at Wake Forest University. When Mr. Woods was in high school, he was branded with a five-star rating in the recruiting meat market, at least partly because he stands 6-feet-11 and can run […]

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