The 2011 First Southern National Bank Christmas Classic was a thing of beauty. The caliber of the teams was the best ever from top to bottom. The games were tight throughout and were well worth the price of admission.
This had to be what FSNB’s Rusty Clark and Roy’s Bar-B-Q’s Roy Morgan had in mind when they created this tournament earlier a few years ago. A former college athlete and high school coach who is president of a respected banking institution that has widespread locales, Clark has the connections and resources to attract top-flight teams. This year they came from four states, including three of Mid-America’s biggest metropolitan areas, Chicago, Atlanta and Louisville.
Chances are South Atlanta and Percy L. Julian of Chicago didn’t drive to Logan County to finish sixth and seventh, but that’s what happened. The Louisville area schools were more successful with Bullitt Central winning the boys division and Fern Creek placing third.
Fern Creek got valuable experience. The Tigers lost to Russellville in double overtime Wednesday and then edged Logan County in another two extra periods less than 24 hours later.
The girls tournament was also tight. The Lady Cougars, who lost in the third-place game by three points, had fallen in overtime the night before to Paducah St. Mary’s, which then won the championship Thursday. Russellville lost by a point to Mayfield without top Lady Panther Amber Sydnor in uniform. Mayfield went on to the finals and RHS-with Sydnor back-won its next to games to finish fifth. That’s how close the girls division was.
The lasting image of this tournament will be how well coached boys champion Bullitt Central is. Coach Joe Pat Lee has his players executing to perfection. They know where to be on both offense and defense. They cut off the passing lanes on defense. On offense, they catch the ball in shooting position. They don’t take bad shots. They’ll never beat themselves.
They are obviously a very intelligent group. Retired Methodist pastor Fred Whittemore, whose last full-time assignment was at the Russellville United Methodist Temple, says several of the players have impressive ACT scores, including his and Mildred’s grandson, Luke Whittemore, is one of them. Luke scored the Cougars’ final basket of the tournament after Bullitt Central was playing ball control in the waning moments.
I keep hearing compliments from those who watched the tournament. The ultimate test came from John Brett Reynolds, an RHS graduate and former assistant coach who helps broadcast Panther games. He’s not usually inclined to compliment Panther opponents, but he was effusive in his lavish praise of the Cougars from Shepherdsville.
WRUS, which helped sponsor the tournament along with Roy’s, did a great job of keeping listeners apprised of what was going on. In addition to Reynolds, sportscasters were Andy and Zack Woodall, Ben Brown and John Kees. Head honcho Chris McGinnis made it happen.
Congratulations to Tournament Director Holli Brown and all the volunteers from First Southern for a highly successful Classic that entertained sports fans here and brought favorable attention plus a pile of tourist dollars to our community.
Now wouldn’t it be great if Russellville City Council could find a way to finish the beautiful soccer and diamond complex sitting unused on Armory Drive? Then we could attract more of that attention and disposable income here for outdoor sports.
The LoJo
All of us have favorite teams. I don’t mean schools. I’m talking about a one-year collection of players and coaches who capture your heart and imagination.
My first favorite team was the 1961 Russellville Panthers. My family had followed the seniors since they were sophomores through their senior season. I was a freshman. The players were my friends. They were also my heroes.
News came in early December that two members of that team, George Hill and Jack Lyne, had died. That really struck home.
Hill was the solid rock on that squad which reached the regional finals for the first time in RHS history. The star was guard Dickie Bagby, who died much too young a couple of decades ago. I thought he invented the jump shot. He went on to play a lot of college basketball for Coach Abe Lemons at Oklahoma City. Center Wayne Mullen, who had been starting since he was a freshman, played in college for Belmont.
George Anthony Hill Jr. was also an excellent football player for Coach Waymond Morris, as was Bagby. They probably could have played college football if that had been their focus. But they were basketball players first. Hill, who many of us called ‘Tony’ (Anthony abbreviated), was a solid rebounder and defender as well as a dependable scorer. He was this team’s version of Stacey Mason of the Logan County state championship squad-overshadowed by Fred Tisdale but a rock around which the team was built.
Hill went on to have a great career at Bellarmine University in Louisville. An all-conference performer, he led the Knights to their first national tournament berth, just as Mason did at Trevecaa Nazarene a quarter of a century later. Tony gave up basketball his senior year so that he could take the labs he needed on the way to a career as a psychologist.
Jack Lyne was a reserve on Coach Jim Young’s 1961 team. There weren’t many high school teams he wouldn’t have been a starter on, but RHS was loaded with seniors, including Bagby, Hill, Mullen, twins Marvin and Marion Carnell, Tom Noe, Paul Atchison Jr. and James Peden. The only junior who started was football All-Stater Larry Johnson.
The next year Johnson and Lyne were key players for Coach Howard Owens, who had come on the scene after Young and Assistant Coach Daryl Bicknell were called up in the Berlin Crisis. They were part of the National Guard unit which was honored in the Tobacco Festival this year. Lyne was part of an outstanding academic group on that 1962 squad which included Raymond Davis, Alan Miles, the late Jim Nealy, and Bob Koester.
Jack didn’t play college basketball. Instead he went on to the University of Kentucky and a distinguished career in journalism, which culminated in his induction into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame the year before his death. He had dry, sharp wit that punctuated his writing but he could write intellectually and astutely.
I remember seeing a letter he had written to our high school principal, Roy Dickey Reynolds, about a UK star of that era: “ Cotton Nash and I are on a first-name basis. I call him ‘Cotton’ and he calls me the first name he thinks of.”
Four members of that ’61 team are in the Russellville Alumni Association Hall of Fame-Hill, Bagby, Johnson and Mullen. All of that team sits on a permanent podium in my personal memory bank.
The LoJo
Another native Logan Countian who died this year was Olmstead native Diane Dawson. She coached track and field for over 15 years and sponsored the Girls Drill Team at Jesse Stuart High School in Louisville. She was a member of the Seneca Golf League for 25 years and was its former president. She was a member of the Vettiner Shawnee & Iroquois Golf League. She served on the Women’s State Golf Association Board of Directors for over 10 years.
She was a sister of former Logan County School Board Chairman Lynn Dawson and of Gayle Brown, the mother of PVA/sportscaster Ben Brown.
* Death claimed Leon Douglas on Christmas Day. He was an outstanding football and basketball player at RHS in the early fifties. Among those speaking at his funeral Dec. 29 at Kuttawa were former Panther teammates Bob Ballance, Howard Wren and Ralph Gilliam. Ralph read remembrances from former Russellvillian Dorris Burchett.
*Those who have followed golf in this area for a long time remember Kevin Proctor well. He had some legendary matches against Russellville’s Gerry Switzer, Stewart Wheeler and Tommy Riley during the 1970s when regional youth golf was at a peak. An All-American golfer at Indiana University, he won three Kentucky State Amateur Golf Championships in four years and teamed with his dad, highly respected Bowling Green broadcaster Bob Proctor, to win the state Father-Son championship in 1971.
Kevin died a few days after Christmas at age 60. He was married to Auburn native Lisa Chasteen Proctor. An Auburn High tennis player, she is a cousin of well-known local sports figures Tim and Steve Riley, Erica Meguiar, and Kapreisha Powell.
The LoJo
For decades, the SKY League consisted of just four schools, Russellville, Bowling Green, Franklin-Simpson and Glasgow. When the season ended in the championship games at WKU in December, BGH was the undefeated Class 5A state champion while F-S and Glasgow were state runners-up in their classes.
Congratulations to Purples coach Kevin Wallace on winning the title. He’s had superb teams and records throughout his career at BGH, but the boulder hanging on him was never having won it all. Now maybe long-time Purples supporters can accept the former Warren East coach as one of their own instead of saying, “Well, you know he’s really from East.” He’s earned Purple royalty status.
Many people are wondering if Franklin’s outstanding coach, Tim Schlosser, will hang up his whistle and concentrate on administration. One member of his staff is former WKU head coach David Elson. Tim has earned the right to relax, but it’s difficult to imagine his not being on the sidelines.
The LoJo
The best young baseball scorebook keeper I’ve ever known was Daniel Roberts, who was the guy with the book for Logan County baseball in the late 90s and 2000. By reading Daniel’s scorebook, I could write a story as accurately as if I had been there without seeing a play. Coach Ethan Meguiar made a great sacrifice in Daniel’s senior year when he chose him as a player on the team rather than keeping him as the stat guy.
Known as “Part Time” during his high school days, he’s now Dr. Daniel Roberts. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in athletic training from Eastern Kentucky University and earned his doctorate in physical therapy from East Tennessee State University. His wife Rachel also is a doctor of physical therapy.
Daniel is currently the rehab coordinator for the Houston Astros. He’s in charge of all the physical therapy for the franchise’s players.“I take care of both major league and minor league guys that are out for an extended period due to surgery or chronic injury,” he tells The LoJo. “My main job is to get these players ready to return to play. I am based out of our spring training facility in Kissimmee, Fla.”
Proud but humble as always is Daniel’s dad, Randy Roberts, who headed Adairville Youth Sports for several years.
The LoJo
Freshman boys basketball coach at Greenwood High School is former Russellville High School player Peyton White. I always admired Peyton’s work ethic while he was a Panther. It translated to success on the playing floor, and it should serve him well as a coach.
Former RHS head girls basketball coach Stephen Guthrie continues coaching at Franklin-Simpson. After helping Lex Lindsey coach the Lady Cats into a state power, he has moved with Lindsey to the F-S boys program.
Meanwhile the most successful coach in RHS girls basketball history, Bob Matthews, is an assistant on the F-S girls squad headed by his son, LCHS graduate Josh Matthews. The elder Matthews led the Lady Cats to state twice and took the Lady Panthers to their only regional semifinals so far. Josh is a former junior college head coach.
Eighteen years ago, Josh was the freshman coach on his dad’s Lady Panthers team while still in high school. He had injured his shoulder and was unable to play for the Cougars his senior year. Josh went on to play junior college ball in North Carolina before becoming a student assistant coach at WKU.
Russellville boys basketball coach Dennis Pardue has surrounded himself with young former Panthers. The “old man” of the group,Nathan Thompson, started on two Final Four teams in 2000 and ’01. The other two are from the class of ’07, Tyler Meacham and Jordan Hinton. Former JV coach T.C. Thomason is serving as a volunteer coach this year. He and Thompson work at First Southern. Meacham is employed full-time by the school system.
Coach Dedra Adler has as one of her assistants Chloe Elam, probably the best player she has coached at RHS. Also on her staff are veteran Roger Daniel and former LCHS athlete Todd Adler, who doubles as her husband.
Logan boys coach Harold Tackett lost two of his assistants last year, returning only Lonnie Mason. Filling out the staff areSteve Quattrocchi and Nathan Davis. The Lady Cougar coaching staff has returned intact with Zach Simpson, George Vanderpool and Robbie Malcomson assisting veteran coach Scot MacAllister.
Undefeated and nationally ranked Murray State is the darling of college basketball. Student manager Tim MacAllister is involved in practices far more than washing uniforms. He works with the big men, trying to make them tougher. Tim-Class of ’07 at LCHS-is the son of Lady Cougar coach Scot MacAllister and his wife Lori.
The LoJo
Gary Silvey was a rock-solid lineman and a captain of the first Russellville football team to reach the state championship game in 1964, After playing college football in Louisiana, he and his family found themselves in Newport News, Va., near Williamsburg. Gary coached, became athletic director of Denbigh High School and eventually served as AD for the entire school system.
Among the athletes he directed at Denbigh were Mike Tomlin, Super Bowl champion coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Michael Vick, now quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles. His wife, the former Bobby Sue Clark, taught at another school in the area where Aaron Brooks was in her class. He was the quarterback of the New Orleans Saints before Drew Brees.
Gary and Bobby Sue were here the week before Christmas, visiting their son Brian, his wife Heather and their children, along with several Silveys in the Olmstead area who are part of Gary’s family.
The LoJo
Mike Berry , who was well-known as a baseball and basketball official while he lived in Auburn, is now busy officiating high school and college sports in Hawaii. A military man, he is the U.S. Navy’s TSGI/CRSC Advocate, which means he helps Wounded Warriors and retirees get the benefits for which they are eligible.
His part-time work is officiating, something he’s been doing for 22 of his almost 49 years. He’s officiated in the Hawaii Boys State Basketball Tournament the past two years and worked the girls state tournament the year before. He has served on the board of the high school officials’ association the past two years.
Now he’s doing college officiating for the NCAA Division II PAC WEST conference, which includes University of Hawaii (HI)-Hilo (Big Island), BYU-UH (Oahu), Hawaii Pacific (Oahu), Chaminade (Oahu), Dixie State (Utah), Grand Canyon (Arizona), Norte Dame de Namur.(California), California Baptist, Dominican (California), Academy of the Arts (California), and Fresno Pacific (California). Christmas week he officiated the 3^rd/4 ^th place in the Iolani Classic sponsored by NIKE.
He says he keeps his Kentucky license current and someday hopes to return him to wear stripes again.
The LoJo
This fall’s Big Blue vs. Big Red at Diddle Arena was fun. While NBA players were locked out, former Western Kentucky University player Ty Rogers-famous for his game-winning 3-pointer in the 2008 NCAA Tournament-organized an alumni game featuring former Hilltoppers and Kentucky Wildcats.
Big names for Big Blue included Chuck Hayes, Brandon Knight and Josh Harrellson. Knight was not available to play because he had been slightly injured in an exhibition in Lexington the night before. He showed his class by honoring his commitment to the game and signing autographs in Bowling Green. In street clothes he coached the Blue team, which included area guys Josh Carrier, Brandon Stockton and Ravi Moss. In fact, Moss, a graduate of University Heights Academy, was Kentucky’s top scorer.
WKU had far more talent on its team on this night, including NBA players Courtney Lee and Jeremy Evans along with the school’s best players of the 90s, Darnell Mee. Coach Jim McDaniel’s Big Red won with ease.
As coach, Knight got to talk frequently with a couple of local guys, Will Jones and South Logan’s Terry Baldwin, who were two-thirds of the officiating crew for the night.
*Back to McDaniels: His teammate on Western’s 1971 Final Four team, Clarence Glover, was a crowd favorite in the lobby of the YUM! Center on Dec, 23 at halftime of the Louisville-WKU game. He stands out in any crowd, but on this night he was standing with another gentle giant, former University of Louisville post player Felton Spencer. They seemed happy to talk with anyone who wanted an audience with them.
Nearby I found Craig Bailey, one of the stars of Coach Dick Webb’s Logan County 1993 regional finalist team. Seems like people should have been asking for his autograph, too.
*There’s always a Logan Connection, right? The Kentucky Wildcats are not the only ones familiar with the Zeller brothers. UK beat North Carolina and its senior center, Tyler Zeller. Then the Cats lost to Indiana and its freshman center, Cody Zeller.
Here’s the connection: The Zeller brothers were teammates at Washington High School near Evansville of Cody Lee, a former Lewisburg and LCHS athlete. Together they were state championships. Cody’s dad, Tom Lee, was the Lewisburg basketball coach about a decade ago.
There’s also a Connection with Tom Crean, coach of the Indiana Hoosiers, who knocked off number two Ohio State Saturday, three weeks after edging number one UK. Crean is a former assistant coach at WKU, which just happens to be located on Russellville Road. Also well acquainted with Russellville Road are Crean’s father-in-law, Jack Harbaugh, who coached WKU to the Division I-AA national championship, and Tom’s brothers-in-law, NFL coaches John and Jim Harbaugh. John has won road playoff games in his first three seasons with the Ravens. Jim is on his way to being NFL coach of the Year in his first season with San Francisco after having been a huge success at Stanford. They know Russellville Road, too.
You can make a strong case for the extended Harbaugh clan as the First Family of American Sports.