NKyTribune
Northern Kentucky's Newspaper
On a day when there were just four new inductees to the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame, Dr. James Claypool opened the festivities Wednesday with some pre-Kentucky Derby thoroughbred information that has gone mainstream.
Terrific stuff from the sports historian and former Northern Kentucky University Dean of Students and vice-president who goes back more than a half-century to a time before the school opened its doors: “Employee 01,” the Beechwood High and Centre College grad described himself before giving a quick history of how Kentucky became the dominant place in the world for thoroughbred racing. Hint: limestone and bluegrass.
All the more reason to buy his newest book (with Robert D. Webster) – A TRADITION REBORN: From Old Latonia Race Track to Turfway Park Racing and Gaming – a 140-year History. And how dozens of our daily expressions – from “upset” to “down the stretch” to “hands down” owe their origin to the race track.
Here are the highlights from the NKSHOF April class:
WENDELL ALDER, Ludlow: In what may have been the shortest-ever acceptance speech, Ludlow’s Wendell Alder, an all-conference and all-region baseball and basketball player for the Panthers who hit .464 as a senior and was basketball MVP and later a Ludlow Hall of Famer, thanked the three women who helped make it possible – his mom, his sister and his wife of 33 years.
Then he talked of how he’d been a part of NKSHOF events like the annual golf tournament over the years.
And now he’s a Hall of Famer himself. “It makes me feel better to be a part of the family now,” Wendell said, “real proud.”
DAVE MACKE, Covington Catholic: He was not going to be as brief as Wendell, Macke said right away. He had people to thank, like his brother Jay, and stories to tell, stories refined through the 19th Holes from high school to college to Traditions and Summit Hills Country Club. Although Macke, who scored 998 points at CovCath in basketball didn’t even mention what it’s like to fall two points short of the exclusive 1,000-Point Club.
“In high school, I thought I was a better basketball player than golfer,” he said although an un-named CovCath teammate – later ID’ed as Dave Rechtin — in his NKSHOF induction speech thanked Dave for missing so many shots allowing him to get all those rebounds that earned him a college scholarship. Not true, Macke said, he was a pass-first guy. But after two years in college in Florida and finding out he wasn’t as good as he thought he was and two years back at NKU where his game went backwards, he tossed his clubs away although he couldn’t be sure if he’d thrown them “into the garbage or the lake behind the ninth green at Ft. Mitchell Country Club.”
But after six years away from the game, a job selling E-Z Go golf carts got him back. And this time, playing against golfers better than he was, he practiced and practiced. And got better. “And for 30 years, I had a pretty good career,” Dave says of a resume that includes two Northern Kentucky Amateur championships, as well as a runner-up and third-place finish with three titles in the Northern Kentucky two-man and eight more in the Greater Cincinnati two-man. He won a Kentucky State Mid-Am title, qualified four times for the USGA championships, was a seven-time club champ at Traditions in men’s and senior play and three-time senior champ at Summit Hills.
“I still want to do it,” Macke said, but “can’t do it.”
SHANE POPHAM, CovCath: Looking out the window at The Arbors in Park Hills, former CovCath soccer player Shane Popham talked of how it was “a full circle moment” as he looked at where he started kicking a soccer ball. But as a “soccer player turned to football,” he took it to a record-breaking place in 2006 for the state champion Colonels, converting a then Kentucky state high school record 19 field goals – five from more than 50 yards with a long of 57 to sweep first-team all-state honors while earning national prep kicker of the year from MaxPreps and a full scholarship to Wake Forest.
“Hall of fames are funny,” Popham said, “they’re about individuals but it’s not really about individuals, it’s about the people around you. My parents made it to every one of my games at Wake Forest” where the best part of it was getting together “with friends and family after the game.” And then there was CovCath “Coach John Rodenberg who believed when we hit the 50-yard line, we were in,” Popham said, “we were not.” But almost.
And now he can look back to a successor from CovCath whose family encouraged him in his backyard kicking practice just as he did Trey Gronotte, who went on from CovCath as a two-time state champion kicker who “will graduate a month from now at West Point” after a big senior season at Army.
DR. BRETT COLDIRON, Dixie Heights:  Playing football at Dixie Heights “was life-changing for me,” said Coldiron, who thanked Coach Dave Browning and his staff for helping them to a 22-1-1 record his final two years there as an offensive tackle earning a scholarship to Wabash, where his team would play for the NCAA Division III championship in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, falling short, 29-26, to Wagner.
That loss and the lone loss in Kentucky, 14-13, to Lexington Bryan Station in the state playoffs, “taught me you can’t always win.” But you can persevere. As Coldiron did in going through UK Medical School before practicing in Cincinnati while living in Northern Kentucky.
“Athletics in Northern Kentucky gave me the ability to overcome all my obstacles,” said Coldiron, who has gone on to become the founder of the Skin Cancer Center in Cincinnati where he has become one of world’s most distinguished Mohs surgeons (a micrographic technique for removing skin cancer) with more than 50,000 successful surgeries.
Dr. Coldiron is a clinical professor at the UC Medical School and past president of the 18,000-member American Academy of Dermatology and distinguished lecturer at the Cleveland Clinic, Harvard Medical School and the Mayo Clinic, while also lecturing in Canada, Indonesia, South Africa, Dubai, United Arab Emirates and India.
4 AWARDED NKSHOF SCHOLARSHIPS
Here are this year’s four college scholarship winners:
Shelly Shields, Highlands: Shelly is the granddaughter of Hall of Fame vice-president Kenney Shields and the second-last of his 16 grandkids. She’s headed to Indiana University where she’s been admitted to the business school after a track and field career and as a member of Highlands’ state and national champion dance team.
Will Kelsch, Augusta: The third-generation member of a Hall of Fame family from Augusta averaged 12.9 points a game this basketball season, he also plays baseball, and will take his 4.06 GPA to NKU.
Madison Jean Wherry McFarland, Newport Central Catholic: The granddaughter of one of Northern Kentucky’s greatest ever athletes, Walt Wherry, and the second-leading scorer on the NewCath basketball team will be taking her academic career to UK.
Logan Dirks, CovCath: The baseball-basketball Colonel follows in the footsteps of his NKSHOF grandfather, Jim Nageleisen, one of CovCath’s all-time baseball-basketball stars, as he takes his academic career to UK.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.
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