In keeping with the season and the break in weather Wednesday, the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame’s final induction of the school year had very much a spring theme heading on to summer.
Golf, baseball and thoroughbred racing were the day’s dominant sports themes as five new inductees came on board with guest speaker Chip Bach, General Manager for Turfway Park/Newport Gaming, outlining how his operation plans to become a “major player” in the racing business starting in September.
But just because this was the final induction until the fall doesn’t mean the NKSHOF will be taking off. There’s the annual Jack Aynes Golf Outing Saturday, July 16, at Kenton County Golf Course and the annual Summer Awards Dinner Wednesday, Aug. 17, at the Arbor Room at the Gardens of Park Hills (1622 Dixie Highway), adjacent to the Covington Catholic campus. More info on those as we get nearer the dates.
And for only the second time in NKSHOF history, the group honored one of its board members – Jack Aynes, for whom the golf outing is named – in anticipation of his 90th birthday next month with a party afterward. The only other 90-year-old member so honored was founding Hall of Famer Bill Cappel.
Here are some quick takes from the five new inductees:
*** Steve Sigmon, a high-scoring Silver Grove guy who played at Piedmont College before returning to coach basketball, boys and girls; baseball; even drive the school bus at his alma mater; while twice being named basketball coach of the year. But his “biggest thrill” was being named ESPN’s Face of the Program for his more than four decades there, an honor given to the legendary likes of Owen Hauck (Boone County), Stan Arnzen (Newport), Ken Shields (Highlands), Benny Clary (Ludlow), Reynolds Flynn (Holmes) and Stan Steidel (Dayton) locally. Steve also had a multi-decade career as a softball player. “It’s been a long 40 years,” Steve said with a big smile as he saluted his wife and family for their support.
*** The sole fall sport inductee was Boone County’s Ray Arnold, a teammate of Shaun Alexander, who got a late start in football but made the most of it, leading Kentucky in sacks as a defensive end and earning a scholarship to Western Kentucky before a knee injury ended the career of the 6-foor-2, 300-pounder who could run the 40-yard dash in 4.85. In an inspiring acceptance speech, Arnold said “I’m a child of a single mom who walked me to practice . . . I was raised by Northern Kentucky,” he said of the multiple coaches like Hauck and Mike Murphy and a Florence police officer, Joe Humbert, who took the time to give him the special attention he needed to become the first of his family to either attend or graduate from college. “Football was my dad,” he said. “Boone County changed my life . . . I have a legacy now to give to my son . . . my children’s lives will never be the same . . . I may not be a son of Northern Kentucky but I’m a product of Northern Kentucky.” And in a saving move after thanking all his benefactors before leaving the mike, Ray jumped back for this finish: “. . . and I want to thank my wife.”
*** Dave Peru moved his sports focus from a not-all-that-great running back at Dixie Heights to a golf guy who has successful runs at World of Golf, where he thanked Ralph Landrum, who was here for the induction, for giving him a chance at the age of 19. From there he went on to “roll the dice” at Devou for six years before heading off for another roll of the dice taking over the Kenton County golf operation. “Without football, I wouldn’t be the person I am today,” he said of the regional and national recognition he’s earned from the likes of the Billy Casper Golf Association and Indigo Golf Partners. But it’s not about an individual, the youth basketball coach says, “it’s all about the team . . . about ‘we’.” The result: “We want to make an impact on the community, luckily that’s through golf.”
*** Another golf guy, Steve Cunningham, followed much the same pattern as Peru, lettering in both golf and football at Campbell County but choosing to follow golf where the long-time assistant pro at AJ Jolly Course was most recently chosen by developer David Bay to make his $1.4 million investment into a near-bankrupt Pendleton Hills Course a reality. After earning Cincinnati Magazine’s Golf Course of the Year honors for 2020, that seems to be just what Cunningham has done working the first 18 to 24 months “without a day off,” although playing down any credit coming his way. “When you look at my resume, you say why am I here?” he said with a laugh before thanking the many who made it possible. “I didn’t do it alone,” Cunningham said, “that’s why I mentioned all these people.”
*** Baseball, as a coach and player, and basketball as a shooter and scorer, were Larry Rose’s ticket from Dayton High School to the Hall of Fame. He was a tough lefty pitcher for the first NKSC baseball team with an ERA under 3.00 all his three years and then a baseball coach at his alma mater for more than two decades, but it’s his 39 years as a basketball referee that people know Rose for today at the age of 70 and still going strong in stripes. “I’ve spent 60 years of my life tossing or bouncing a ball,” he says, “I started at 10 and I’m still going strong.” Indeed. “They tell me the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame isn’t Cooperstown but for people who put a lot of years in . . . and I qualify for that.” He also qualifies as a shooter, he said: “There weren’t too many shots I took I didn’t like,” as a 22-points-per-game scorer, he said. That was his job. Credit that to the confidence he gained growing up on the court at St. Anthony’s in Bellevue where the rims could not have been tighter. “You were either going to swish it – or miss it,” he said. As for coaching, he credited Northern AD Mote Hils with this advice after he’d accepted his first job at his alma mater: “Keep ‘em happy,” he said, “if you do, they’ll do anything for you.”
*** Turfway Park’s Bach came on to conclude the day with a little history for Old/New Latonia-Turfway Park and a look at the future. As for Bach himself, he’s a Chicago native who grew up in Versailles, graduated from EKU and made it into Sports Illustrated with his photo as a high school kid who just missed getting into a sold-out Memorial Coliseum to view the 1978 Wildcat NCAA championship game.
For the history, Bach noted how the same horse, Leonidas, won both the 1883 Latonia and Kentucky Derbies when the Latonia race was a bigger deal. How the track installed the first electric starting gate and of course, how Eddie Arcaro started there. “It’s a historical place to work,” says Bach, who just concluded a December-April racing schedule where the only people at the track were the workers. All the patrons, all the betting, came elsewhere at a track without a grandstand but “several hundred” places around the nation where you can bet on Turfway races and where that generated more revenue in remote.
By September when they have the grand opening for the casino and the new 300-person dorm for the backside workers who live at the track is completed, and all the new big screen viewing areas are ready and the 1000 HRM’s (historical racing machines) – think slot machines for race bettors – are installed, they’ll “be getting one step closer to becoming a major race track,” Bach says.
They’ll also have a separate gig the other eight months a year when they’re not hosting races – hosting conferences and meetings on the premises according to Bach.
