Student engagement coordinator for the Kenton County School District Matt Wilhoite has been named the new president of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association Board of Control.
Wilhoite previously served in the role during the 2022-23 academic year. He’s a Northern Kentucky lifer, graduating from Covington Catholic and Northern Kentucky University and has been a coach at Boone County and Athletic Director at Cooper and Dixie Heights. Wilhoite also serves as the Executive Secretary for the Northern Kentucky Athletic Conference.
Some of his involvement as president includes pre-planning KHSAA Board of Control meetings that happen typically on a bi-monthly basis, working with commissioner Julian Tackett on the agenda for those meetings and keeping an eye on legislative matters that pertain to high school sports.
“It’s a great honor to be nominated and elected by the other 17 board members that they have the confidence in you and are able to get stuff done,” Wilhoite said.
Here’s a few things that were asked to Wilhoite by LINK nky:
Some things to look forward to next year include the possibility of realignment in some regions, not just pertaining to football that have already been realigned.
“There’s never a dull moment,” Wilhoite said. “The big ticket item recently is the football realignment and that’s more in line with movement of schools and how quickly things change. That’s why we made it a two-year realignment and not a four-year like we have in the past. We cleaned up classes based strictly off enrollment. Sometimes people are adamant in moving schools up or down, but a lot of stuff goes into that. So we go by enrollment and that’s what we use.”
While realignment could be on the horizon in other sports such as basketball, Wilhoite expressed it won’t be an overhaul of every region.
“Most will probably stay put, but there might be some movement,” Wilhoite said.
The KHSAA will also be sanctioning a couple more sports next calendar year in boys volleyball and boys and girls lacrosse.
“We’re always looking for ways to improve and more give more opportunities for the kids,” Wilhoite said.
While it’s not a pressing issue, Wilhoite said they’ll be keeping an eye on the trend of homeschool programs that are looking for KHSAA eligibility and popping up more and more recently.
“We’ll follow legislation with homeschool and enrollment. Not sure if that’s a hot button, but we’re always paying attention with the assembly,” Wilhoite said. “There’s homeschool teams popping up more frequently. Not sure what the General Assembly will do, but it’s definitely on the horizon. What that looks like, I don’t know.”
Having a long history with NKY, Wilhoite feels the region is in pretty good shape in all sports.
“I think we’re one of the top regions in the state in all sports. Not sure you’ll find a deeper region in most sports,” Wilhoite said. “The 9th, any sport, you can put them up with anyone in the state. Any sport that comes out of the region is battle tested and ready to compete for a state championship.”
Wilhoite will start his term in July, the KHSAA Board of Control meeting will be in Newport that month.