We gave you the 50 greatest sports icons from NKY last summer. Since we had so much fun with that, we’re bringing you another list of the 50 greatest things this summer…The 50 greatest prep sports teams from NKY.
Each day for the next 50 days, we’ll release one of the area’s 50 greatest prep sports teams. It starts June 22 and runs into the first few days of August. This is not a ranking 1-50, it’s just a collection of the 50 best sports teams ever assembled.
We’ll preface this by saying you may or may not agree with all 50 and that’s fine. Sports editor Evan Dennison assembled a panel of dedicated NKY sports fans to weigh in and give their takes on who should be on the list. We trust those people because of their history and knowledge of the game in NKY. We compiled numerous lists and identified the most certain candidates for inclusion.
Some of the traits we sought in these teams were state championships (almost certainly a requirement), dominance, and standout players and coaches. We may have cheated a little by lumping some dominant teams together that achieved numerous consecutive state titles, but that gives a few more teams an opportunity to be recognized.
I hope you enjoy this, as sports are slow in the summer. This list serves as a way to remember the past a little and keep you entertained daily as it continues.
Another note, while we respect and give coverage to golf, tennis, track and field, wrestling, cross country, bowling and others, we consider those individual sports, so any of those teams will not make the list.
Here we go!
Here’s the rundown of the 50 greatest prep sports teams day by day:
Day 1: 1998 Highlands Football
Day 2: 1963 Holmes Baseball
1963 Holmes Baseball
The 1963 Holmes baseball team was the seventh baseball state champion from Northern Kentucky. The Bulldogs went 23-3 that season with first-year coach Jon Draud. Draud, a former standout athlete at Eastern Kentucky University who would later serve as Kentucky Commissioner of Education, a state representative, superintendent and longtime Kenton County commissioner, was only 25 years old when he guided Holmes to the title in his first season as head coach.
They didn’t hit it exceptionally well with just three batters over the .300 mark, but they were disciplined and excelled at fundamentals, situational baseball and pitching. They had an overwhelming left-handed pitcher in Gary Sargent, who pitched all three games in the state tournament (would never happen in today’s game with pitch count limits). Sargent would go on to play in college at Indiana.
Tom Haney anchored third base, Jim Curry patrolled left field and Bill Blackburn played right field. The infield was steadied by shortstop Wayne Ferguson and a group of fundamentally sound defenders who rarely beat themselves. Catcher was Ralph Murphy, who hit a blistering .778 in the state tournament.
They had a Major Leaguer in Charlie “Pee Wee” Taylor, who was a freshman on the team. Taylor played for the Houston Astros and later worked in the office of the Cincinnati Reds from 1977-81 and was a pitching coach in the player development system for the Houston Astros from 1982-2012.
In the postseason, they beat Holy Cross (5-4) and Ludlow (5-2) in the district tournament. They took down Newport Central Catholic (2-0), Pendleton County (16-6) and Boone County (4-1) in the region tournament. They went on to defeat McDowell (5-0), Louisville Flaget (5-4) and Lone Oak (3-0) in the state tournament.
Coach Draud often noted that nine members of the team earned college degrees, reflecting the character and discipline that defined the group both on and off the field.
The Bulldogs carry the distinction as the lone city public school to last win a state baseball title out of Northern Kentucky (Newport won in 1940 and ’41). After a run of seven state titles from NKY teams from 1940-63, there’s only been one state baseball champ since from NKY, the 2002 Covington Catholic baseball team.
