The history of sports in Northern Kentucky goes back a long way. A very long way. Decades. Centuries.
We know you’ve seen these lists before, but this is a different and unique way of presenting our “50 sports icons in Northern Kentucky” as we’ll provide you one per day over the next 50 days.
Hall of Fames are everywhere in NKY, the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame, High School Athletic Directors Hall of Fame, NKU, Thomas More and local high schools all have something to recognize their past.
We’ll preface this series by saying this, some of you may disagree with who should or shouldn’t be in the top 50 and that’s fine. Plenty are in the Hall of Very Good, but we feel these 50 are the one’s who stuck out to us.
Sports Editor Evan Dennison spoke and conferred with several local NKY sports history buffs to get their opinions and lists of their own and who should be “locks” for the 50 sports icons. We compiled each list and came up with the 50 of our own (maybe cheated a little by putting families in as one) to present over the next 50 days.
Hope you enjoy as summer time rolls on!
The 21st of the 50 sports icons is former Beechwood coach Mike Yeagle. He guided the Tigers to eight state titles and one of the most dominant runs the state has ever seen in the 90’s.
MIKE YEAGLE
Yeagle is considered one of the most successful coaches in Northern Kentucky history. He’s on a short list with Dale Mueller, Bob Schneider, Homer Rice, Owen Hauck and Lynn Ray.
Yeagle graduated from Beechwood in 1979 where he was a three-sport standout. He started his coaching career at Beechwood in 1991 that spanned to 2005. In those 14 seasons (took one year off due to health issues), Yeagle compiled a record of 183-27, good for a .871 winning percentage, basically winning nine out of 10 games any given season. In the 90’s, the Tigers were the most successful team of the decade as they rattled off a still NKY record of 38 wins in a row and won 126 games with seven state titles.
All in all, Yeagle won eight state championships with the Tigers, four of them coming consecutively from 1991-94, the first Kentucky high school football coach to win four consecutive championships. Two of those teams went undefeated. Beechwood repeated under Yeagle in 1996-97.
He added two more state titles in ’99 and 2004. He resigned just before the 2002 season due to health reasons, but returned to the team in 2003. He’d coach at Lloyd Memorial for a short time, but again was forced to step away due to health reasons.
Among Yeagle’s many honors are induction into the Northern Kentucky Athletic Directors Association Hall of Fame and the Beechwood Hall of Fame. He’s also a Buddy LaRosa High School Hall of Fame inductee. Yeagle won several Northern Kentucky Athletic Conference coach of the year awards and was state coach of the year.
Yeagle died in May of 2024 at age 63.
See the 50 sports icons on a day-to-day basis over the next 50 days
— Day 1: Dave Cowens
— Day 2: Shaun Alexander
— Day 3: Homer Rice
— Day 4: Dicky Beal
— Day 5: Jared Lorenzen
— Day 6: Jim Bunning
— Day 7: Tom Ellis
— Day 8: Nate Dusing
— Day 9: Jim Connor
— Day 10: Steve Cauthen
— Day 11: Irv Goode
— Day 12: Stan Steidel
— Day 13: Kenney Shields
— Day 14: David Justice
— Day 15: Morgan Hentz
— Day 16: Eddie Arcaro
— Day 17: Nancy Winstel
— Day 18: Steve Flesch
— Day 19: Donna Murphy
— Day 20: Randy Marsh
— Day 21: Mike Yeagle
— Day 22: Derrick Barnes
— Day 23: Dale Mueller
— Day 24: Dave Faust
— Day 25: Kirsten Allen
— Day 26: The Oldendick family
— Day 27: Martin “Mote” Hils
— Day 28: Nell Fookes
— Day 29: Owen Hauck
— Day 30: Becky Ruehl
— Day 31: Tom Thacker
— Day 32: Sydney Moss
— Day 33: Bob Schneider
— Day 34: The Walz family
— Day 35: John Toebben
— Day 36: Pat Scott
— Day 37: Bob Arnzen
— Day 38: Joan Mazzaro
— Day 39: Frank Jacobs
— Day 40: Adrienne Hundemer
— Day 41: The Draud family
— Day 42: Bill Krumpelbeck
— Day 43: The Molony family
— Day 44: Allen Feldhaus
— Day 45: The Maile family
— Day 46: Maureen Egan Corl
— Day 47: Bill Aker
— Day 48: Maureen Kaiser
— Day 49: John Brannen
— Day 50: Mike Bankemper