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 30th of the 50 sports icons is Becky Ruehl, the Villa Madonna grad who turned into Kentucky’s greatest ever high school diver. She was a five-time state champion from ’91 to ’95. She was also an Olympian in ’96, finishing 4th in the 10m competition at Atlanta.
BECKY RUEHL
Becky Ruehl’s journey from Lakeside Park to the Olympic stage began as an eight-year-old diver with the Cincinnati Stingrays under Coach Charlie Casuto. A former gymnast, Ruehl quickly took to the sport and never looked back. Competing for Villa Madonna Academy, she won five straight KHSAA state diving titles and six consecutive regional championships, beginning in the seventh grade.
By the time she reached high school, Ruehl was already on the international stage. She won a bronze medal at the 1995 Pan American Games in Argentina as a teenager, then etched her name into history at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics by finishing fourth on the platform, narrowly missing a medal. She became the first Northern Kentuckian to compete in the Olympics.
Ruehl continued her diving career at the University of Cincinnati, where she became the first female UC athlete to win an NCAA championship by capturing the platform title in 1996. She was a five-time All-American, earned National Diver of the Year honors, and won multiple NCAA and national titles in platform and three-meter events. She added a USA Nationals victory to her résumé and competed through the 2000 Olympic Trials before retiring after finishing seventh.
In 1995, she was named Kentucky’s Outstanding Female Athlete of the Year and received numerous national honors, including the Phillips 66 Performance Award and the USOC Diver of the Year. A first-ballot LaRosa’s Hall of Fame inductee, Ruehl was enshrined in the UC Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005.
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