No surprise Rob Butcher, winner Wednesday of one of many two new awards on the annual Summer Reunion of the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame, mentioned he “felt a little out of place,” in accepting his special recognition trophy for “running around the world” by totaling 24,901 miles of piling up distance mileage the previous 18 years.
“I’ve only lived here 30 years,” the Park Hills resident and retired Reds vice-president for media relations mentioned after listening to many of the tales of these who got here earlier than him. The University of Dayton grad and Wilmington, Ohio native arrived right here after making it for 3 loopy years working for the Yankees and George Steinbrenner.
“I can’t compare to the leadership and perseverance of those who came before me,” Butcher mentioned of the NKSHOF winners though the quantity of perseverance it takes to run world wide (determine on operating 5 miles a day for 5 days per week for 20 years).
But as a man who estimates he’s carried out about half these miles in Devou Park, “there isn’t a better place to live,” he says of Northern Kentucky after spending 36 years of his life in Major League Baseball working 22 All-Star Games and 21 World Series.
He obtained began when a pal requested him if he was anticipating as he seemed down on the little bit of a paunch on his slim body. So Rob began operating. And 4 years in the past, he realized he’d reached 20,000 miles. “How far is that?” he requested himself. And then he discovered he wasn’t that far from reaching the circumference of the earth on the equator. So he saved on operating. And on June 8, he made it.
Although the issue with operating world wide is that by the point you get the place you’re going, you’re proper again on the place you began. “I hadn’t thought of that,” Rob says. Although in his case, that’s not a foul factor.
He’d be again in Northern Kentucky, a spot he loves.
And on this night time, this was a spot the place the lineup of 9 winners was introduced by one other Reds’ worker from Northern Kentucky, Joe Zerhusen, the wealthy, acquainted voice of Great American Ball Park for the final 23 years with a sound that was so recognizable.
And the problem was to comply with the primary winner named – Brad Fritz, who was awarded the Derrick Rhoden Perseverance Award.
“Possibly one of the best known persons in Northern Kentucky,” presenter Dick Maile mentioned of Brad, now 41, who is working his method again from not too long ago having been significantly injured when an auto hit him on Turkeyfoot Road the place he waves to greet passers-by as an extension of his dedication to flip the accident that put him in a wheelchair for all times when he was simply 15. He communicates with a computer-generated program telling his story in an outreach program talking to faculty and group teams throughout the nation.
Bryan Flaugher, who has saved the scorebook at Augusta High School for the final 45 years and appears to know everybody in consequence, has overcome life on crutches and might nicely know extra individuals in Augusta than anybody ever, gained the Thomas John Fricke Service Award for his dedication to his faculty and group.
But he was extra thrilled with getting to be one of many few who have represented the historic river group right here. “We don’t have many,” he mentioned of Augusta Hall of Famers.
Ludlow’s Jack Aynes was solely the second-oldest Panther in the room behind senior softball nationwide standout Jack Hatter, going sturdy at 95 and right here to see his schoolmate and teammate.
But Aynes, from the Ludlow High Class of 1951 who gained 15 letters in highschool earlier than choosing it up much more as one of many early founders of the NKSHOF, a creator of the scholarship program and the golf tourney that raises the cash for it in addition to the person behind the Ludlow Sports Hall of Fame, gained the Joe Brennan Leadership Award named for the 23-year president of the group who oversaw the group’s progress to the place it’s immediately.
And Jack gained the award for the shortest speech.
“Tonight, here we are,” Jack mentioned. “Tomorrow, there we were.”
Jim Claypool would current the award named after himself, the unique NKU Dean of Students, to one in every of his personal – longtime NKU coach and Athletic Director Jane Meier, whose tenure from 1988 to 2009 noticed the NKU athletic funds go from $800,000 a yr to $5 million in a program that led the nation in giving equal alternatives to ladies in sports. No surprise her resume is “four pages long,” Claypool mentioned of Meier, who got here alongside earlier than Title IX had made any influence and may solely play slow-pitch softball rising up at St. Pius X Grade School earlier than teaching three sports at NKU.
Northern would make her simply the 57th girl ever to develop into a university AD and the primary in Kentucky. “It was a profession not that open to women,” Jane mentioned, praising so many alternatives that got here her method thanks to her family – “We were given so much by our families” — and her NKU household, the place she spent 31 years and met her husband, Steve, a former NKU basketball participant, who has spent 43 years working at his alma mater.
Linda Moore, winner of the Pat Scott Lifetime Achievement Award named for the Northern Kentuckian whose pitching exploits for the Ft. Wayne Daisies had been featured in the film, “A League of Their Own,” and who is in the Baseball Hall of Fame together with her All-American Girls League mates, additionally got here alongside too early to play sports in faculty. But the Scott High coach from 1978 to 1999, discovered a method to put together herself by taking part in AAU basketball in Ohio and studying the sport.
“I got to live my dream every day,” she mentioned, including that “I miss it every day.” And speaking about how fortunate she was to work in the Kenton County system the place she had nothing however “great kids” to work with.
When they got here to provide Joe “Bones” Egan the job of director of operations for Bellevue High soccer, the longtime Tiger booster who performed in the final recreation on the previous fitness center and the primary recreation on the faculty’s Ben Flora Gym, instructed them he “didn’t know that much about football.” No drawback, they mentioned, “you know Bellevue.”
And Bellevue is aware of Joe, the person who will take all this system’s soccer uniforms residence with him and wash them up for the subsequent recreation. When they requested “Bones” on retiring from the University of Cincinnati what he deliberate to do, he instructed them “I’m going to my dream job – a full-time Bellevue Tiger.” No shock then that Joe is the winner of the James “Tiny” Steffen Humanitarian Award for the message he lives and communicates that “high school sports aren’t about wins and losses,” however about relationships you make and how Joe “will be your friend for life.”
Through a number of coronary heart surgical procedures, former Thomas More basketball nice John Wenderfer has been the driving power behind the NKSHOF’s annual golf event, the foremost fund-raiser for scholarships. He sells the outlet sponsorships, will get the sponsor indicators made up and displayed, makes certain all of the meals is there for the day and the meals prep dealt with.
But it’s not that John, winner of the Bill Cappel Community Contribution Award named for the NKSHOF founder who might have carried out extra for sports in Northern Kentucky than anybody who ever lived, is doing all this alone.
“Thank my family and friends,” he says. “When I volunteer, they volunteer.”
Recently retired St. Henry boys’ basketball coach Dave Faust, the winningest all-time basketball coach in Northern Kentucky historical past, didn’t suppose he’d be doing many extra of those talking gigs now that he’s retired after 33 years at St. Henry and on the day earlier than his forty third anniversary. Although he was fairly certain that getting the ultimate slot on a full nine-deep lineup card was possibly not the most effective place to be as he accepted his Lifetime Achievement in Coaching Award.
“I’m sure you’re all ready to go,” the previous St. Anthony, Newport Central Catholic and Thomas More guard mentioned as he thanked the coaches – Jim Connor, John Gross, Gary Schulte and Bob Schneider — who mattered a lot in his life. But they weren’t prepared to roll out as dozens of attendees hung round catching up with each other afterward.
Contact Dan Weber at [email protected]. Follow him on X (previously Twitter) @dweber3440.