Keith Elkins

This week on the WUKY SportsPage Keith Elkins chats with new UK Athletics Hall of Famer Derek Bryant who played baseball for the Big Blue and then a successful career in Major League Baseball.

COVID-related decisions, changes in technology, the introduction of new sports activities — that’s just a small sample of the endless variety of challenges Julian Tackett has faced in his 12-plus years as commissioner of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association and 39 years overall with the KHSAA. In this conversation with Keith Elkins, he talks about those issues, as well as his background, which was influenced by his work with sports figures such as former University of Kentucky football coach Jerry Claiborne, longtime UK sports information director Russell Rice, and former Transylvania basketball coach Don Lane, among many others.

Cameron Mills was a member of two national championship teams at Kentucky. He began his college career as a walk-on, but became a key contributor with his outstanding shooting. He still holds the UK record for three-point field goal percentage for a season (53.2, 42-79 in 1996-97). As of this season, he realized a long-term goal in his broadcasting career, joining the UK Sports Network radio team on the basketball pregame show. This conversation covers his development as a player, which was guided early by his father, former Wildcat Terry Mills, as well as his experience at UK. Coach Rick Pitino delivered an unexpected type of motivational message in their first conversation after Cameron joined the team, but success and championships followed under Pitino and Tubby Smith. Mills’ faith has always been an important part of his life, and today he continues to bring that message to a wide range of audiences through Cameron Mills Ministries. His dedication to his broadcasting career — with many high school ga

In the mid-1990s, Brooks Downing was the sports information director for men’s basketball at the University of Kentucky, where he worked closely with coaches Rick Pitino and Tubby Smith during a run that included two national championships. Today, he’s a sports entrepreneur, the founder and president of bdG Sports, a marketing and event management company that has established a strong presence in college basketball and professional golf with events across the U.S. and in the Bahamas. He’s a UK graduate and a Lexington native.

Tom Hammond recently retired after a distinguished career in sports broadcasting with NBC. A University of Kentucky graduate, he got his start on radio in his hometown of Lexington, and began his television career as sports director at WLEX-TV in the late 1960s.This conversation covers, among other topics, the early assignments he handled in Lexington, the variety of events he broadcast to a network audience, and some of the partners he worked with over his 34 years with NBC.

In celebration of Opening Day in Cincinnati we present this conversation between Keith Elkins and Reds play-by-play announcer John Sadak. The two discuss his long and varied sportscasting career which now includes calling the action for professional baseball's oldest franchise.

Dennis Johnson is a former All-American and all-SEC defensive end at Kentucky. He played in the NFL for the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers, and today is in his ninth season as head football coach at Woodford County High School, where his teams have a combined 24-3 record over the last two years. He was named Kentucky’s Mr. Football for 1997, and was also a star in basketball and track and field at Harrodsburg High School. He was the USA Today National High School Defensive Player of the Year in 1997. In this interview, he recalls his early start — a really early start — in football (he was on the high school varsity roster when he was in the second grade), his recruitment to UK, which had to beat out Notre Dame for his signature, playing defense on Kentucky teams coached by offensive-minded Hal Mumme, his NFL teammates with the Arizona Cardinals, and his success as a high school coach.

Leroy Byrd, listed at five-feet-five, but as he says, “no more than five-three,” played basketball for the University of Kentucky and UNLV after finishing a high school career in which he earned state and regional honors while leading Bryan Station to the Sweet Sixteen. He later played professionally for the Harlem Magicians and in the World Basketball League. Known as “Baby Magic,” Byrd contributed to his team’s offense with scoring and assists and disrupted opponents with ball-hawking defense.In this interview, he talks about getting his start in basketball, his confidence and motivation to succeed, his high school and college coaches (Bobby Barlow at Bryan Station, Jerry Tarkanian at UNLV, Joe B. Hall and Eddie Sutton at Kentucky), and some of his keys to success in a tall player’s sport.Byrd will be inducted into the Lexington African-American Sports Hall of Fame September 23rd.

Mike Battaglia is known to thoroughbred racing fans everywhere as an announcer, an analyst and handicapper. He called the races at Churchill Downs, including the Kentucky Derby, from 1977 to 1996. He worked with ABC and for many years, NBC, on national coverage of the Triple Crown races. He has set the morning line odds at Churchill Downs and Turfway Park. For years, racing fans would look for Mike’s picks in newspapers around the state before heading to the track. A native of northern Kentucky, he was inducted into the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame in 2017. In this conversation, he recalls his first assignment in race calling at Miles Park in Louisville, his days on network television (including a less-than-smooth relationship with ABC’s Howard Cosell), and his first call of a Kentucky Derby, the 1978 running that was part of the great Affirmed-Alydar rivalry.

Kenny Walker earned All-American honors in basketball at the University of Kentucky. He is the second leading all-time scorer in men’s basketball with 2,080 points, behind only Dan Issel who had 2,138. A native of Roberta, Georgia (2020 population: 813), Kenny was a McDonald’s All-American in high school before coming to UK in 1982. He is a member of the charter class of the UK Athletics Hall of Fame. He was the fifth overall pick in the 1986 NBA draft by the New York Knicks, and played in the NBA for the Knicks and the Washington Bullets. He also played professionally in Spain, Italy and Japan. We talked about his coming to UK from Roberta, his development into a college star and some of the teammates who were a big part of his success, as well as his relationships with coaches Joe B. Hall, Eddie Sutton and later in the NBA, Rick Pitino. His professional experience, both in the NBA and internationally, are also part of the conversation.