Kentucky

Starting 5: Olympic champions highlight Kentucky’s 2024 Hall class, Jay Bilas to lecture

Published

2 years ago

August 18, 2024

Starting 5: Olympic champions highlight Kentucky’s 2024 Hall class, Jay Bilas to lecture

Kentucky’s 2024 Hall of Fame inductees include Olympic and NCAA champions.

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (2016-2018 track and field), John Cropp (administrator/coach), Henrik Larsen (2018 rifle), Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (2018 track and field), Jodie Meeks (2007-2009 men’s basketball) and Corey Peters (2006-2009 football) recently were chosen.

The new Wildcats Hall of Famers will be inducted during Hall of Fame Weekend on Sept. 20-21.

Camacho-Quinn is the first athlete in Puerto Rico history to win two Olympic medals. She won gold in the 100-meter hurdles at the Tokyo Olympics and bronze at the Paris Olympics. At UK, she was a two-time NCAA champion in the 100 hurdles and was part of the 2017 4×100 relay team that finished first at the national meet. She holds the program record in the 100 hurdles.

Cropp worked in multiple roles in UK athletics during his 22-year tenure. One of his most prominent accomplishments was being a founding administrator for the Kentucky softball program in 1997. After he retired, the softball stadium was named after him in 2013.

Larsen won a gold medal in the smallbore competition at the 2022 ISSF World Championships. In one year with the Wildcats, he won the 2018 NCAA air rifle individual national championship and set program records in smallbore, air rifle and aggregate. He was named the 2018 NCAA Shooter of the Year and NCAA Freshman of the Year.

McLaughlin-Levrone is a four-time Olympic gold medalist and holds the 400 hurdles world record. In one year at Kentucky, she was an NCAA champion in the 400 hurdles and broke the collegiate record (52.75 seconds). She was an SEC champion in the indoor 400 and outdoor 400 hurdles and 4×400 relay.

Meeks played on seven teams in 10 seasons in the NBA. He holds Kentucky’s single-season record for 3-pointers made (117) and has the second-most points scored in a season (854).

Peters played 13 years in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons, Arizona Cardinals and Jacksonville Jaguars. In his senior year at Kentucky, he recorded 56 tackles, including 12 for loss, and four sacks. He earned All-SEC first-team honors and was named UK’s Outstanding Defensive Player.

Louisville women’s golf head coach Whitney Young will be inducted into the Class of 2024 Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame.

Young competed for Glasgow High School in the 1994 Kentucky State Championships as a fourth grader. At 13 years old, she became the youngest winner of the Kentucky Amateur in 1998. She also won the 1999 and 2000 titles.

She was a four-time AJGA Polo Golf All-American and represented the United States in the 2002 PING Junior Solheim Cup.

Young was a three-time National Golf Coaches Association All-American at Georgia and a four-time first-team All-SEC honoree.

Young started as an assistant coach with the Cardinals, but she has been the head coach for the last five years. Young has led the Cardinals to two regionals. In 2021, they hosted the regional for the first time in program history.

More information on the ceremony will be released later.

More: Louisville’s Valhalla Golf Club to host Solheim Cup. What to know about LPGA Tour event

ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas will give a lecture Sept. 6 at Bellarmine’s Frazier Hall.

Bilas plans to discuss name, image and likeness activities in Division I sports, the transfer portal and the evolving landscape of college sports.

The lecture is scheduled to start at 4 p.m., and admission is free. Those who plan to attend are asked to register by Sept. 2 at the Wyatt Lecture registration site.

Louisville basketball mailbag: Which players stood out in Pat Kelsey’s unofficial debut?

Trinity High School senior pitcher Colton Cravens recently announced his commitment to Northwestern.

As a junior, Cravens struck out 26 batters and recorded four wins with a 2.30 ERA in 24 ⅓ innings.

Kentucky high school football preview: What to know about Louisville-area teams, players

Racing Louisville FC will host Chicago Red Stars at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Louisville City FC will visit Hartford Athletic at 7 p.m. Saturday.
The Louisville Bats will host the Gwinnett Stripers in a six-game series. Games begin at 6:35 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and at 7:15 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The last game of the series is scheduled for 1:05 p.m. Aug. 25.
Louisville men’s soccer will host Jacksonville at 5 p.m. Thursday.
Louisville women’s soccer will host New Hampshire at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Then, the Cardinals will visit Northern Kentucky at 5 p.m. Aug. 25.
Bellarmine men’s soccer will host Evansville at 7 p.m. Thursday. Then, the Knights will visit Northern Kentucky at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 25.
Bellarmine women’s soccer will host Asbury at 3 p.m. Aug. 25.

Know of a story you think should be included in our weekly Starting 5 notebook? Send your idea to sports reporter Prince James Story at pstory@gannett.com for consideration. You can follow him on X at @PrinceJStory.

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Kentucky

Kentucky mother, daughter turn down $26 million offer for their land: “It’s priceless”

Published

12 hours ago

March 26, 2026

Press Room

Kentucky mother, daughter turn down million offer for their land: “It’s priceless”

Kentucky mother, daughter turn down $26 million offer for their land: “It’s priceless” – CBS News

Watch CBS News

A mother and daughter in Kentucky have turned down a $26 million offer for their land. The offer came from an unnamed tech company wanting to build a data center. CBS News’ Jared Ochacher spoke with the family.

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Kentucky

Key dates and a possible sneak peek for Kentucky Basketball fans

Published

24 hours ago

March 26, 2026

Press Room

Key dates and a possible sneak peek for Kentucky Basketball fans

During his recent radio show, Pope offered a sobering reality check regarding the timeline for the rest of his staff overhaul.

“We’re going through a little bit of a hiring process that will be ongoing—probably for the next six weeks,” Pope explained. “We could have some closure on some things quickly, but I can’t really talk in detail about anything until it gets through the whole HR process.”

In a vacuum, a six-week HR timeline is standard corporate procedure. But in the modern landscape of college basketball, that timeline is a massive hurdle because of the newly accelerated Transfer Portal window instituted by the NCAA.

The 15-Day Transfer Portal window

Players cannot officially enter their names into the Transfer Portal until April 7th. However, anyone paying attention knows that backdoor deals are already being orchestrated, and agents are prematurely announcing their clients’ intentions to leave. It is an unregulated mess, but it is the reality of the sport.

That April 7th opening is the first major date to circle on your calendar.

Once the portal opens, it remains active for exactly 15 days. When that window slams shut, no new names can enter. There are no graduate exemptions or special loopholes for late decisions. If a player plans on transferring, they must formally notify their current school before that 15-day window expires on April 21st at 11:59 PM. If they miss the deadline, they are stuck.

Mark Pope has to have his staff aligned, his evaluations complete, and his recruiting pitches perfected before that window opens. It is indeed a very short clock as the coaching staff looks to change drastically.

Once the dust from the transfer portal finally settles, the new-look Wildcats will quickly hit the floor.

Official mid-June practices will tip off the summer schedule, but Pope recently hinted that an international offseason trip is currently in the works. Per NCAA rules, college basketball programs are only allowed to take these foreign exhibition tours once every four years.

If the trip gets finalized, BBN will get a highly anticipated, early look at this brand-new roster competing against actual opponents long before Big Blue Madness in the fall.

Needless to say, it is going to be an incredibly busy, high-stakes few months in Lexington.

Any guesses on where Pope and company plan on going? And do you like the new Transfer Portal window?

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Kentucky

Kentucky optometry board faces pushback on proposed reforms

Published

1 day ago

March 25, 2026

Press Room

Kentucky optometry board faces pushback on proposed reforms

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – Kentucky’s optometry board is trying to address a scandal after years of issuing waivers for optometry graduates who couldn’t pass their national exams.

The board reversed course earlier this year. But at a public hearing on the new rules, the national testing group said the reforms still carve out loopholes.

Nevada and New Hampshire say they will not accept the testing exceptions Kentucky has proposed and won’t recognize Kentucky optometry licenses as equivalent to their own.

21 Kentucky optometrists have been under scrutiny.

At Wednesday’s public hearing, the state gave the public under 15 minutes to make their case.

Public voices opposition at brief hearing

In the conference room of a Holiday Inn Express, two members of the public voiced their opposition to Kentucky’s proposed reforms. Both are from the National Board of Examiners in Optometry.

“The KBOE has not taken the straightforward and obvious path to ensure public safety,” NBEO Secretary/Treasurer Daniel Taylor said.

“The Kentucky optometry board has lost its way, putting patient safety at risk and placing a lower priority on public health than on upholding competency standards,” said NBEO Executive Director Jill Bryant.

Kentucky reversed itself after a series of reports about optometrists who were granted licenses with waivers. Some didn’t pass a single part of the national exams.

In February, the state said optometrists with these waivers would have to stop performing laser procedures and would be dropping a Canadian substitute test. But it did not prohibit these doctors from practicing and proposed other alternative tests.

Daniel Taylor said these tests have been standardized across the country for a simple reason.

“If you were to see an optometrist in Kentucky, and then go across the border and see an optometrist in another state or move to another state, you would have to check with the local standards to see what those levels of quality were,” Taylor said.

No one else spoke. The optometry board did not respond, saying it will file its response as part of the process, taking this feedback into consideration.

A letter from NBEO to the state revealed the group had questioned how 21 optometrists had gotten their licenses based on their lack of testing records.

The state board denied WAVE’s records request for another letter NBEO sent to the board in the fall. The attorney general’s office is currently reviewing our appeal.

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