Gary West

Over the years I’ve experienced some interesting, and sometimes funny happenings I have encountered all the way back to my college days, first at Western Kentucky University and then the University of Kentucky. Anyone who has ever written anything probably has a story to tell of the experience. Writing a story about someone or something usually requires a bit of research. This can often turn out to be more interesting than the original subject matter. It can be compared to taking a trip to see something special only to discover more interesting things to see and do along the way. With this in mind I’ve put together some memories beginning my...

Bobby Knight’s recent passing brought up memories of my encounter with the former Indiana basketball coach. It was like a volcano erupting in my ear when Coach Bobby Knight picked up the phone to answer my phone call back in 2014. I was in the middle of writing a book, Better Than Gold, about Kentuckian Kenny Davis. Davis had the distinction of being the captain of the United States 1972 Olympic basketball team that lost to the Russians in what has been called the most controversial game in America’s history. Knight, along with Joe B. Hall had been a part of Coach Henry Iba’s staff that selected the team. I wanted...

His life was the stuff movies are made of. You’ve probably seen such a movie where the Kentucky farm boy was the sixth of eight kids destined to make it big in something someday. He knew he wanted more than pitching bales of hay on his farm and for nearby neighbors in Greenup County, Kentucky. In 1968, standing 6-foot and weighing 190 pounds, his football, basketball and baseball coaches at McKell High School knew then this guy was special. He was destined for the Hall of Fame in at least one sport, maybe three. Few realize that Gullett still holds the single game football scoring record for high school in Kentucky....

It’s a time of year when many of us reflect on what has transpired over the past months. I for one have developed a philosophy when it comes to writing, and it is really quite simple. I want to write about what I think readers will enjoy. This column marks the twenty-first year. I know. I can’t believe it either. Two hundred and fifty-two columns have covered so much ground from one end of Kentucky to the other, that I can’t possibly remember them all. Or can I? There are times when I review columns of the past and, yes, I remember them all. Some, more than others, have drawn me...

Roy Kidd was a football coach. Was he ever! I got to know the former Eastern Kentucky coach a few years back while I was writing a book, “The Boys From Corbin, America’s Greatest Little Sports Town.” Roy Kidd was one of those boys. He died at 91 years of age on September 12. I knew of Coach Kidd, first as a college student and then as a sports fan, and later a writer. He became a national name. His Eastern Kentucky team made an unheard of four consecutive appearances in the Division 1-AA national championship game, winning in 1979 and 1982. There wasn’t much his Colonel teams didn’t win. In...

I’ve always enjoyed chasing a story. By this I mean writing something where the facts don’t jump up and smack you in the face. When I found out Coach John Burr of Adair County was going in the Kentucky Basketball Hall of Fame this year, I immediately set out on a chase. It tested my memory back some 65 years when I recalled a story in the Courier-Journal about the Adair County coach banning a radio broadcast at his gym in Columbia. My recall was that it was in the early 60s, but I could dig up zero on the internet. Was my mind playing tricks? The chase was on. A...

If you are a high school basketball historian and even followed some of the stars into their collegiate careers, mark your calendar for August 12. The Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame will be inducting 14 former prep greats and coaches at the Historic State Theater in downtown Elizabethtown. This group has as much statewide appeal as many of the classes before them and gives those who attend an opportunity to visit and share a story or two. The High School Basketball Hall of Fame began selecting members in 2012, and this group of inductees rivals many of the past with records, achievements, and careers that continued into the college...

Long before Buc-ees there was Stuckey’s. As Kentucky prepares for a second Buc-ees in Smiths Grove, Kentucky in the northern part of Warren County on I-65, the nostalgia of days gone by when a national chain of strategically located convenience stores dotted 12 major highways across the United States, including Kentucky. Texas-based Buc-ees opened its first Kentucky store in Richmond, Kentucky, in April 2022, and when they did it brought flashbacks of Stuckey’s. In 1937, W.S. Stuckey operated a small roadside store in Eastman, Georgia with a purpose of getting rid of an over abundance of pecans he had gathered. Soon he realized he was on to something as the emerging traveling...

Jim Brown died a couple of weeks ago. He was the Jim Brown many, even today, consider the greatest football player to ever play the game. He was 87. There was a day when he brushed against Warren County and Bowling Green. There is no real sports fan from Corbin to Paducah and points in between, who don’t know the name. He has withstood all of the modern day players and their record setting performances. Some may consider NFL Tom Brady as the G.O.A.T. of football, but there are knowledgable football watchers who say, “Not so fast.” It was Brown. In January 2020, Brown was named the greatest college football player of...

Road Trip! For more than twenty years I have been signing off my columns with the encouraging words of “get up, get out and get going!” I’ve always tried to take my own advice, as my wife and I will occasionally hop in the car and motor someplace not too far away for lunch. And now that warmer weather is here, perhaps this can happen more frequently. A few days ago, a friend of mine called me from E’town. “How about meeting us for lunch tomorrow in Danville?” Our calendar was clear, the weather looked good and we had no excuse for why we couldn’t. Listen up. A lunch trip from Paducah would...