Mike Tussey: Awards and recognitions — a celebration of performance

From your first day of elementary school, somewhere along the line, you likely were awarded a nice certificate for an accomplishment. Your first one could have been a “Perfect Attendance” award when you didn’t miss a day of school. Very hard to do, but lots of kids did just that.

Awards are in our lives seemingly in some manner early and usually continue throughout our lives. These awards actually are a barometer of our efforts and reflect our success.

We all seem to remember when we brought your report card home from school and our parents were eager to see our grades and determine our success in the classroom. Sometimes if you were lucky, Mom and Dad rewarded you with a token of pride in some manner.

As life moves on and you were graduating from high school with great success in the classroom, perhaps you were awarded levels of excellence ranging from Magna Cum Laude to Suma cum Laude. These levels of accomplishments and success reflect certain capabilities, leadership, and goals that will certainly assist your mission and entry into college.

If you continued to excel throughout your college years and graduate as you did in high school with high honors; your resume into your chosen profession will certainly be noticed by potential employers.

However, there are other levels of success that merit awards as well other than in the classroom. Your success from Middle School through High School may well have been in athletics. For your performance on the field of competition you may have been awarded a varsity letter that you wore proudly. Success in athletics certainly translates into possible college scholarships and a bright future.

So, throughout your early educational years and into college, the pride you possess for your accomplishments propels your self esteem to the heavens.

Once you are into your career, the presence of competition still exists for key promotions. Here again, is where you need to excel with performance and be goal-oriented. Even with your career and success; it’s a good bet you would continue to attain standards of excellence awards as well.

From the classroom, work place, athletics, and even Hollywood, there are awards that become a new contract, trophies, and certainly new opportunities. From the Oscars in Hollywood, to the National Halls of Fame in athletics and so much more, you can feel and see the excitement that resonates from their persona as they know they have attained ultimate success.

So, what is it that drives success into the Best of the Best?

The answer is ambition driven by a vision that enables success.

Certainly there are other tokens that are meant to perpetuate continued years of success and legacy. Tokens such as awarding names to press boxes, stadiums, courts, fields, rings, even bobble heads all perpetuate memory, performance and success.

Northern Kentucky University Basketball has two legendary coaches who reflect the very meaning of success and excellence in Hall of Famers, Coach Kenny Shields and Coach Nancy Winstel.

Northern Kentucky legendary basketball coach, Kenny Shields certainly paved his way into his legacy over the years as Basketball coach at St. Thomas 10 years, 13 at Highlands and 16 at NKU. At NKU, Coach Shields took his Norse to the NCAA DII title games twice, 1996-1970. Later in his career, was named “Coach of the Year.” When you combine Coach Shields’s record over those 39 years at the high school level and college, he logged 766 wins. In October 2022, Coach Shields was honored once again. This time it was a surprise when he was honored by the city of Fort Thomas as they named the basketball courts at Fort Thomas Tower Park, “Kenny Shields Basketball Courts.” Coach Shields worked for the city of Covington from 1961-1985 handling the summer recreation programs and later at Fort Thomas from 1986-1988 in the same capacity.

When you think of NKU Women’s Basketball you instantly think of Hall of Fame Coach, Nancy Winstel. Coach Winstel was NKU’s Women’s coach from 1983-2012. She guided the Norse to two NCAA DII Championships in 2000 and 2008 and also took NKU to 5 Final Fours. Under Coach Winstel, the Norse won the Great Lakes Valley Conference 10 times. Coach Winstel was named the WBCA DII National Coach of the Year 1999-2000. In 2009 she was named National Coach of the Year when she posted her 600th career victory.

Here are a few stadiums and venues from here in Northern Kentucky that bear special names:

• Covington Catholic-Wooten Field at Dennis Griffith Stadium
• Covington Holmes-Tom Ellis Stadium
• Ft. Thomas Highlands-David Cecil Memorial Stadium
• Simon Kenton-Chlorine B. Menifee Stadium
• Ludlow-James Rigney Stadium.

Another way that reflects performance, vision, success and tenure are prestigious Halls of Fame. I am humbled and honored to have been inducted into the West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame, the CP-1 Baseball Hall of Fame and the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame.

When you are selected for induction into a Hall of Fame, you are usually notified months in advance of your big day when you will receive your beautiful award plaque. However, sometimes it doesn’t always work that way.

Saturday, August 26 I returned to my hometown of Ashland, Kentucky for the annual CP-1 Baseball Hall of Fame inductions at 1 p.m. and Ashland Stan Musial Baseball’s 41st Homecoming Reunion at 4 p.m.

I had contacted Mayor Matt Perkins in regard to a proclamation honoring our team’s 2 State Championships and 6 league titles. The Mayor replied that he would indeed make the proclamation for August 26. Shortly before 1 p.m. at the Hall of Fame inductions, Mayor Perkins presented me with the plaque of his city-wide proclamation for our team.

We shook hands and chatted and then he was called to the podium to open up the Hall of Fame inductions. After welcoming everyone, he then began talking about me which totally surprised me. Then he turned, called me to the podium and presented me with a ‘KEY TO THE CITY.”

I was totally surprised and so humbled for such a wonderful honor and incredible award.

So, once in awhile some awards can and will come your way when you least expect it.

It did for Coach Kenny Shields and me.

Remember, awards and recognition are solid proof that they are always a result of ambition, vision and effort.

They can happen anytime.

Mike Tussey has “retired” from a 60-plus-year career as a legendary play-by-play announcer for over 2000 football, baseball, and basketball games, including most recently for ESPN+. His career also includes a stint in law enforcement, teaching and coaching, and writing books, including the “Touchdown Saints.” He grew up in Eastern Kentucky and now lives in Florence with his wife, Jo. He has opened another “Door of Opportunity” and is now a regular columnist for the NKyTribune.