Dan Weber’s Just Sayin”: NKSHOF winners speak with one voice: Give back to community that gave them so much

They’re always the best couple of hours of the summer for Northern Kentucky sports fans.

It’s the annual End-of-Summer Reunion and Awards night for the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame. Where no matter how long it’s been since you’ve seen Andy Furman or Mike Battaglia, there they are. Or maybe it’s a brand-new guy like NKU’s VP for Athletics, Mike Odom, in his second week on the job.

Later on, in trying to figure out how I’d missed out on the Skyline and LaRosa’s Wednesday, I did the math and realized I’d managed 24 separate one-on-one conversations with folks I’d known since I was a kid, people I’d coached with and against, played with or against, people I’d written about or some I’d just read about. And some I was meeting for the first time.

Because sports in Northern Kentucky is essentially a one-big-family deal, or maybe a small, close-knit family. But a family.

As Dick Maile, winner of the James E. “Tiny” Steffen Award for Service made clear. “We live in the greatest area in the world . . . Northern Kentucky people care, but there are kids here who are not a part of that world.” said the former LSU basketball star and Covington Catholic and Notre Dame Academy coach who lives a post-coaching life where he practices what he preaches.

“I’m asking all of you to consider volunteering,” Dick said, distributing a list of phone numbers folks can call to do so and we’ll publish at the end of the column. “I’ve been so blessed,” Dick says. “And so many people need help. I want these kids to have a chance.”

Kenney Shields, after five weeks of hospitalization and rehab, was back in a dual role as presenter of the first award named for him and the one he won, the Joe Brennan Service Award. But the service award Kenney won was not for the all-time winningest Northern Kentucky basketball coach counting high school and college or for all those years coaching at St. Thomas, Highlands and NKU where his basketball teams came ever so close to NCAA Div. II titles in back-to-back championship games.

Nope, it came for his 31 years as Covington Recreation director and as the guru of Goebel Park as well as his 31 years at Covington Turners refereeing kids’ basketball games all day long on Saturdays even after he became a successful college coach.

”He’s affected thousands upon thousands of kids,” Brennan said in presenting the award named for him as the longtime and recently retired president of the NKSHOF.

“I’m extremely appreciative” Kenney said as he thanked many from his large family in the crowd for their support. “I am just blessed to be a part of this.”

That part extended to awarding the NKSHOF’s first Coach of the Year Award for the job that Ted Arlinghaus did with his young Holy Cross girls’ basketball team that won the Kentucky All “A” state title and finished runner-up in the Ninth Region after losing their lone Division I prospect early in the season and being picked sixth in preseason.

“Just to be in the same breath with (the Shields’ name on the award) . . . “Arlinghaus said. Is an honor he couldn’t quite describe. But he could say why Holy Cross is 142-53 over the last six seasons with three All “A” state titles.

“I make a vow to our teams that they will not lose a game because they’re not prepared,” Arlinghaus said of his small school success. “We’re not going to shy away from anybody . . . we play top programs because we want to be a top program.”

Of this year’s team that started three from the Arlinghaus family – one daughter, two nieces – Ted says there’s only one downside: “Sometimes they forget that I’m their coach.”

Dr. James Claypool got the evening going presenting the Pioneer Award named for him to “someone I’ve known for 86 years,” he said of his former Beechwood Grade School classmate Chuck Korzenborn, who owns the longevity record with his nearly 27 years as Kenton County sheriff.

“If he puts his mind to it, he’s going to do it,” Claypool said of the man he described as unlike him — “an excellent musician” and someone who “loves guns and cars.”

For his part, Korzenborn said of the honor: “I don’t deserve it but I’m going to take it.”

Another who deserved it was former Bellevue coach and current sports historian and author, Charlie Coleman, winner of the Bill Cappel Community Contribution Award.

“I never met Bill but without him, none of us would be here tonight,” Newport High grad Charlie said of Cappel, a lifelong Northern Kentuckian who captained the 1939 World’s Champion Nick Carr’s Boosters fastpitch softball team from Covington, and then went on to do and inspire just about every good thing that’s happened in sports here, with special attention to his service as general manager for Covington Ball Park and the person who made sports happen for so many young women in softball while inspiring the NKSHOF.

As a one-time coach before turning media star with his “Sports Legends” TV program and his book, Northern Kentucky Sports Legends of the 1950s, Charlie admitted that “all coaches are thieves, we steal from one another.” And then he thanked those coaches for what he got from them: “One thing they taught me was to give back to the community,” as he thanked his wife, Cheryl,” a former Holmes cheerleader who can still sing the Bulldog fight song,” for allowing him to do just that.

The first of two posthumous awards went to Bellevue High’s legendary girls’ coach, Sally Meng. Accepting for her was one of her athletes, multi-sport star Hallie Hundemer Booth, who described Meng’s influence in her 31 years coaching there, including a 513-186 volleyball coaching record. “She didn’t live in Bellevue,” Booth said, “she was Bellevue.”

And this: “She didn’t wait for change,” Booth said of Meng’s impact for girls in sports, “she created it. Her greatest legacy was all the young women she coached. There’s no greater legacy.”

Winner of the Jack Aynes Award named for the legendary Ludlow athlete, creator of their Hall of Fame and a leader in the NKSHOF from Day 1 for his creation of the golf outing and a man responsible for scholarships for thousands, Jack named the late Bob Marsh, father of NKSHOF President Randy Marsh, as this year’s winner.

What I’ll always remember about Bob is his remarkable leadership in his 12-year tenure as supervisor of Kenton County Knothole. But 30-year MLB umpire Randy says he’ll always thank his dad, who also owned Marsh’s Market in Covington as well as serving as the caretaker for the Memorial Building in Devou Park, “for paying my tuition to umpires’ school.” Although he admitted that his proud dad “could wear people out talking about me.”

And finally, there’s 18-year-old Sean Nichols, who has overcome a disabling disease to earn a spot in the freshman class at the University of Alabama, where he was registering Thursday. He’ll be presented with the Thomas John Fricke Service Award in December when he returns from college.

Here are the phone numbers for volunteer opportunities in Northern Kentucky. Give them a call. They’ll be thrilled to hear from you.

Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X @dweber3440.