Ralph Kemphaus can’t wait to tell you about his Knothole baseball buddy Jim Hengehold. Ralph pitched, Jim — a year younger — caught, Then the pair headed off to St Henry High School and a lifelong best friendship.
Ralph will tell you about their years as teammates at St. Henry in baseball and basketball. And especially about basketball, since Ralph, a high school basketball coach for 27 years including five at Holy Cross, made it his life’s work. He could tell you better than anybody about how great a high school basketball player Jim was.
How Jim earned a four-year college scholarship to Xavier after becoming a Kentucky All-Star in the summer series against Indiana when that was a big deal, about Jim’s scoring more than 2,600 points in his four years as a St. Henry starter with Ralph remembering how the unassuming Jim was able to mesh with is older teammates despite his early starring role.
How Mote Hils, who would go on to Covington Catholic and then become the first NKU head coach, came in to coach St. Henry Jim’s second year “and I thought that he handled Jim great,” Ralph said, “he treated him as one of the guys and we accepted him and had great cohesion. Jim was confident but not conceited. We harassed him a bit and he took it well.”
That Jim found the love of his life early on “and didn’t go out carousing with us,” Ralph says, of Terre, Jim’s wife of 59 years. But as much as Ralph knew it was basketball that made folks notice the highly recruited Jim in those early days, as much as Jim starred in basketball, what he did later in life more than matched that.
Although he was a really good basketball player, scoring more than 50 points a couple of times then for the Xavier freshmen team before first-year players were allowed to play varsity. But an even better person.
Which is what we salute in Jim Hengehold, who died last week at the age of 81, and what he was celebrated for this week by those who said goodbye to him. Some old-time St. Henry fans might remember Jim for his 20-point game when St. Henry beat Roger Bacon for the first time ever despite the presence of future Xavier All-American Steve Thomas.
Or of Jim’s playing at Xavier with another St. Henry guy, point guard Joe McNeil, giving the Musketeers two Crusaders in their top seven. The 6-foot-3 Hengehold “was a ‘tweener,” Ralph says of his size, without as clearly defined a spot in college.
Jim made college pay off, earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees before going on to success in business at Cincinnati Bell, where he spent more than 20 years before becoming director of telecommunications for Tri-Health.
But even those accomplishments weren’t at the top of what people recall about Jim. “He was a (member of the) Knights of Columbus,” Ralph said. But not just a member. Devout Catholic Jim especially enjoyed helping the K of C put on their fish fries.
And he volunteered with St. Vincent de Paul and HONK (Housing Opportunities for Northern Kentucky) and for many years sang with the choir at St. Pius. “He was very religious,” Ralph said.
And no question, he was a Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Famer for his basketball. But surely Jim is in another Hall of Fame for the rest of his life.
Just a personal note on another great for more than basketball
Last Thursday, Northern Kentucky lost a second basketball great — Reynolds Flynn — in addition to Jim Hengehold. For those in the know, Reynolds was somebody worth watching before he achieved his Hall of Fame coaching career at Covington Holmes. The Bourbon County and UK grad was legendary for the way he championed his kids at John G. Carlisle School.
“Reyn” cared so much about those young folks, pushed them, loved them, did everything he could for them. And then he went on to do all those great things that our Terry Boehmker noted here Wednesday.
And always with such an upbeat, positive attitude. Like that time in overtime at the 1968 state championship game against Shelby County when Charles Hurt plucked a Holmes shot heading for the basket out of mid-air for one of what should have been easiest goaltending calls in basketball history that could have sent Holmes on to a career-defining Sweet 16 title for Reynolds.
For a lesser person – like yours truly as a coach – that would be something maybe never gotten over. But that wasn’t Reynolds. He may have been 90 but no one gave you a bigger smile and better greeting than Reynolds did every month at the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame inductions.
Northern Kentucky has lost two good ones, but we had them for more than 170 years combined and are so much better for it in so many ways.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X @dweber3440.