Aaron Stamm, a former Ludlow High School student-athlete who became a successful girls basketball coach, will be inducted into the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame during a ceremony at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 17 at Villa Hills Civic Club.
The other inductees will be basketball players Harold “Hal” Smith of Newport and Brenden Stowers of Simon Kenton along with tennis player Dave Feighery of Covington Catholic.
The guest speaker will be John Kiesewetter, who wrote a book about former Cincinnati Reds broadcaster Joe Nuxhall. The ceremony is free and open to the public.
Stamm earned varsity letters in football, basketball and baseball at Ludlow before graduating in 1996. As a senior, he was the leading scorer on the Ludlow boys basketball team and one of the leading 3-point shooters in the state.
He started his head coaching career with the Ludlow girls basketball team for six seasons and then spent nine seasons in charge of the Conner girls program. His last team at Conner posted a 23-3 record and was ranked No. 1 in the state going into the playoffs.
Stamm returned to Ludlow in 2019 to become head coach of the girls basketball team once again. The Panthers have posted records of 25-8 and 19-9 the last two seasons under him.
Brenden Stowers was an award-winning basketball player at Simon Kenton and continued his career at Northern Kentucky University. He was named most valuable player in the 2003 Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament after NKU won the title and received second-team All-America honors in NCAA Division II.
Stowers finished his NKU career with 1,311 points. He averaged 16.2 points per game as a senior and set a team single-season record with 187 free throws. He his now an assistant girls basketball coach at Simon Kenton.
Harold “Hal” Smith was a four-year stater on the Newport boys basketball team and lettered in track for the Wildcats. After graduating in 1960, he played basketball for Centre College and led the team in scoring and rebounding. He was the senior team captain on the first Centre team to qualify for the NCAA college division tournament in 1964.
Smith was inducted into the Centre Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994. He still ranks among the team’s all-time leaders in total points (1,126), career scoring average (15.2) and career rebounding average (10.7).
Dave Feighery was the first Covington Catholic tennis player to win a regional singles tennis title in 1971. He then became a member of the first men’s tennis team at Northern Kentucky University. CovCath built a tennis complex on campus and named one of the courts in his honor at the dedication ceremony.