High school sports were the focus for October’s inductions into the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame Wednesday. All five inductees got their start at the secondary level. Here are their stories.
• Tom Steltenkamp’s four years as a student trainer for Highlands’ coaches Ken Shields in basketball, Bill Hermann in football and Bob Luecke in track were the just the start of a Hall of Fame career. “That got me a four-year scholarship as a trainer at the University of Louisville,” the Ft. Thomas native said of a life in sports that resulted in his Hall of Fame selection in his native Northern Kentucky after 38 years working with Jefferson County high schools and U of L basketball with the Eliis and Badenhausen Orthopedic Group.
“We started an outreach program with the schools there when Dr. Ellis realized there was such a need,” “Stelts” (as Coach Shields calls him), now retired, said of his career that started with a state football championship for Highlands in 1977 and a Ninth Region basketball title in 1979. His impact on U of L basketball had former Cardinal star Luke Hancock, now working for the ACC Network, flying in from Connecticut for the ceremony.
“I’ve never met a person in my life who cared more for his mother,” Shields said of Steltenkamp, up from his home in Shepherdsville, who first visited the cemetery to pay respects to his late mother and brother.
• Mike Hughes spent his first five years coaching at his alma mater Covington Holmes before moving on to Boone County and then Conner High in a coaching career that has spanned more than 30 years.
“You don’t get into this profession for things like this,” Hughes said, “but the recognition is nice.” But not as nice as the chance to coach, which Hughes did as a freshman volunteer at Holmes “and then a head coach at the age of 21-22 and 30 years later you wonder why you can’t stop.”
Then Hughes answered his own question: “Sports is a universal language. Everybody has a story.” From Covington to Boone County, “to be a part of those traditions makes it so special. It’s not about the wins and losses but about the people.”
Hughes’ story includes three Coach of the Year awards in girls ‘soccer, six district soccer titles and service as the president of the Northern Kentucky Coaches Association.
• Ronnie Holmes didn’t get all the honors that came his way as a three-sport athlete at Lloyd Memorial where he holds a number of records in football to this day while helping his Midland summer baseball teams to World Series on his own, he says, his parents were there with him all the way from the age of 5.
His dad, Ron – “is a better athlete than I was,” he said of his lifetime coach who once made 98 of 100 free throws as a middle school player in California” – and his mom, Fay, was “my biggest fan.”
But also there were his Erlanger Lions and Lloyd football coach, John Dunhoft. “JD gave every ounce coaching and I gave every ounce playing,” Ron said of his lifelong friend.
And Bob Meyerhoff, his baseball coach: “Best baseball coach I’ve ever known . . . he’s forgotten more baseball than most people know.”
And then he thanked his wife, Nicole, and daughter, Grace, of whom he said: “Being your dad is my greatest reward.”
• When Roger Lewis thanks his former assistant coaches by name, it’s pretty much a Who’s Who in Northern Kentucky sports families for the Ludlow and Scott High coach who took his first girls’ basketball team at Ludlow, where they’d lost 76 straight games, to a 15-10 record his first year there.
“I want to thank God for this opportunity to be a coach and educator,” Lewis said, “I’m humbled and grateful for this honor” while thanking his parents for giving him the opportunity to be the first in his family to go to college.
Dr. Jon Draud gave him the chance to teach and coach at Ludlow “and 46 years later I’m still very thankful,” he said, and also for the assistant coaches who worked for him and Scott’s Jeff Trame who hired him and all the assistants who coached with him and the players – and their families – who played for him, “without whom I wouldn’t be here today.”
One who was here was Roger’s son, Connor, who traveled from Ormond Beach, Fla., for the induction.
• John Berger was perplexed when NKSHOF President Randy Marsh handed him the mike for his acceptance speech. “I don’t know what to do,” said the former three-sport Beechwood athlete and then coach not to mention scoreboard operator. “Normally, no one hands me a microphone. I’ve had a few hot mike moments,“ John explained.
Like the time he finished up out in the parking lot at one of his daughters’ third-grade basketball games. Not the first time he’d been escorted out of one of his daughter’s games, he said.
Or those six years he coached one of his daughters in softball. “We didn’t like each other for six years,” he said. “More than once, I told her to go sit in the stands with her mother.”
Returning to the theme, John talked of playing on Beechwood’s first-ever state championship football team in 1987 where he was the defensive leader for coach Bernie Barre while thanking his parents, grandparents, wife and three daughters for all helping him get here.
“The rewards were great,” John said, “but nothing beats the relationships you make along the way.”
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.