Getting back together after 53 years
They were the NKSC – Northern Kentucky State College – Norsemen as the program for the first basketball banquet of that 1971-72 inaugural season called them. And thanks to one of that team’s original players, Bob Griffin, and his wife, Carol, one of the original cheerleaders, those Norsemen got together Monday night 53 years later, as Bob noted, after that March 21, 1972, banquet.
They had a wonderful evening at Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse where a gathering of 35 told stories, laughed at Bob’s stories, and relived those days when the team that is now the NKU Norse played a schedule without a gym to practice in or play home games, without a conference to supply officials or almost any of the things that matter in college basketball today.
The late Mote Hils, an unforgettable, one-of-a-kind program creator and solo coach, and his Covington Catholic high school player, Chuck Berger, one of the most talented 6-foot-2 inside defenders maybe ever in college basketball, may have passed. But their memories — and those of so many more, were.
Nine of those Norsemen were from Northern Kentucky high schools — from Campbell County, CovCath, Pendleton County, Newport, Grant County and Holy Cross in addition to two from Cincinnati. That list sounds much like the home courts for games played all around Northern Kentucky that season before Regents Hall came online the next year.
Of the 27 games on that NKSC schedule, only nine could have been called home games played in Newport, Falmouth, Dry Ridge, Hebron, Alexandria and Covington. And that under-sized, almost all freshmen team managed a 12-15 record while beating the likes of ranked NAIA teams David Lipscomb out of Nashville and Pittsburgh’s Point Park at the University of Pittsburgh’s Fitzgerald Fieldhouse as well as Bellarmine in Louisville while scoring 102 points. That NKSC team also came within nine, 74-65, at No. 1 Steubenville.
From that team, CovCath alum Richard Derkson, who led Northern in scoring the first three seasons (19.1 ppg, 18.8 and 22.2) and scored a school-record 39 at Rose-Hulman – a record that lasted for 20 years — returned for the reunion. As did the man who succeeded him in scoring for two years, also from Covington but from Covington Latin, Jeff Stowers (18.6 ppg, 17.4). Not sure anybody had a better time here than Richard.
Also among the returnees were Marvin Johnson, who led that first team in field goal percentage (.469, 115-245) as well his successors the next two seasons, Denny Egan (.468, 59-126) and Steve Meier (.525, 64-122).
And the top assist men were there: Mike Ballinger and Griffin, who each had 57 that first year, along with Greg Von Hoene, who led with 76 the next season.
The entire roster of that team: Ballinger, Berger, Derkson, Egan, Griffin, Johnson, Dan Maurer, Jim McMillan, Robert Mitts, Doug Overmann and David Rimer.
N. Ky. high school football shutout this week points to one failing
It looked like a good year here for high school football. There were challengers across more classes than even the three from 2024 when Beechwood in 2A, Cooper in 5A and Ryle in 6A advanced to the state championship games with Beechwood winning it all.
And there were individual stars like Ryle’s Jacob Savage, the rugged two-way linebacker/running back headed to Indiana’s second-ranked Hoosiers after winning the Paul Hornung Award as the state’s best football player despite an injury that sidelined him the last two weeks.
And then there was Cooper quarterback Cam O’Hara, who obliterated just about every Northern Kentucky – and many statewide passing records.
You could add Lloyd Memorial to those team prospects as the Juggernauts were making a 13-0 run as Class 3A’s top team. And of course, Highlands and Covington Catholic with impressive wins in Class 4A plus Newport and Newport Central Catholic, who both advanced to the second week of the playoffs in Class 1A.
And then it all seemed to go south for Northern Kentucky. In two weeks, everybody was gone. No locals this weekend at UK’s Kroger Field, the first time a football state championship weekend will be Northern Kentucky-less in 47 years.
So what went wrong? In a word – defense. In elimination losses the past two weeks that saw only two teams here come close, Northern Kentucky teams gave up an average of 36 points while scoring just 19.
And only Beechwood, a 41-40 loser on the final two-point extra point attempt at Owensboro Catholic, was really close. Play that game in Ft. Mitchell and it’s probably a different outcome.
Only Lloyd, a 27-20 loser to Murray, was within single digits among the others, where losses were by 14, 16, 28, 31 and 35 points. But the good news here is that it’s absolutely clear now that if Northern Kentucky wants to add to the 62 state high school football titles here, the focus has to be on physicality and speed and stopping people. The rest of the state is getting better executing on offense and much more athletic. Northern Kentucky schools better figure out how to stop them.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.