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Thursday, Apr. 30, 2009

Casey's induction makes for emotional night

LOUISVILLE — Mike Casey received word last November that he had been selected for the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame.

"His jaw dropped," said Casey's daughter, Laura Lake. "He was so excited."

As Casey, the former Kentucky Wildcats basketball star, fought against the effects of congestive heart failure, his friends hoped against hope that he would live to enjoy Wednesday night's induction ceremony.

Instead, Casey — UK's 13th all-time leading scorer; the star of Shelby County's 1966 state championship team and Kentucky's 1966 Mr. Basketball — died April 9.

"This night, it's gonna be a little emotional," said Lake.

Casey was one of eight formally inducted into the Hall of Fame on Wednesday evening in a banquet at Louisville's Crowne Plaza Hotel. Plaques for those enshrined are displayed in the concourse at Freedom Hall.

Maryjean Wall, who covered horse racing for the Lexington Herald-Leader from the year (1973) Secretariat won the Triple Crown until she retired the day after last year's Belmont, was also enshrined.

Wall, who won three Eclipse Awards (1980, 1997 and '99) for her writing, said that as a little girl, she aspired to be a jockey.

"At that time, women couldn't be jockeys," Wall said. "And I didn't know how to fight that. So becoming a sportswriter was my way to get into the industry."

Legendary Clay County High School basketball coach Bobby Keith — who led the Tigers to three state championship games and the 1987 Sweet Sixteen title — was also inducted.

As a boy growing up in Clay County, Keith said, he used to press his ear against a radio to listen to broadcasts involving legendary Kentucky sports figures such as Adolph Rupp, Bear Bryant, Ralph Beard and Wah Wah Jones.

"Now I'm in the same Hall of Fame as them," Keith said. "It's mind-boggling."

Patti Jo Hedges-Ward scored 1,176 points at the University of Kentucky from 1979-83. She was part of a Big Three of star players with Valerie Still and Lea Wise during the golden era of women's basketball at UK. Over that four-year period, Kentucky went 96-24 and won its only Southeastern Conference championship (1982).

Still and Wise were already members of the Hall of Fame. Wednesday night, Hedges-Ward joined them.

"I always said I wouldn't have been nearly as successful without them," Hedges-Ward said. "But they wouldn't have been as successful without me, either. We just clicked together."

Also going into the Hall Wednesday were Travis Grant, the sweet-shooting forward who played on three straight NAIA national championship teams (1970-72) at Kentucky State; Dan Ulmer, chairman of the board of the Louisville Bats minor-league baseball team and a longtime power broker in Louisville-area sports; Marty O'Toole, the swimming coach who has led St. Xavier High School to every Kentucky boys' high school state championship since 1989; and Elmore Just, a Louisville-area golf figure who founded the Persimmon Ridge Golf Course.

Still, it was the inclusion of Casey into the Hall of Fame that was most poignant.

"When Daddy found out, he told me, 'Laura, this is a big deal, my picture is going to be in Freedom Hall,'" Lake said. "He would have loved this."