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Mark Story: Credit crisis not in way of UK arena yet

Credit crisis not in way of new UK Arena FOR NOW

You may have missed this (sarcasm intended), but a credit crisis has roiled American financial markets in recent days.

In spite of wall-to-wall media coverage, however, The Wall Street Journal, the Money Honey and other pillars of U.S. financial journalism failed to cover the most pressing concern (sarcasm intended) arising from the meltdown.

Will it slow the attempt by sports-marketing titan IMG and its associates to raise private capital to build a new basketball arena and an enhanced football stadium for the University of Kentucky?

The answer, for now, is no.

"Right now, I'm not aware of any way it impacts what we are trying to do," said IMG College executive Tom Stultz. "Obviously, we're monitoring the situation very closely.

"We're in the process of a four-to-six month study. So, obviously, it will be awhile before we need the money. There is no way to know for sure what the situation will be that far in the future.

"But, at the end of that study, I would anticipate that if the numbers make sense, we'll still be able to attract the financing we need. I don't think anything happening now affects that."

In the aftermath of Kentucky's last-gasp escape against Middle Tennessee, Rich Brooks' decision to try a field goal with only 20 seconds left in a game that UK led 20-14 has been much debated.

However, several of my e-mailers last week raised a question over the play that followed Middle Tennessee State's block of Lones Seiber's field-goal attempt.

The issue was whether MTSU's Hail Mary should have been a legal play.

It appeared to my naked eye that Middle receiver Malcolm Beyah batted Joe Craddock's pass forward to teammate Eldred King — who came within 1 yard (and Robbie McAtee's shoestring tackle) of scoring the potential game-winning touchdown.

Between the touches by Beyah and King, I could not tell that any UK defender ever had contact with the ball.

Several readers saw the play that way, too. They wondered if it was against the rules for two offensive players to touch the ball in succession on a pass attempt if no defender had an intervening contact.

I put that to former, longtime SEC official Ben Oldham, who retired as an on-the-field ref after working the 2000 national championship game between Florida State and Virginia Tech.

"In college football, there is no rule against tapping the ball forward on a pass play," Oldham said. "If it was a fumble, you can't tap it forward to gain an advantage, but there is no rule like that on pass attempts."

On Aug. 24, I told you that Berea College women's basketball coach Bunky Harkleroad was going to try his first triathlon in the Ford Ironman Louisville.

Harkleroad, 36, was attempting the Aug. 31 race in memory of his deceased friend, former Madison County Public Schools superintendent Mike Caudill.

For those who wondered, Harkleroad finished the event — a 2.4-mile swim; a 112-mile bike ride; and a 26.2-mile run — in 16 hours, 18 minutes.

He came in No. 1,673 out of 1,975 entrants.

"I managed to drag myself across the finish line," Harkleroad wrote in a recent e-mail. "It was a very humbling experience to say the least."

A longtime triathlete, Caudill died in December 2007 after a long battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Wrote Harkleroad: "I'm sure Mike got quite a hoot out of me, especially when I couldn't walk a straight line at mile 20."

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