Just in time for Final Four weekend: Remembering Lexington’s Avenue of Champions

Editor’s Note: As Lexington celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, the Herald-Leader and kentucky.com each day throughout 2025 will share interesting facts about our hometown. Compiled by Liz Carey, all are notable moments in the city’s history - some funny, some sad, others heartbreaking or celebratory, and some just downright strange.

Before it was the Avenue of Champions, it was just plain old Euclid Avenue.

But on April 1, 1951, the Lexington Board of City Commissioners voted to change the name of the street between Limestone and Rose streets in honor of the University of Kentucky basketball and football teams.

Lexington Mayor Tom Mooney said he drew up the ordinance to change the street’s name and that most of the council was in favor of the idea. The original idea came from a letter written by Jere Beam of Bardstown (yes, THAT Beam) in a letter that appeared in the Down in Front sports column of the Lexington Leader Sports Editor Larry Shropshire.

“New York has its ‘Avenue of the Americas,’ so why shouldn’t Lexington have the ‘Avenue of Champions’?” Beam wrote. He even suggested it be that part of Euclid Avenue.

Shropshire said it seemed to be the right spot.

“On the south side of that long block is Stoll Field, stomping ground of the Southeastern Conference and Sugar Bowl Champions in football, and just across the street rises the handsome Memorial Coliseum, home area of the Southeastern and NCAA champion in basketball.”

Shropshire said the suggestion was “certainly one of the most sensible ever advanced,” and that Mooney received the suggestion “with a show of pleasure and asserted that it ‘definitely merited, and perhaps would receive, official consideration.’”

The ordinance was put to a vote and passed. Immediately after, a temporary “Avenue of Champions” sign was erected at the intersection by Beam, Mooney, UK Athletic Director Bernie Shively, and coaches Adolph Rupp and Paul “Bear” Bryant.

Have a question or story idea related to Lexington’s 250-year history? Let us know at 250LexKy@gmail.com.

This story was originally published April 4, 2025 at 12:34 PM.