Jerry Tipton, covering 39th season of UK basketball, to join KY Journalism Hall of Fame
Herald-Leader sportswriter Jerry Tipton, currently in his 39th season covering University of Kentucky basketball, will be part of the 40th class inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.
Tipton has covered Kentucky men’s basketball since the 1981-82 season. He has chronicled three national championships and numerous coaching changes across more than 1,300 games. He covered both UK basketball and football from 1981-1987.
Before coming to Lexington, he worked eight years for the Huntington (W.Va.) Herald-Dispatch, where he covered Marshall’s basketball team for two seasons. He attended Marshall University at the time of the tragic plane crash involving the Thundering Herd football team.
Tipton has won numerous awards for his reporting and sportswriting. In 2005, he was inducted into the United States Basketball Writers’ Association Hall of Fame. He is also a member of Marshall’s Journalism Hall of Fame
In 2018, Tipton received the Tom Hammond Kentucky Sports Media Award at the Bluegrass Sports Awards ceremony in Lexington.
“Since the early ’80s, the one constant in UK men’s basketball has been Jerry Tipton of the Lexington Herald-Leader,” sports broadcaster Hammond said in a news release announcing that honor. “Because of the intense interest associated with UK basketball, covering the program is a task of extreme pressure and controversy. Through numerous coaching changes and the revolving door of players, Jerry has done his job with remarkable journalistic professionalism while under the microscope of the ‘Big Blue Nation.’”
Also joining the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame this year will be former Herald-Leader editorial writer Maria Henson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing in 1992 for editorials about battered women in Kentucky that “focused statewide attention on the problem and prompted significant reforms.”
All 10 of the 2020 inductees will be honored at a luncheon on March 31 in the UK Gatton Student Center.