His Kentucky career was filled with turmoil. He’s gone on to play 14 years as a pro.
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We Meet Again
The Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com are publishing a series of stories catching up with former University of Kentucky athletes. Click here to read all of the installments published previously.
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Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series in which the Herald-Leader is catching up with former University of Kentucky athletes.
It would be easy for Shane Boyd to look back on his University of Kentucky football career and wonder what might have been since he played during some of the darkest times in program history.
He doesn’t.
“There was no regrets,” Boyd said by phone from the porch of his Portland, Ore., home as his 2-year-old son Braven played on the front porch last month. “I’ve got maybe a couple of plays I would want back, a couple of throws I would want back that I regret letting it loose or not tucking it and running it, that type of thing.
“Other than that, it happened just the way it’s supposed to happen. And it’s molded me and helped me to be the man that I am today.”
A decorated and highly recruited three-sport star out of Henry Clay in 2000, Boyd flipped his commitment from Clemson to UK after Kentucky offered because he always wanted to play for the Blue and White.
Lexington was home.
It still is, even though he’s miles from it now after 14 years playing professional football of one sort or another and settling down on the West Coast with his young family.
His wife, Mistie Bass, has transitioned from a championship-winning WNBA career (with the Phoenix Mercury in 2014) into a management position with Nike.
“It’s been pretty awesome,” Boyd said of Bass’s job as a women’s basketball product line manager, a retail area in which many women and young girls still have to shop in the men’s section. “She’s been helping innovate and accelerate women’s basketball apparel to where a woman can go online or go in a store and it will say women’s shorts, women’s shirts, women’s shoes.”
Boyd, 37, is adjusting, slowly, to Portland’s vibe. An extrovert living in a city full of seeming introverts makes Boyd miss Southern hospitality, but he’s excited about his wife’s opportunity and knows something new and exciting will come along for him. It always has.
College years
Boyd’s college career came at a tumultuous time in UK football history. He was recruited by Hal Mumme and thought he’d be running the Air Raid offense and following in the footsteps of homegrown hero Tim Couch.
But Mumme resigned amid a recruiting scandal and the Cats went on NCAA probation. Boyd had three head coaches and four offensive coordinators during his career, serving much of it as understudy to his friend, the late Jared Lorenzen.
Boyd challenged his friend for the starting spot until Lorenzen’s uncanny abilities proved undeniable. But many of his fondest memories came out of that relationship.
“We always roomed together,” Boyd recalled. “We always had these talks with each other about things like if the world is flat; did we land on the moon? We had all these crazy conversations because we were always around each other.”
Mired in a two-win season during his redshirt freshman year, Boyd remembers Lorenzen injuring his thumb in practice ahead of the Georgia game in 2000. Boyd began taking first-team snaps. If Lorenzen couldn’t play, it would have cost Boyd a season of eligibility.
“He really showed his character,” Boyd said of Lorenzen. “There was only about three or four games left in the season and he just toughed out the pain and said he didn’t want me to waste my redshirt year.”
It would be a game that helped kick-start Lorenzen’s UK lore. He threw for a single-game UK record 528 yards and two TDs in a 34-30 loss at Commonwealth Stadium.
In today’s age, a player in Boyd’s position would have almost assuredly transferred. Boyd never seriously considered it.
That redshirt year gave Boyd a chance to start as a senior in 2004. When Boyd finally got the reins to the Wildcats, Kentucky’s probation-limited lineup made for a tough campaign and UK went 2-9 during Coach Rich Brooks’ second season in charge.
And while his seven touchdowns and nine interceptions with 1,328 yards passing doesn’t look impressive, he finished on a high, leading the Cats to a come-from-behind 14-13 win over Vanderbilt in his last game at home and taking a 31-22 lead over Tennessee with less than 10 minutes remaining in Knoxville before the Vols rallied to a 37-31 win.
UK trailed Vandy 13-0 in the fourth quarter, making the win one of the biggest fourth-quarter comebacks in UK history. (UK has pulled out of two 14-point, fourth-quarter deficits since). And Boyd would be the first player to throw, rush and catch a TD in a game for the Cats.
Boyd also played baseball for Kentucky. He had been drafted in the 13th round by the Minnesota Twins out of high school and became a reliable reliever at UK with a low-90s fastball. Some might have thought baseball would be his best shot going pro, but Boyd took off his senior year of baseball to prepare for the NFL Combine.
Pro career
Boyd went undrafted by the NFL, but he signed a free agent deal with the Tennessee Titans. He began showcasing a determination and perseverance that helped him stay in the game.
Released by the Titans at the end of the preseason, Boyd caught on with the Pittsburgh Steelers the next February.
The Steelers waived him in September 2006 and he was signed to the Arizona Cardinals’ practice squad two days later. He made the Cardinals’ active roster in December. The Cards waived him just before the next season. The Houston Texans picked him up for their practice squad in mid-October and put him on the active roster in December 2007.
“It’s just been an amazing time, an amazing career,” Boyd said. “I wound up tearing my Achilles and that’s what knocked me out of the NFL after five or six years. And then I was able on my road back to land in the AFL and just had an amazing time and it stuck. And I’ve been playing ever since.”
Playing arena ball in Phoenix led him to meet his future wife. They were both doing commercial shoots, her for the Mercury and him for the Arizona Rattlers. Boyd won’t offer any details of the courtship. But their social media accounts show he proposed to her on the Great Wall of China. The couple are expecting their second child this September.
Boyd has spent the last three AFL seasons with the Baltimore Brigade and had one of his best years in 2019 throwing for 2,389 yards in 12 games with 46 TDs. Unfortunately, the AFL folded at season’s end last year.
Lexington ties
When both Boyd and Bass played professionally, Lexington was home base. And Boyd liked being around Kentucky and Henry Clay High School. For a time, Boyd joined Larry Glover’s UK football pregame radio shows and he worked out with the Henry Clay basketball team, even becoming an assistant coach on Daniel Brown’s staff for two seasons during his arena league downtime.
“I loved the game of basketball. Honestly, my favorite sport is basketball, I just wasn’t vertically gifted, let’s say,” said Boyd, who is listed as 6-foot-1. “I just enjoyed that, enjoyed really just mentoring the kids, helping them get better in their craft and teaching them about life. That’s really the biggest thing sports does.”
Henry Clay’s football program honored him by retiring his No. 2 jersey last fall.
As for what’s next, Boyd is willing to see what develops after the coronavirus shutdown ends. He’s open to playing again, but wouldn’t mind catching on at Nike or some college or pro front office.
“I’ve still got some more left in the tank,” Boyd said. “I may be forced into retirement, but if there’s an opportunity that makes sense — it’s not about going out there and just doing anything, but if it makes sense, then I’ll listen to it and exercise it, but if not, I’ll be fine with the career I’ve had — 14 years pro and it’s taken me a lot of places with a lot of memories.”
Q & A
What do you remember most about Coach Rich Brooks?
“We used to have sauna contests to see who could sit in the sauna the longest. It was me, him and Jared Lorenzen. Most of the time, he would outlast us all. I would outlast Jared.
“He was the one who introduced sauna to me and I’ve been doing it ever since. It’s part of my workout. It’s part of my life. I’ve always got to have a sauna or always look for a training place that has a sauna.
“That’s where we’d have our talks about life. We never really talked about football, but I just remember him as a great motivator and guy that kept us together.”
Was there ever a time when you questioned picking UK?
“The only times I had some doubts was when we were going through all these coaching changes. … There were doubts, but those doubts were never enough to say I want to transfer.”
If you hadn’t picked UK, which college would you have gone to?
“It probably would have been Clemson. I was a tremendous Bobby Bowden fan growing up. His son (Tommy) was the coach at Clemson.” (Boyd explains his other favorite school was Florida State, but, apparently, the Bowdens didn’t recruit against each other.)
What is your favorite on-field memory as a Wildcat?
“My last game at Commonwealth we played Vanderbilt on my Senior Night, and I ended up throwing a last-second touchdown to Glenn Holt. So, my last play, last moment, last touchdown, last throw, last everything was against Vanderbilt.”
What’s the most recent UK sporting event you attended?
“Last year. Can’t remember which game. I usually go to a UK game every year for a long time now.”
Who has been your favorite UK player to watch during the past few seasons?
“I’m a big Bud Dupree fan, a big Josh Allen fan. It’s weird coming from an offensive guy, but I just love their stories. They resonated with me being one- and two-star guys. In Bud Dupree’s situation, he didn’t even come to Kentucky as a defensive player. He came as a tight end and worked his butt off and transforming himself into a first-round draft pick and star in the NFL.“
Who was your sports idol growing up?
“Pookie Jones and Charlie Ward (both two-sport athletes, Jones with UK football and baseball for the Cats and Ward with football and basketball for Florida State). …
“I’m good friends with Pookie still. Those guys were who I idolized, who I loved watching play. In the NFL it was Steve McNair, who I ended up playing with on the Titans.”
What do you wish someone had told you before you began your college sports career?
“The biggest thing is to enjoy the relationships more. You get so tied up in trying to produce and be the best that you can on the field that it sometimes takes away from the relationship and camaraderie that you have with your teammates.
“You’re so focused on being great that you wind up not fully appreciating the greatness of your friends — the guys that I’ve continued to have relationships with to this day — that’s what I really cherish.”
What is your biggest regret from your time at Kentucky?
None (see above).
Which of your former UK teammates do you stay in contact with the most?
Keenan Burton. “He’s the godfather to my son and I’m the goddad to his son. Me and him have a very strong relationship and he was also in my wedding. He was a groomsman.”
Boyd and Lorenzen would talk often. Also Glenn Holt, Pete Burns and Sylvester “Big Cat” Miller.
“We can all pick up the phone and talk, and we talk like we haven’t missed a beat.”
This story was originally published April 27, 2020 at 7:20 AM.
