‘I’m a little boy from Kentucky.’ Reed Sheppard on why he’s going to be a Wildcat.
Rolling down the interstate, headed south in the direction of Laurel County after a whirlwind weekend of college visits, Reed Sheppard just started talking.
For a while, it seemed to his father as if he might never stop.
Jeff Sheppard, a University of Kentucky basketball great, sat there and listened to his 17-year-old boy, who had emerged over the summer as one of the most highly touted hoops prospects that the state had seen in decades.
“My son has never talked for an hour consecutively about anything,” the elder Sheppard said. “I was blown away. All of his thoughts started coming out of him. And he just said, ‘I want to play at Kentucky.’”
In the few days leading up to that drive, the Sheppard family had taken advantage of the four-day fall break weekend to sit in on a basketball practice at the University of Louisville and watch two practices and attend Big Blue Madness in Lexington, before father and son drove north to check out another practice at Ohio State.
As soon as they got in the car, Reed opened up.
“He didn’t say anything for about 45 minutes,” he said of his father. “Because I didn’t shut up.”
The gist of the story was this: Reed Sheppard, who had grown from a little boy in London with a Kentucky-famous last name to a nationally renowned recruit himself, had spent the past several weeks checking out the other colleges on his list and had come to the conclusion that he, too, wanted to be a Wildcat.
Reed Sheppard’s announcement
The North Laurel star waited a few weeks to reveal his college decision to the world, wanting to be sure it was what he really wanted before making that announcement Saturday morning in front of a crowd in the high school’s gymnasium.
Sitting next to him at the scorer’s table were his father, his mother — former UK star Stacey Reed Sheppard — and his older sister Madison, and Reed wasted no time getting to the point.
“Just like a lot of little boys that grew up in Kentucky, playing college basketball has always been a dream of mine,” he began. “Over the past few months, I’ve been very blessed to be able to go to many different colleges and meet some of the best coaches in the world. I’m very excited and thankful to announce that I’ll be playing basketball at the University of Kentucky.”
The crowd cheered, of course.
Reed stood up and unzipped his jacket to reveal a blue Kentucky basketball T-shirt underneath, while his family looked up and smiled.
The first question from the gaggle of reporters gathered on the baseline: “Why Kentucky?”
“Well, I’m a little boy from Kentucky,” he said. “... It’s a dream of a lot of little boys that live in Kentucky to play basketball at the University of Kentucky.”
A few minutes later in the school’s library, the Sheppards gathered with a small group of family and friends and reflected on their son’s basketball journey to this point, especially the past several months, which saw Reed’s recruiting profile skyrocket, bringing new scholarship offers from Kentucky, Louisville, Indiana, Ohio State and Virginia — the five finalists for his commitment.
“It’s kind of a surreal moment,” his mother said, looking across the room at her son. “Obviously, Jeff and I both played there. But we’ve always enjoyed taking the kids to games and the SEC Tournament. We just love going and watching basketball. Now that Reed is going to have the opportunity to play there, it’s a little bit overwhelming. And kind of hard to believe, still, that our son is going to have that opportunity.”
Sheppard and Calipari
John Calipari received the news of Sheppard’s commitment a week before it went public.
The family was in Lexington last Saturday, and they’d messaged ahead to say they’d like to stop by and say hello.
“Reed, what are you doing up here?” the Kentucky coach said as they sat down in his office.
Sheppard told him he wanted to commit to the Wildcats. His father said the UK coach exclaimed with delight and stood up for an embrace.
“Come here, son!” Calipari told him. “Give me a big hug!”
Four months earlier, Calipari had extended Sheppard a scholarship offer, less than 24 hours after seeing the high school prospect play in person for the first time. Even before that, Sheppard’s parents had made it clear that they didn’t want UK to recruit their son just because of his last name and status as an in-state star. And even after the offer, there was speculation as to whether Calipari would pursue Sheppard as hard as some of his other top targets.
He made it clear over the next couple of months that the UK legacy was indeed a major recruiting priority.
“I think from that point on, Kentucky just rose straight to the top,” Jeff said.
Reed Sheppard — a 6-foot-3 guard and now ranked as the No. 17 recruit in the 2023 class — grew up a UK fan, but the recruiting process has a way of resetting loyalties and expectations. For one, his parents never pushed him toward Lexington. His mother said there’s nothing related to her or her husband’s UK careers hanging in their house. Their son confirmed that.
“They have some stuff framed, but it’s just laying against the wall in the basement,” he said. “They’ve said the whole time that it’s my recruitment. … It was all up to me.”
What Sheppard discovered throughout this process was that he simply felt at home around UK basketball. He enjoyed observing the way the current team bonded on his visits this fall. He developed a close relationship with Calipari. His father said that former in-state UK stars — like Rex Chapman, Richie Farmer and John Pelphrey — had all reached out. “Not to convince him,” Jeff said. “But just to say, ‘Hey, man, we’ve been there. We’re here for you.’
“And from this day on, they’ll be there for him.”
Looking ahead
Reed Sheppard knows what comes next. He’s already lived in the basketball spotlight, but he’s fully aware it’ll be blinding from here.
He’s already embracing a hero’s role.
North Laurel Coach Nate Valentine started off Saturday’s festivities by explaining the relatively odd 9 a.m.-on-a-weekend timing of the announcement. It was the final day of the school’s “Junior Jags” events, which allowed local kids to come to the gym every Saturday and have fun playing basketball as the team’s players worked as camp counselors.
Sheppard, who spent the past few weeks doing the events and getting to know the youngsters, specifically chose this time for his big announcement.
“I think if I was a little kid and there was a high school player that I looked up to, and that high school player was announcing — that it would mean a lot to me if I was a kid and got to come and watch that,” he said. “I just wanted them to be here.”
His parents know as well as anyone what it means to be in that Kentucky basketball fishbowl. They think their son will deal with it just fine.
Jeff Sheppard said they haven’t really felt the need to talk to Reed about what he’ll face when he gets to Lexington two seasons from now. He’s seen it for himself.
The UK recruit grew up watching strangers stop his father in the grocery store.
“Who’s that, Dad?” little Reed would ask.
“Well, Reed, I don’t know,” his dad would reply. “But they’re Kentucky fans.”
“And we don’t sit down with a 5-year-old and explain that. We don’t have to. He lives that.”
Jeff Sheppard chuckled and talked about how, in that regard, times are changing.
“Now we’re walking through the grocery store, and they’re saying, ‘Hey, Reed.’ And I’m saying, ‘Who’s that, Reed?’ And he says, ‘I don’t know.’ So now I’m the guy tagging along with him. And from this day forward, that’ll definitely be the case.
“He knows what he’s getting into. And he’s OK with it. He will embrace it. But, you know, he will continue to be Reed. What you saw out there today is who he is. He’s more nervous sitting there in front of a microphone than he is when the bright lights are on playing a basketball game. Because he’s just a little boy that wants to play basketball. And he wants to play basketball at a really high level. But, at the same time, he just wants to continue being a little boy.”
This story was originally published November 20, 2021 at 1:48 PM.
