KHSAA thanks Frank Riherd for his service, pledges his scoreboard will continue
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- KHSAA thanks Frank Riherd; he will cease maintaining the Scoreboard June 30, 2026.
- Riherd recorded roughly 650,000 games and nearly 30 million points since 1997.
- KHSAA plans to preserve scoreboard service but warns successor faces large task.
When Kentucky high school spring sports come to a close this year, it will also, unfortunately, mark the end to nearly three decades of invaluable behind-the-scenes service provided by Glasgow native Frank Riherd, the man who gave the state arguably the best high school scoreboard and statistics website in the nation.
In a post dated Jan. 10 on the Riherds.com Scoreboard, his portion of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s website, Riherd announced he would have to step down as steward of his passion project due to being diagnosed late last year with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
“It is with a heavy heart that I announce I will no longer maintain the Scoreboard, effective June 30, 2026,” Riherd wrote. “ALS typically does not affect cognitive function, but it causes progressive paralysis over time. Life expectancy varies, but is generally limited. For this reason, and only this reason, I am discontinuing my work on the Scoreboard. I need to focus on my health and on the time I have ahead.”
Thursday at the Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s Board of Control work session, commissioner Julian Tackett spoke about Riherd’s announcement and the legacy he will leave behind.
“He’s been involved with the KHSAA’s scoreboard beginning in 1996 with the role growing into the handling of rosters and other documents beginning around 2010,” Tackett said. “Long before that, his dad at Riherds Sports Shop in Glasgow was our trophy vendor, and Frank bought that business. … He’s been a fixture in our association for a long time. ... We really express our love and affection for him as well as our respect for the professional work he’s done on behalf of our membership.”
The KHSAA/Riherds Scoreboard has been a clearinghouse for high school sports scores since 1997. Riherd estimated he’s recorded 650,000 games “representing almost 30 million points/runs/goals.”
“Each of those points comes from a player competing as part of a team,” Riherd said. “And we should never lose sight of the fact that they are the reason we do all of this. That’s our North Star — the athlete.”
Today, the scoreboard compiles scores and statistics for 12 KHSAA sports with live updates, sometimes online and on the KHSAA’s Riherds iPhone app as soon as the game finishes and a coach turns them in. Within a day or two, each team’s stats come online and are viewable through a click on their team pages.
In recent years, the functionality of the scoreboard has included the KHSAA’s RPI Standings for football and other sports and links to the complete list of games in a rivalry for as long as Frank Riherd has been receiving them.
Want to know how many times Lexington Catholic and Lexington Christian have played football over the past two and a half decades and who won those contests? One click on either LexCath’s or LCA’s Riherds page reveals it has been 12 times with LCA winning seven.
“No disrespect at all to the three state associations to Kentucky’s east, but it’s considerably more difficult to find information that is considerably less reliable for schools in those states,” said Zack Klemme, former sports editor of the Ashland Daily Independent, who is now sports director for HD Media with 13 newspapers in Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio. “The KHSAA website and scoreboard is the gold standard for access to information and ease of use. … I am thankful for the role Frank Riherd has played for 15 years in making my life easier and making my work better.”
The announcement created an outpouring of appreciation on social media.
“Absolutely devastated to hear this. @KHSAA has been fortunate to have @FrankRiherd run their scoreboard for almost 30 years,” posted UK Sports Network statistician Corey Price. “The KHSAA has had, without question, the best website among all state high school athletic associations when it comes to scores and stats.”
The KHSAA began contracting with Arbiter Sports in 2023 for many online administrative tasks, including rosters, things Riherd had been doing for the association since 2010. During the transition, the KHSAA and Riherd, who now does all this from his home in Nice, France, worked out a four-year contract for him to continue operating the scoreboard and try to marry its technology with Arbiter’s. Riherd acknowledged the process has been difficult.
“Some of what I’ve developed has been transferred to another vendor. They chose not to implement key pieces. Some of those are important,” Riherd wrote in the post announcing his decision. “Unfortunately, there is no replacement yet for RPI, Game Stats and Leaders, which require constant handholding. … I hope the vendor they find shares my penchant for detail and ‘getting it right.’”
Tackett assured the board the KHSAA will do all it can to keep the scoreboard going and try to make it as functional for fans and schools as ever.
“I want to make sure everybody’s aware that we are far too far down the road of having a scoreboard and having that public service to walk away from it,” Tackett said. “When he started pulling back a little bit in 2023-24 and we moved to Arbiter on the backside data, we started then working on what would happen if he decided to step aside, and those plans can now proceed.”
But Tackett said whoever takes it over has a huge challenge ahead.
“I’m going to tell you something: Whoever does this won’t be the perfectionist as far as making sure everything’s checked off,” Tackett said of Riherd. “One year he was tore up at Christmas because he was missing one volleyball score. You’re not going to find that person.”
In closing his letter to the Scoreboard’s fans, Riherd explained what his work with the KHSAA has meant to him.
“The past 29 years have been the most productive, exciting, and rewarding of my professional life,” he wrote. “Through the Scoreboard and my work with the KHSAA, I was fortunate to contribute — if only in a small way — to high school sports in Kentucky. I am deeply grateful for that opportunity, and I especially thank Commissioner Tackett for the trust he placed in me. Together, we did innovative and forward-looking work at a time when many were still unsure what the Internet could be used for.
“I also had the privilege of working with the KHSAA as the Association’s trophy vendor, as did my father, and am thankful that the relationship between the KHSAA and Riherd’s Trophies will continue long after my journey has ended.”
This story was originally published January 16, 2026 at 7:26 AM.
