Why Joe B. Hall’s death is having a major impact on WHAS radio’s Terry Meiners
As Joe B. Hall reached his 90s and his health began to decline, Terry Meiners dreaded the day when the ex-Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball coach would pass away.
“I never wanted to imagine Joe’s time getting here,” says Meiners, the longtime WHAS-AM 840 radio personality. “I just loved him too much.”
Hall’s death came Jan. 15, when the coach who successfully followed the iconic Adolph Rupp as UK head man and led the Wildcats to the 1978 NCAA championship, died at age 93.
Going forward, few Kentuckians will be as impacted by the death of Hall as will be Meiners.
Literally for decades, a Hall-inspired comedy bit, “The Beasman,” has been a staple of Meiners’ afternoon drive-time program on the Louisville 50,000-watt radio station.
Known by Hall’s middle name, “The Beasman” character was best thought of as a comedic version of the Big Blue Nation’s id.
Written by Meiners but voiced by Corydon, Ind., actor Jeff Ketterman, “The Beasman” would “call in” to WHAS radio to talk UK-U of L rivalry smack through a very, very, very Big Blue lens.
“The premise (of the character) was always keeping one eye on your rival while rah-rahing your side with both hands,” Meiners says.
So speaking for “the good and classy Cats fans” “The Beasman” would unleash verbal torment on backers of “the U of Smell.”
On Jan. 13, two days before the real Joe Hall passed, “The Beasman” made what Meiners now says was his final appearance on WHAS radio.
The character gave U of L fans the business about the Cardinals’ home men’s basketball loss the previous evening to North Carolina State and castigated the “Baldy Chris Mack” for his alleged lack of coaching prowess.
“Your pathetic, ‘U of Smell Cardinals’ are the worst team in America,” “The Beasman” exclaimed.
In the late 1980s, a far younger, sleeker version of me first interviewed Hall while I was working for a publication in Elizabethtown and the ex-UK coach was a Central Bank executive. In his bank office, I asked Hall how he felt about “The Beasman” bit.
Hall laughed, then essentially said he was on board with anything that “kept his name out there.”
“He liked it,” Meiners said. “He would always shake his head and say ‘I hear about (“The Beasman”) every day.’ And he would laugh.”
My favorite part of “The Beasman” character was his bumper music. The character came on the air and exited to the real Joe. B. Hall’s version of Willie Nelson’s “On The Road Again” — which Meiners harvested from a long-forgotten album Hall released during his UK coaching days.
Cawood Ledford, Al McGuire, Happy Chandler and Hall’s wife, the former Katharine Dennis, were among those who sang on “Kentucky Calling Me: Joe B. Hall & Friends.”
“I have that album,” Meiners says. “And that’s where ‘The Beasman’s’ theme came from, was Joe singing ‘On The Road Again’ with Cawood on his album.”
After Hall passed away, his contributions to the sustained excellence of the Kentucky men’s basketball program were well documented.
His role in bringing full racial integration to UK basketball. His doing something genuinely rare in college sports by successfully following a coaching legend. His producing three Final Four trips and a national title in his 13 years (1972-85) on the Kentucky bench.
But I always thought Hall’s second act, when he shed the stern taskmaster image he had cultivated as UK coach and showed the world a warm, fun-loving side, was the most interesting part of his public life.
Decades after his UK coaching days, I asked Hall if he wouldn’t have been better off in his coaching tenure if he had allowed the world to see more of his lighter side.
Hall essentially said that the hard-charging Rupp had set the template for how the public expected a Kentucky basketball coach to act and he couldn’t risk deviating from that.
That was too bad because the post-coaching Hall was a fun guy to be around.
“He was very sarcastic. And funny. Just a witty person,” Meiners says of Joe B.
The combination of Hall’s sense of humor and desire to keep his name before the public made me wonder if he wouldn’t have wanted “The Beasman” to keep calling in to “Larry Minner’s” show even if those calls had to come from Big Blue Heaven.
“People have stopped me in stores and asked me that,” Meiners says about the fate of the character.
With the real Joe B. gone, he just doesn’t feel right about continuing “The Beasman,” Meiners says.
As a result, he and Ketterman are working on a new character to continue to poke fun at the ridiculous aspects of the UK-U of L sports rivalry.
“It will be a different character than we’ve used all these decades,” Meiners says.
So not only has the state of Kentucky lost Joe Hall, but we are losing “The Beasman,” too.
“I’m just really sad about Joe,” Terry Meiners says. “He was such a good guy.”
This story was originally published January 27, 2022 at 3:38 PM.
