For ex-UK quarterback Shane Boyd, an unlikely path has led to a major honor
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Shane Boyd will be inducted into the Lexington African-American Sports Hall of Fame.
- Boyd played for 17 pro teams from 2005–2019 across six football leagues.
- Lexington mentors and coaches played key roles in Boyd's early sports success.
During Shane Boyd’s career as a Kentucky Wildcats football quarterback, it often seemed as if the former Henry Clay High School star was star-crossed.
Boyd arrived at UK for the 2000 season just as then-Wildcats coach Hal Mumme’s program imploded due to a recruiting scandal.
By the time Boyd’s Wildcats career ended in 2004, the QB had played under three head coaches, four offensive coordinators and through the lean times — 4-8 in 2003; 2-9 in 2004 — that were all but assured when the NCAA put Kentucky on probation as a result of the Mumme-era rules violations.
“That’s wasn’t the ideal situation. I would never wish that on anybody,” Boyd said Wednesday of his time at UK. “But one thing that it did teach me, it helped prepare me for what my pro career was going to entail.”
On Saturday, Boyd will be back in Lexington as one of 23 inductees in the Lexington African-American Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025. The LAASHOF gala will be at Central Bank Center from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday. Ticket sales for the event are closed, however.
For Boyd, the recognition will come two days after his 43rd birthday. “It kind of let my wife off the hook, per se, because we don’t have to plan too much (for this birthday),” Boyd joked.
Boyd is being recognized by LAASHOF for his exploits as an old-fashioned three-sport star — baseball, basketball and football — at Henry Clay High School as well as his status as the rare product of Lexington high school football to start at quarterback for UK (current Wildcat QB Cutter Boley, a Lexington Christian Academy alumnus, is the first such player since Boyd last started for the Wildcats in 2004).
However, the most fascinating facet of Boyd’s athletics career might have been his long and resilient professional football career. From 2005 through 2019, Boyd was under contract with 17 different pro football franchises. Included were teams in the NFL, NFL Europe, the United Football League, the Canadian Football League, the Arena Football League and the Continental Indoor Football League.
It was the nomadic nature of his pro football experience for which the tumult of his time at UK ultimately prepared him, Boyd said.
“Knowing how to make change, knowing how to fix things on the go and knowing how to absorb a new person in the room and a new philosophy and new terminology — I had to do that at Kentucky,” Boyd said. “So when that happened throughout my pro career, it wasn’t as challenging to me as it was to other players.”
While playing for the Arizona Rattlers of the AFL, Boyd met forward Mistie Bass of the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury. The couple eventually married and now have two sons, Braven, 8, and Kashel, 5.
Both Boyd and his wife, who now goes by Bass-Boyd, were working for Nike in Portland, Oregon, until the NBA’s Detroit Pistons successfully recruited Bass-Boyd for the role of executive director of player engagement and basketball operations.
“She’s an amazing star on her own,” Boyd said of his wife.
Even with the turmoil he played through at UK, Boyd created some memorable moments while rocking Kentucky blue.
In a 35-14 win over Ohio University in 2003, Boyd accounted for four UK touchdowns, achieving the rare trifecta of scoring via run, pass and reception in the same game. Against the Bobcats, Boyd ran for TDs of 8 and 12 yards, hit Tommy Cook with a 42-yard touchdown pass and scored on a 30-yard screen pass thrown by Jared Lorenzen.
The following season, in what was his final home game as a Wildcat, Boyd led what was then UK’s largest fourth-quarter comeback victory since 1949. Down 13-0 to Vanderbilt entering the fourth quarter, Boyd hit Glenn Holt with a pair of touchdown passes to produce a 14-13 Wildcats victory.
As for this weekend, Boyd says being recognized in Lexington holds special meaning because people in the city meant so much to his journey to athletics success.
Boyd grew up a military child moving about the country. When Shane was in eighth grade, his mother, Scherer Boyd, made the difficult decision to send him to Lexington to live with her brother, Glenn Boyd, in order to give Shane a stable base from which to pursue his high school sports career.
Shane Boyd said his uncle Glenn, his grandparents, William Glenn “Bee” Boyd and Betty Boyd and Henry Clay coaches including Sam Simpson and Bill Ransdell (football), Larry Blackford and Kirk Chiles (basketball) and Herb Hammond (baseball) were integral in producing the success for which he will be honored Saturday night.
“When you look back at just who are the key people that sort of got you to where you ended up, who really helped you when you were young and learning how to play sports, for me, so many of them are (in Lexington),” Boyd says. “It feels so amazing to be recognized by my city, my area that I love so much and I hold dear to my heart.”
This story was originally published September 18, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
