Memories of calling state tournament action

Warren Central won the Kentucky High School Basketball State Championship last Saturday. I would guess that most of you didn’t know that, and most of you don’t care.

Don Estep is publisher of the News Journal.

That is how different how things are now compared to when I broadcast my first state championship games back in 1961. I was working for WVLK in Lexington and the games were held in Memorial Coliseum in Lexington. The Ashland Tomcats, with Larry Conley playing, won the tournament that year. It was big news, and talked about all over the state.

I continued to broadcast for WVLK in 1962 and 1963. The games those years were played at Freedom Hall in Louisville. My sidekick was Ted Grizzard, a very popular radio personality in Lexington who did a daily man on the street broadcast in downtown Lexington. Everybody in the city knew Ted. He was a cut up, and I remember the first thing he said when we started the broadcast was, “This building is so large that they have stock car races going on in the upper deck and basketball down below.”

Freedom Hall was new then, and the biggest arena we had ever seen. It was a thrill for me to be there. The first game I broadcast was between Somerset and Louisville St. Xavier. I remember big Mike Silliman, who later played at Notre Dame, as the star of the game for St. Xavier.

During 1962 and 1963 I was employed by WCTT in Corbin but I got permission to do the games for WVLK. Then, in 1964, I asked why shouldn’t we do the tournament games ourselves? I set up a small network of stations which included Manchester and Pineville, and that began a 25-year stint for me doing the games locally. We broadcast every game of all the tournaments. I believe I did about 405 tournament games without missing a one.

All during that period of time the High School State Tournament was a big and talked about thing. Sports fans knew who was playing, and office pools were popular. The fans also knew about the stars that were participating.

During the 1960s and the early 70s the Louisville schools dominated. The powerhouses were Male, Central, and Seneca. Clay County was the dominate powerhouse from the 13th Region. I got to broadcast all their games but none of our local teams. But during that time, I did have the opportunity to broadcast the Corbin Lady Redhounds and The Whitley County Lady Colonels in state tournament games.

This year all eyes were on North Laurel’s Reed Shepherd at the state tournament. He made a good showing, but North Laurel lost the first game of the tournament.

It is disappointing that the state tournament doesn’t have the impact it once had statewide. However, it is just as thrilling as ever to win the regional championship and go to the state.

I have a video tape that was given to me by my late friend, Dallas Jones, of my last broadcast in 1990 at the state tournament. Television station WLEX in Lexington was interviewing me about my tenure at the state tournament. The camera panned the floor and showed the many radio station banners and then stopped at the WCTT banner. The announcer said, “Don Estep from Corbin has been doing the broadcast for many years. But with this year’s tournament over, Don will be back next year calling the games again for the listeners back home.”

It never happened!