By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
You won’t find an AARP card tucked away in Barry Binkley’s wallet. Retirement is a concept the 76-year-old coach can’t seem to grasp.
After Barry Binkley, center, took charge of the Simon Kenton cross country program in 2015, the girls team won back-to-back regional championships.
Binkley is looking forward to his 52nd year as a high school cross country and track coach that begins next week. This will be his fourth year at Simon Kenton High School, but he spent most of his coaching career at Dayton.
A few weeks ago, Dayton school officials honored him by renaming a street near the high school. During the ceremony, he unveiled a bright green street sign that reads Binkley Way.
“I don’t know if it’s a street or an alley,” quipped Binkley. “But it was a lot of fun. There were a lot of people there.”
The high school also dedicated five benches in front of the building to Dayton’s five Class A state championship teams. Binkley coached four of those teams – two in boys cross country (1983, 1985) and two in girls track (1992, 1995).
Binkley coached at Batavia and Elder high schools in Ohio before coming to Northern Kentucky. He started the girls cross country program at Holmes before going to Dayton, where he spent 25 years.
He retired from teaching at Dayton, but not from coaching. He was a high school assistant coach for five years before coming to Simon Kenton in 2015 as head cross country coach and assistant track coach.
Binkley is already a member of the Kentucky Track and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame, Northern Kentucky Athletic Directors Hall of Fame and LaRosa’s Greater Cincinnati Hall of Fame. But there’s no end in sight for the senior citizen’s coaching career.
“I don’t need any of that stuff,” he said of the attention he draws for staying at it this long. “I just like to have fun.”
In his first two years at Simon Kenton, the girls cross county team won back-to-back Class 3A regional championships. He also coached Kyle Mastin, who placed sixth in the Class 3A boys state meet last year after winning his second consecutive regional title.
Mastin accepted a scholarship to run for Northern Kentucky University. Olivia DeLisio, the top runner on the Simon Kenton girls cross country team the last two seasons, is returning for her senior year.
Ryle voted top boys soccer team in local coaches preseason poll
Ryle was voted the top boys soccer team in Northern Kentucky in a preseason poll of local coaches.
The defending 9th Region champions received 10 of the 16 first-place votes to come out on top in the poll. The next two teams were Highlands and Covington Catholic, which each received three first-place votes.
The rest of the teams in the top 10 were St. Henry, Brossart, Simon Kenton, Campbell County, Conner, Cooper and Newport Central Catholic.
The coaches also voted on the top offensive and defensive players in the area going into the 2018 season.
The offensive players include Christian Seger and Blake Ivey of Simon Kenton, Jackson Snowden of Ryle, Conner Harper of Pendleton County, Lucas Panella of Conner and Ceu Bik of Dixie Heights.
James Spindley of Ryle was voted the top goalkeeper with teammate Noah Moeller listed among the top defensive players. The others are Alex Ford and Devin Harris of Highlands and Joel Clines of Brossart.
St. Henry girls repeat as 9th Region All ‘A’ Classic golf champions
St. Henry will send two teams to the Kentucky All “A” Classic state golf tournament for the second consecutive year.
One week after the St. Henry boys team won the 9th Region All “A” Classic team title, the girls team did the same. They both qualified for the small-school state tournament to be played Sept. 8 in Richmond.
In the girls regional tournament at Boone Links, the Crusaders won their second straight regional title with a team score of 343 that was 83 strokes better than runner-up Villa Madonna.
The top three individual scores were posted by St. Henry golfers Ava Berling (81), Lauren Mays (83) and Mia Scrand (85). The team’s fourth score was a 94 by Natalie Noll.
The region’s two individual state qualifers were Brooke Bihl of Newport Central Catholic (91) and Camryn Kuehne from Villa Madonna (96).
Ryle graduate named head coach of college wrestling program
Ryle graduate Kyle Ruschell, a two-time state high school wrestling champion who earned All-America honors in college, has been named head coach of the University Tennessee-Chattanooga wrestling program.
Ruschell joined the Chattanooga coaching staff as an assistant earlier this summer. He applied for the head coaching position after Heath Eslinger stepped down in July.
After winning two state titles at Ryle, Ruschell was recruited by the University of Wisconsin. He was a four-time NCAA championship qualifier for the Badgers, earning All-America honors twice in the 149-pound weight class.
The son of Ryle’s long-time wrestling coach Tim Ruschell, Kyle spent the previous eight seasons as an assistant coach at Wisconsin.
