Time for a midweek – and midseason – look at sports in Northern Kentucky.
It’s what we do here. Just Sayin’.
Dan Weber
• If you haven’t had a chance to catch Holy Cross’ Jacob Meyer in action, we advise that you do so in the next five or six weeks. His effort, his ability is something special. How often have we had the nation’s – and the state’s — leading high school basketball scorer here? Jacob’s 49 points against a tall, talented Evangel Christian team out of Louisville Sunday in the All “A” championship game was as good as any we can remember ever from a Northern Kentucky high school player.
• But Jacob isn’t alone. The same kind of effort and ability can be found in Evan Ipsaro at Covington Catholic. The fact that both are explosive guards who play as hard as it’s possible to play creates an interesting scenario for the Kentucky-Indiana All-Star series in June. Not sure Northern Kentucky – or all of Kentucky – has had a pair of talents like this paired together. Again, Kentucky hasn’t been as competitive in this series recently as it once was but will be with those two.
• Which would mean a three-guard lineup of perimeter stars with UK-bound Reed Sheppard pairing with them in a lineup that will be great fun to watch for Kentucky fans.
Jacob Meyer and Evan Ipsaro
• Speaking of Northern Kentucky perimeter players, we can’t overstate the contributions of Cooper alum Adam Kunkel to Xavier’s Big East-leading Musketeers. Sorry for mis-identifying Adam’s high school the other day as that other Union high school. It’s Randall Cooper High School.
• One thing we learned to appreciate in our two-decade Southern California sojourn was how much a great basketball game pep band matters. Pep bands pretty much started in California and UCLA and USC, teams I covered, have two of the best. Which is why, at a time when marching bands still seem to have been decimated by the COVID protocols of recent years, it’s such a pleasure to see a pep band getting the job done as we experienced at Simon Kenton last week. Nice job, Pioneer players. And we’ve seen both NKU and Thomas More have their pep bands at games on occasion and what a difference they make. Keep it up, folks. Love to see more of you. What a great opportunity for student musicians to play for appreciative audiences.
• After all the Pete Rose gambling issues and fallout, it’s a bit jarring to drive by Paycor Stadium and the Great American Ballpark these days and see billboards for “the official betting site” of the Reds and Bengals, the NFL and Major League Baseball, and to hear the radio ads, and realize how much the world has changed. And yes, we do recall a time a half-century ago when in Northern Kentucky, you could place a bet on a high school basketball game so maybe this isn’t so crazy. But then, with bookies on almost every corner in Covington, you could place bets on a lot of things if you were so inclined.
Reed Sheppard
• Although we might caution you about even thinking about such a thing. Just one example: I covered Newport’s 81-50 romp over Beechwood at Beechwood in the All “A” tournament in early January and could not have begun to imagine what would happen the next time these teams played 15 days later, also at Beechwood where the home team won by a score of 52-41. That’s a 42-point swing. In just over two weeks. Which is why we love high school sports. You just never know.
• We’ve noted it a number of times here but with the NKU men’s basketball team heading off for a February that has them on the road for seven of their final eight regular-season games, all we can ask is how was this allowed to happen? And we know the folks running the Horizon League can hardly be trusted to get it right, that’s a given. Doubt me? Attend one of their postseason tournaments in Indianapolis and you’ll see what we’re talking about. But how did the powers-that-be – assuming there are such people at NKU – allow this to happen? Who at NKU saw this schedule presented and said, “Yeah, OK, we can go with that”? How do you not send it back to the league with a large “NO WAY!” written across the proposed schedule? How do you not say that’s ridiculously unfair to put our team on the road, essentially, for an entire month. Unfair to our fans, as well. No professional league would dare do that. And their players aren’t full-time students.
Antonio Robinson Jr.
• When the KHSAA announced in January the latest reclassification for football, the big reaction seemed to be that since Highlands and CovCath would no longer be in the same 5A class with the Colonels dropping down to 4A, what would that do to the rivalry? How about enhancing it? Why not view this as a chance for both programs to win state titles – and play each other in a game that won’t eliminate one or the other? Could be a win-win here. Look at this positively, competitively, which is the only way you can look at football.
• With regard to football classes, we’re not a big fan of six classes in Kentucky which means a state champ represents just over 30 schools. The KHSAA had it right back in the day when there were three classes. The biggest Louisville, Lexington, Northern Kentucky and county schools across the state were in AAA. Class AA had the likes of Highlands and CovCath and most of the state’s county schools. And for the smallest group, Class A and AA today, Beechwood, Lloyd and NewCath would be the model. In an era where everybody gets a trophy, we know that probably won’t happen. But it wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Michael Mayer
• Speaking of a competitive attitude, except for Beechwood, it just doesn’t look like Northern Kentucky high school football is competing with the rest of the state the way we once did. Some of that is demographics, as the enrollment declines at CovCath, Newport Central Catholic, Newport, Bellevue, Dayton and Holmes account for some of the decline. But with Notre Dame’s Michael Mayer, out of CovCath, and Minnesota’s Tanner Morgan, out of Ryle, moving on, the lone Northern Kentucky alum playing next fall in Power Five football – the top 65 college programs – will be Beechwood’s Antonio Robinson Jr., a young man from Florida who was here for the fall semester in Ft. Mitchell before heading off to Wake Forest. Remember, it wasn’t that long ago that according to Prof. John Rooney at Oklahoma State, the national specialist in the geography of college football, Villa Hills set the record for the most Division I signees per-capita in a single year, 1983, with a class of five led by the Schulte twins, Tim and Todd, out of CovCath, who signed with Michigan. And yet, in 2023, not a single Northern Kentuckian will play at either nearby Kentucky or Cincinnati or any other Power Five program.
• Now that we’re talking about demographics, it’s interesting that with the state All “A” basketball tournaments having just concluded, Northern Kentucky’s Ninth Region is tied with just one other region among the state’s 16 for the most All “A” schools – the state’s smallest 120 high schools – with 11. In so many other areas of the state, we’ve seen small communities consolidate into larger county schools. But not so much here. And we’ve seen it impact sports, football especially, with the declining enrollments despite an increasing Northern Kentucky population with large relatively new schools as well as expanding enrollments in county school systems. Just a thought here: If your school has had a football team for decades and no longer has enough players to field one safely, maybe it’s time to partner up with nearby schools to provide all the programs secondary schools should provide, not just football. Maybe football is just the canary in the coal mine. Although if you put Bellevue, Dayton and Newport together, for example, in a river city community high school, how would you work out the uniform colors – or the nicknames, not to mention the superintendents, principals and head coaches?
Just Sayin’.
Dan Weber is a sports reporter/columnist for the Northern Kentucky Tribune. Contact him at dweber3440@aol.com.
