LEXINGTON, Ky. – Six people with Jefferson County ties – Stan Hardin, Donna Moir, Carly Ormerod, Gene Rhodes, Jeff Lamp and Bobby Turner – will be in a class of 17 that will be inducted into the Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame on July 9 in Elizabethtown.
Ken Trivette, chairman of the Kentucky Association of Basketball Coaches, released the list of inductees at a press conference Tuesday in the Hyatt Regency Hotel. The 17 honorees include 12 players – 11 boys, 1 girl– three boys coaches and two girls coaches.
Stan Hardin, 1998
Hardin, now retired, became one of only five coaches to win back-to-back KHSAA Sweet 16 state tournament titles when his Fairdale teams won in 1990 and 1991 His teams compiled a 395-288 record in 29 years while coaching at Fern Creek, Fairdale and Holy Cross.
Two coaches chosen – Billy Hicks of Scott County and Randy Napier of M.C Napier and Perry County Central – rank as the state’s all-time winning mentors.
Hicks, still active, leads the boys coaches with his record of 910-264 and two state crowns in 35 years, including stints at Evarts, Harlan and Corbin. Napier’s girls’ teams have compiled an 840-257 record in 35 seasons and his 1994 team won the girls Sweet 16.
Pearl Combs and Moir were the other coaches tapped. Combs had a 733-387 record in 42 years coaching at Vicco and Hindman, and won the state crown in 1943 with Hindman.
Sacred Heart head coach Donna Moir instructs her team against Male during their 7th Region Tournament game at Valley High School. Mar. 2, 2016
Moir not only played on Sacred Heart Academy’s 1976 championship team but served as coach of the Valkyries she has guided them to three state titles and a 562-234 record in 26 seasons.
Ormerod was an outstanding point guard on those Sacred Heart teams that swept the girls’ Sweet 16 tournament three consecutive years, 2002-04. She went on to play for the University of Kentucky.
Rhodes was Ralph Beard’s running mate at guard when the Bulldogs won the state tournament in 1945. He played and coached at Western Kentucky University, coached the pro Kentucky Colonels in the old ABA and was coach of St. Xavier’s Sweet 16 champions in 1958.
Lamp led Ballard to its first state crown in 1977, scoring 43 points in the final against Valley. Lamp went on to help Virginia reach the NCAA’s Final Four in his senior year.
Turner, along with the legendary Darrell Griffith, gave Male a powerful 1-2 punch in 1974 when the Bulldogs were runners-up to Central in the Sweet 16 and a year later when they won it all in ’75. He played three years for U of L
The Hall of Fame’s goal Is to have 100 inductees by the 2017-18 school year when the Sweet 16 will celebrate its 100th anniversary.
Other boys players chosen as inductees:
Darius Miller, who led Mason County to the state crown in 2008 and was UK’s valuable sixth man on the Wildcats’ 2012 NCAA championship squad.
Sacred Heart’s Carly Ormerod holds up her tournament MVP trophy Saturday, March 27, 2004, after Sacred Heart won the state Girls Sweet 16 championship at Diddle Arena in Bowling Green, Ky.
Tom Thacker, Covington Grant, who led Grant to a Sweet 16 berth in 1959, played on NCAA and NBA championships teams for the University of Cincinnati and Boston Celtics.
Hazard’s Jim Rose, who played in several Sweet 16 tourneys in the mid-1960’s and was a standout on Western Kentucky’s 1971 NCAA Final Four team.
Harry Todd, Earlington, and Ralph Richardson, Russell Springs, who were co-Mr. Basketballs in 1958. Todd, a three-time All-Stater, later played for WKU and Richardson for Eastern Kentucky.
Dwight Smith led Princeton Dotson to its only Sweet 16 trip in 1963 and later starred on Western’s great team in 1966.
Donnis Butcher, a Meade Memorial product who was a two-time All-American at Pikeville College and played five years in the NBA with the Detroit Pistons.
George Wilson, a two-time All-Stater, who led Lexington Dunbar to runner-up honors in the 1963 Sweet 16 and played at Kentucky State University.
Rose and Smith are deceased.