One of Kentucky’s truly great all-around athletes, lettering three years in basketball and football while also participating in baseball and track. Johnson was playing freshman baseball at UK in the spring of 1930 when he was named a member of the athletics council, which was interviewing applicants for the head basketball coaching job vacated by…
Ellis Johnson
Cecil Bell
Obituary – Bell, Lexington Herald-Leader (December 1, 2004) Bell, Cecil D., son of Mary Varner and John H. Bell was born May 25, 1910 in Bourbon County. He graduated from Millersburg Military Institute in 1928. While a student at MMI he was Captain of his ROTC Company and Captain of the basketball team, which won…
Darrell Darby
Darrell Darby was born Darrell Lawrence Darby in Ashland, Kentucky, on May 4, 1910, to Lawrence and Bertha Lewis Darby. Darby was a member of the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team during the early 1930s, a formative period in the program’s rise to national prominence under head coach Adolph Rupp. He played for the Wildcats…
George Yates
George Yates was born George Milton Yates in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, on May 3, 1910, to Charles Milton Yates and Mattie Cecil Yates. Yates was a member of the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team during the early 1930s, a significant era that saw the Wildcats emerge as a southern powerhouse under legendary head coach Adolph…
Charles Worthington
Charles Worthington was born Charles Bowie Worthington on March 19, 1910, in Peoria, Illinois, to Thomas Charles Worthington and Katharyn Elizabeth Winter Worthington. Worthington was a notable athlete who played basketball for the University of Kentucky in the early 1930s. Standing at 6 feet 1 inch, he played as a guard and was known for…
Howard Kreuter
Howard Kreuter was born Howard George Kreuter on February 5, 1910, in Cincinnati, Ohio to George Louis Kreuter and Louise Burton. He was nicknamed “Dutch.” Kreuter attended Newport High School in Newport, Kentucky where he excelled in multiple sports, especially football. Kreuter won three varsity letters each in baseball, football, and basketball and two in…
William Kleiser
Obituary – WILLIAM DOUGLAS KLEISER DIES AT 79 , Lexington Herald-Leader (February 29, 1988) by Staff William Douglas Kleiser, former owner and operator of Lexington Granite Co., died yesterday at St. Joseph Hospital. He was 79. Kleiser, of 2121 Nicholasville Road, owned the company for many years and sold it in the 1970s. Before moving to Lexington, he was…
Crittenden Blair
Crittenden Blair was born Crittenden D. Blair in Fleming County, Kentucky, on August 21, 1908, to Harrison “Harry” Crittenden Blair and Ida M. Harvin Blair. A native Kentuckian, Crittenden Blair played basketball for the Wildcats during the 1930s. Blair graduated from the University of Kentucky on May 6, 1934 with a bachelor of arts in…
Ercel Little
Obituary – Ercel Little, Madisonville Messenger Ercel B. Little, 79, of 107 Highland Drive, died 12:35 a.m. today in Regional Medical Center. Born in Livingston County, August 14, 1908, he was the son of the late Dallas Hickman Little and Elizabeth Watson Little. He was a retired assistant principal at Madisonville North Hopkins High School; member of the…
Adolph Rupp
Adolph Rupp coached Kentucky to four national titles and set an NCAA record by winning 129 consecutive games at home. “In the storied land of Kentucky Colonels, there dwelled but one Baron, a man of consummate pride and a molder of powerful teams which for more than four decades made the name University of Kentucky…