LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Darrell Griffith once told me the first thrill he had as a basketball player at Male High School was not when Denny Crum, Bob Knight or any other Hall of Fame coach came to watch him.
No, it was when Bob White, the Hall of Fame writer at The Courier-Journal, asked to interview Griffith.
Thousands of high school players and coaches shared that sentiment when they competed, just as they shared their memories when word came that Bob White died Monday night. He was 89.
"When I played at Ballard, we learned early that if Bob White was in the gym, it was The Game," said former Ballard star Jerry Eaves. "If Bob wanted to talk to you, it was an honor."
"In Kentucky high school sports, Bob was Google before Google," said former Fairdale coach Lloyd Gardner.
"Bob could tell you stories about about King Kelly Coleman, Darrell Griffith, Jermaine Brown or Michael Bush. It didn't matter what era or sport. Bob knew everybody."
And everybody knew Bob — Lisa Harrison, Rick Norton, Ron King, Otto Petty, the Brohm brothers, Chris Redman, Allan Houston, Mary T. Meagher, Lea Wise, Sherman Lewis, Rex Chapman, Bob Graves, Dennis Lampley, Mike Glaser, Jeff Lamp, Phil Simms, Will Wolford, Jodie Mudd ... you get the picture.
Bob White told the story of high school sports in the state of Kentucky for nearly six decades, even after he retired from the newspaper in 2000. He spanned the era from typewriters to laptops, from Chuck Taylor canvas high tops to designer Air Jordan from Freedom Hall to tiny gymnasiums across the commonwealth.
I could give you a long list of coaches and athletic directors who were thrilled to open their offices late on a Friday or Saturday night so Bob could phone in his story for The Courier-Journal's four-, five- or seven-star editions.
It was their privilege because if Bob did not write about it, it did not happen. Bob White was the fiber optic connection that held Kentucky high school sports together.
"There was nobody like Bob White and there will never be another Bob White," said Bellarmine University men's basketball coach Scott Davenport. "He had an incredible ability to connect with everybody."
Davenport shared a story about the trust that White built and earned with athletes across the commonwealth. In 1988, the Ballard boys won the state basketball Sweet Sixteen championship. In the final game, the Bruins prevailed over Clay County, 88-79, despite 51 points from Clay County's Richie Farmer.
The Bruins were led by Houston, Kenneth Martin and Mark Bell, a powerfully determined, undersized guard who later excelled at Western Kentucky.
Ballard won the title with Bell dedicating the journey to his father, who had passed away several weeks before the final game. Davenport said Bell had not shared the story with anybody — until he saw Bob walking out of the back door of Freedom Hall on the way to the team bus.
Then Bell confided in White precisely how much the victory raised his spirits.
"It showed how much trust Mark had in Bob to tell his story and it was such a great picture of how sports can bring us together across generations," Davenport said.
Eaves said that he still remembers the first time that White asked to interview him. It was in the gymnasium of Fern Creek High School in 1976 after Ballard shocked Griffith and Male in the Seventh Regional Tournament.
Two summers ago, when Eaves made plans to devote an entire radio show to determining the greatest boys' high school basketball teams in the state, the first guest he lined up was Bob White.
"Bob was super sharp with all the statistics and scores," Eaves said. "He knew it all."
Along with current CJ high school editor Jason Frakes, George Williams and other guests, they settled on the 1969 Central High School team as No. 1 of all time. Nobody fussed.
I arrived in Louisville in 1978 as a copy editor at The CJ. In 1979, I was given the opportunity to replace Johnny Carrico as the high school writer at the Louisville Times.
That meant more writing and less editing. Wonderful. It also meant competing against Bob White. Not so wonderful.
The final score was White 2,731, Bozich 0.
Bob knew everybody. Every coach. Every athletic director. How to beat traffic to get in and out of every school (pre-WAZE). Every storyline. Every historical tidbit. Every security officer. I remember Kentucky State Policemen and college basketball coaches making their way to press row at the Sweet Sixteen to shake Bob's hand.
His voluminous note cards with the scores of every high school football and basketball game occupied several file cabinets in the corner of the CJ sports department. The CJ's Litkenhous ratings were the gold standard for evaluating teams, long before Jeff Sagarin, Ken Pomeroy or others started computer formulas for college and pro teams.
Coaches who took several days to return my calls got back to Bob within minutes.
Bob could have buried me.
Bob did not bury me. He and Earl Cox, another Kentucky icon, helped me. They shared phone numbers. They advised me about rivalries. They suggested which games deserved the most coverage. They gave me detailed directions on how to drive to schools I had never visited.
That was Bob White that I knew — and also the Bob White that nearly everybody knew. Proof came in 2017. An identity theft incident created financial hardships for White during his retirement. Coaches, administrators, athletes and media colleagues from across the area organized a fund raiser to assist Bob with housing, expenses and transportation.
"And we were thrilled to do it," said Davenport, one of the organizers.
The King of the Bluegrass Tournament will tip off Dec. 18 at Fairdale High School. Gardner said he put a media credential in the mail for White last week.
White's coverage of the KOB was so critical to the growth and success of the event that after White retired, Gardner named the tournament's Most Valuable Player award for Bob White.
"There's no way our tournament would have ever had the success we've had without Bob," Gardner said. "He's the one who convinced me to play the championship game at 7:30 p.m. so it would make the newspaper in as many editions as possible."
That was Bob.
This will be the first King of the Bluegrass without Bob White. Gardner said that he will hold one prime baseline press row seat open — Bob White's seat.
That one can't be filled.
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