Roundball addicts – Friday is your chance for a quick fix with Meet the Bulldogs, Big Blue Mania

It’s been a long but enjoyable summer and fall, but the hint of winter in the air this week of course brings to mind thoughts of activities for the next few months that will help pass the time when it’s too cold and nasty outside to get anything done in the outdoors.

For most of us in southern Kentucky – the first thought of course is . . . basketball!

Although college roundball action has seen a couple of weeks of publicity and even a few exhibition games, those of us who are first of all fans of the high school game, still have a couple of weeks to go before we throw it up for that opening tip in December.

However, there is a break in store to help get us over these withdrawal symptoms we’re having when everyone gathers this Friday night at the Clinton County High School Lindle Castle Gymnasium for our first look at the teams we will spend the winter months cheering on.

Meet the Bulldogs and Big Blue Mania is set to get underway with the traditional chili supper at 4:00 p.m. in the cafeteria ($5 each), then move to the gymnasium at 6:00 p.m. when the introductions, scrimmages, cheers and fun get underway.

At around 7:00 p.m. or so, we will then honor our two latest members of the Basketball Wall of Fame when former standout players Charlie Stearns and Rachel Matthews are inducted and will see their plaques put in place in the gymnasium lobby.

A more detailed article about the plans for Friday night’s festivities can be found this week beginning on page 1, but the bottom line is that the invite goes out to everyone in the area – come out Friday and get in on this season early. Enjoy a chili meal for just $5, get behind our Dawgs, Lady Dawgs and cheerleaders early, and get ready for the upcoming roundball season.

Schedules are ready

Several have asked about the basketball schedules for the 2014-15 season and I’m happy to say they are ready. Anyone who wants a schedule can pick one (or several) up this Friday night at Meet the Bulldogs, or anytime at several locations in Albany including here at the Clinton County News or at the Clinton County High School.

Schedules are also available at First and Farmers National Bank locations in Albany, Clinton County Hospital or Horizon Adult Day Care.

New book about an area basketball legend

Bowling Green author Gary West is ready to release his latest sports related book that local basketball fans will want to get their hands on – and that will be an easy feat next week.

Better Than Gold: Olympian Kenny Davis and the Most Controversial Basketball Game in History is a work that West has been working on for the past few years and has co-written with Wayne County native Kenny Davis who was the Captain of the 1972 USA Olympic basketball team and was involved in what has long been called the “most controversial basketball game in history.”

Of course that game was the 1972 Olympic Championship contest between USA and the Russian team that ultimately saw our squad cheated out of the gold medals they rightfully had earned. The USA team was a silver medal squad according to the Olympic Committee, but Davis led the charge among the team to boycott the medal ceremony and leave the medals unclaimed.

To this day, those silver medals have not been claimed and most – if not all – of the players have stipulated in their wills that no family member is ever to claim the silver medals.

Loyal readers will remember an in-depth article I wrote a couple of years ago when the 1972 team held its 40th reunion at Davis’ college alma mater, Georgetown College in central Kentucky.

In the time leading up to and following that article, I’ve developed a friendship with Kenny Davis, always enjoy hearing not only the stories he tells about those Olympic days, but other basketball antics as well.

When I was working on that article two years ago, I was unable to find any reference in Clinton County News archives about high school basketball game accounts that would have given me an indication as to how Davis performed in the mid 1960s against Clinton County – and for good reason – they didn’t play despite being only 25 miles or so apart.

I asked Kenny why the two schools didn’t play during that period of time, and he wasn’t sure, but one of his best friends, former Clinton County player and CCHS Basketball Wall of Fame member Sherman York was quick to tell the story.

York, who graduated from CCHS in 1963, remembered Bulldog Coach Lindle Castle in a game a few years earlier, had pulled his squad off of the Wayne County floor in the middle of a game after feeling he was receiving far less than a fair shake from the officials, and back to Albany they headed.

Games between the two schools, including the years that Davis would have been playing, weren’t scheduled for awhile.

Back to Kenny Davis and the Gary West book – a book signing with the pair scheduled to be on hand has been set up for next week, Thursday, November 20, at the Wayne Theatre in Monticello.

The first 300 to attend the event will be able to purchase special edition copies and have them signed by both Davis and West.

The program is set to begin at 4:00 p.m. Central time.