Ex-Cats moving up the coaching ranks

By Jamie H.Vaught Cats Up Close Columnist
Wayne County Outlook

Monticello Sat, May 17 2008

— It is definitely uplifting to see Kentucky guys moving up in the
coaching ranks of college basketball.
Look at ex-Cat John Pelphrey, who moved from South Alabama to Arkansas
last year.
Look at Lexington Tates Creek High School product and ex-Western
Kentucky boss Darrin Horn, who just got the job at South Carolina.
And now look at former Wildcat Travis Ford, the new $9 million man. He
just got hired at Oklahoma State just days after he turned down an offer
from Providence College. Ford was also a candidate for the LSU job.
The Cowboys are hoping that Ford, now 38, will bring his magic wand to
boost their program just like Rick Pitino did at UK and Billy Donovan at
Florida.
OSU athletics director Mike Holder talked with many peers, including
ex-UK sports department boss C. M. Newton, and enthusiastically picked Ford
for the post.
Said Holder of Newton in April 20 Web edition of The Oklahoman, ³He was
right about Pitino. He was right about Billy Donovan. I think he might be
3-for-3.²
It wasn¹t too long ago that Ford wasn¹t sure if he was ready for a head
coaching career even though his parents were high school coaches at Cuba and
Webster County in western Kentucky.
Despite his lack of coaching experience at any level, he decided to give
it a try in 1997 when Campbellsville University hired the former All-SEC
guard to be its new hoops boss.
Just weeks after performing in a Hollywood movie titled, The 6th Man, as
a short Irish player, Ford, who was 27 at the time, didn¹t anticipate
coaching a college basketball team.
³It took me several days to finally to agree if this is what I wanted to
do,² Ford told this columnist in an exclusive book interview in 1997.
Many people also questioned Campbellsville¹s gamble in hiring a new
coach with no previous experience.
But Ford didn¹t worry about what people thought. A true basketball
junkie, he worked hard at his new job and took advantage of his expansive
hoops knowledge gained from his coaches when he was a player, ranging from
Don Parson (one of the state¹s all-time boys¹ career coaching leaders) at
Madisonville North Hopkins High School to Norm Stewart at Missouri to Rick
Pitino at Kentucky.
At Campbellsville, Ford had the confidence to get the job done.
³I always knew that I learned under some great people,² said Ford in
1997. ³I used my knowledge of the game to help me be successful and
hopefully that will make me a good basketball coach. There are no promises.
I was the type of player who always studied the game and somebody who just
loved the game of basketball. I wasn¹t an athletic player. I was a coach on
the floor.²
After three years at the small private Christian school, Ford moved on
to Eastern Kentucky, where he guided the Colonels to the Big Dance in 2005,
and then Massachusetts, leading the Minutemen to a NIT runner-up spot
several weeks ago.
Holder believes Ford, who agreed to a seven-year contract that pays $1.3
million annually, is a good fit for the Cowboys.
Sports columnist Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman in Oklahoma City says
Ford already has the OSU faithful excited.
³I would say that Ford has been very well received by OSU fans,² Tramel
wrote in an e-mail. ³It¹s the first true new blood in OSU basketball since
Eddie Sutton¹s arrival in 1990, and I think that generally brings some
excitement no matter who is hired.
³But Ford added to the excitement with his personality and his
pedigree‹young, sharp, enthusiastic, promising an uptempo style and a
play-hard attitude. Then add in the Kentucky ties, point guard on a Final
Four team, and I think he¹s got everyone excited.²
Interestingly, Ford is now the fourth straight Cowboy mentor with strong
connections with UK.
Wildcat assistant Leonard Hamilton (now the head coach at Florida State)
became the OSU boss in 1986. Then ex-UK boss Eddie Sutton took over the
Cowboy helm.
After Sutton¹s retirement in 2006, his son, Sean Sutton, a former point
guard at Kentucky, guided the Cowboys for two years.
That¹s not all. Ex-Wildcat player Guy Strong, a member of UK¹s 1951
national championship squad who also served as the head coach at EKU,
coached at OSU for four years in the mid-1970s.
And by the way, Ford¹s wife, the former Heather Brooks, was a swimming
standout at UK during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
So, as it turns out, the Cowboys are still getting lots of Wildcat
flavor with Ford leading the way in Stillwater.
Jamie H. Vaught, a longtime sports columnist in Kentucky, is the author
of four books about UK basketball. He is currently a professor at Southeast
Kentucky Community and Technical College in Middlesboro and can be reached
by e-mail at CatsUpClose@yahoo.com.