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Cawood Ledford 1926-2001

Cawood at his best... He called 18 Final Fours, more than anyone else, and 22 Kentucky Derbys. And there was the World Series, The Masters, professional basketball, Little League and boxing, including extensive coverage of Muhammad Ali. But, always and above all, Cawood Ledford was for four decades the "Voice of the University of Kentucky Wildcats." The voice fell silent yesterday. The man known as Cawood to legions of fans died of cancer at Harlan Appalachian Regional Hospital. He was 75. His death brought an outpouring of memories from sports figures and politicians, and from fans who called radio talk shows to remember the man so many had grown up listening to. Mr. Ledford retired as the play-by-play man for UK in 1992. Most of his career was spent covering the Wildcats. The first UK event he called was the Sept. 19, 1953, football game that pitted Bear Bryant's Cats against Texas A&M. The last was on March 28, 1992 -the NCAA Tournament East Regional final against Duke, considered by many to be the greatest college basketball game ever played. Just before he retired, the Kentucky House of Representatives approved a resolution honoring Mr. Ledford as "the standard by which all other sportscasters are measured." Later, the fiscal court in his native Harlan County named a part of US 421 "Cawood Ledford Trail." He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He was also the first person to get in both the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame and the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame. Ledford's ability at calling basketball games is perhaps what he will be remembered for most. To many of his peers, he was one of basketball's finest play- by-play announcers. Experts picked him as the sport's top announcer several times. He broadcast basketball finals for CBS and NBC radio networks for several years. To many Kentuckians, he was not just the voice, but the soul of UK basketball. For years, when UK games were televised, many fans thought the best way to experience a game was to turn on the TV, turn down the sound and listen to Mr. Ledford's play-by-play. He tried to put fans at courtside.

Oscar Cawood Ledford was born April 24, 1926, at Cawood, a small community 10 miles south of Harlan that is named, as he was, for his mother's family. The family homeplace is called Booger Hollow. His Harlan county property was part of a 2,000-acre grant that an ancestor, Berry Cawood, received in lieu of pay for service in the Revolutionary War. Mr. Ledford's parents were teachers. His father and another man owned small truck mines. Mr. Ledford graduated from Hall High School, served in the Marine Corps during World War II, and graduated from Centre College in 1949, with a major in business and minors in history and Spanish. Mr. Ledford got his start in broadcasting at WHLN in Harlan in 1951. He did sports broadcasts and sold ads for the station. For two summers he broadcast the games of the old Harlan Smokies, a Class D baseball team in the Mountain States League. He also broadcast high school games. He came to Lexington in 1953 to work for WLEX in radio and television. Mr. Ledford broadcast UK games on radio, starting out as the color man on UK football broadcasts, then moving to play-by-play. He did all the regular basketball games and the University of Kentucky Invitational Tournament, which debuted that year. While in Lexington, he also announced Golden Gloves matches and Keeneland races. In 1956, he moved to WHAS in Louisville to work as a radio and television sports reporter. In 1961, he made his first call of the Kentucky Derby for WHAS (Carry Back won). He was considered a first-rate horse race announcer, with three prestigious Eclipse Awards to prove it. Churchill Downs CEO and president Tom Meeker said yesterday that Mr. Ledford came to represent, as much as anyone, what the Derby is.

Mr. Ledford met his wife, Frances Johnson, who was from the Harlan County town of Lynch, at WHAS in the 1950s. She worked in the business office. They didn't marry until 1974. It was the first marriage for both. Mr. Ledford became a celebrity throughout the state after UK sold its radio broadcast rights to the G.H. Johnson Co. in 1968. The company made Mr. Ledford the play- by-play announcer for both football and basketball. He used that fame to build a lucrative career for himself. He left WHAS in 1979 to form his own company in Lexington, Cawood Ledford Productions. He continued doing play-by-play of UK athletic events. Over the years, Cawood Ledford Productions produced daily radio commentaries for stations across the state, daily television commentaries, television specials for several stations, a radio call-in show, a weekly tabloid publication devoted to UK sports, and commercials. Mr. Ledford received many awards and several honorary degrees in his long career. In the early 1990s, he became the first person who wasn't a player or coach to have a jersey retired in his honor in Rupp Arena. He was named "Sportscaster of the Year" 21 times between 1967 and 1990. Mr. Ledford produced several books. UK's trip to the Peach Bowl in 1993 was the football game he remembered the most, he said.

He said football was more difficult to broadcast than basketball. "There's a lot more preparation (in football)," he said. "And there are a lot more people involved. Basketball is a continuous motion thing. In football, you've got 22 guys doing nothing! And, then in the same split second, all 22 guys move! It all happens at once and then it absolutely stops. So, you need some help in football." Basketball was completely different. "Basketball was made in heaven for radio. It's just a good pace and you're close. You can see the faces." Mr. Ledford considered UK basketball coach Adolph Rupp an important person in his life. "Many of the things I believe today are things I learned from him," he said. Some people complained that Mr. Ledford rooted too much for the home team. "I make no bones about it - I'm for Kentucky," he said. "If you follow one team you can't help but be for them. But I'm not afraid to criticize them. If they're playing poorly, I'm certainly not afraid to say so." Mr. Ledford said Rupp once told him, "By God, Cawood, when you see one of our teams dogging it, by God, burn 'em." Mr. Ledford's high visibility in sports led to leadership roles in other areas. He was named the 1980 crusade chairman for the state's division of the American Cancer Society. He was the grand marshal at parades and a speaker at various events. He also served on the board of the UK Basketball Museum in Lexington and on the Kentucky Horse Park Commission.