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Dungy expected to accept award in Lexington

Mark Story

Tony Dungy could be coming soon to Lexington.

The Super Bowl-winning, former head coach of the Indianapolis Colts will receive the Blanton Collier Award on June 19 at the Lexington Opera House.

Presented in memory of the late University of Kentucky and Cleveland Browns coach, the honor is given to a football figure that has shown "integrity on the field and off."

The devoutly religious Dungy is widely recognized as one of the true gentlemen in American sports.

"We're very, very thrilled he is accepting the award, our whole family is," says Kay Collier McLaughlin, one of the former Kentucky coach's daughters. "I have never met (Dungy). But we have always admired Tony Dungy and all that he has stood for."

The Blanton Collier Award is presented in conjunction with the Kentucky Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Scheduled to be inducted into the KPF Hall of Fame on the same night are Shaun Alexander; Joe Federspiel; John Jackson; Sam Madison; and Jim Marshall (who knew? The former Vikings defensive lineman was born in Danville).

Tickets for the event are $50 (and available at www.lyfl.org/hall%20of%20fame.htm). Proceeds go to Special Needs Children of Kentucky.

Dungy is scheduled to be the evening's featured speaker.

"That's Father's Day weekend, which complicates his travel situation," Collier McLaughlin said. "He's definitely accepting the award. We're still working out the travel situation. At worst, he'll be speaking by video, but we're optimistic about having him in person."

UK 'super fan' turns 90

On the night of April 20, Jim Brown thought he and wife Mary Anne were headed to the University of Kentucky's Boone Faculty Center for a family dinner to celebrate Brown's 90th birthday.

Surprise!

When Brown got there, some 90 people — including Rich Brooks — were there for a party.

"He was so good posing with people, letting people get pictures taken with him," Brown said of the Kentucky football coach. "It was really nice for him to be there."

Brown, of course, has long "been there" for UK football.

He has seen every Kentucky home game since 1945. Had it not been for missing the 1944 season due to World War II — Brown was a member of the famed Burma Bridge Busters — that streak would go back to 1938.

Here is why it's fun to talk football with Brown. I asked him if he'd gone to Kentucky's bowl games. I meant UK's recent three-straight trips to the Music City Bowl (twice) and the Liberty Bowl.

"I went to the first one," Brown said.

He was not talking about the 2006 Music City Bowl; he was instead speaking of Kentucky's first bowl trip ever — the 1947 Great Lakes Bowl in Cleveland.

"You want to talk about cold, the wind was whipping around in that big, lake-front stadium," Brown said. "That was the second year (Bear) Bryant was here. We beat Villanova."

Brown is already planning to extend his UK football home streak to 2009, though he fears he may have a conflict in October between a Kentucky game and an WWII reunion in San Antonio he really wants to attend.

"Lots of people are saying, 'Don't end your streak,'" Brown said. "Others are saying, 'No one can ever catch you, so don't worry about ending the streak.' I don't know what to do."

Hoopin' in Spokane?

With 24,000 entrants, the Spokane Hoopfest bills itself as the largest three-on-three basketball tournament in the world.

I have no idea if that is true, but I can tell you that the folks in Washington state are avidly seeking a team from Kentucky to make the cross-continental trek to participate in this year's event (June 27-28).

Tournament organizers say they have teams from 43 states signed up. "We really, really want all 50 states represented," says Pam Scott, a publicist who works for the Spokane Regional Convention Bureau.

Among the seven states they are missing is Kentucky — along with Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia, Rhode Island and Delaware.

Scott says the tournament will not be able to subsidize entries from states far away.

If anyone agrees to travel from Kentucky to play, Scott said tourney organizers could be interested in having them blog about their experiences.

For entry information, go to the Web site http://spokanehoopfest.net.

Any Kentucky hoopsters willing to travel to the Left Coast to show 'em how to ball?

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