Why would Cardinal Hayes coach Joe Lods bring a team from New York to Harrodsburg to play one high school game in early February?
     “Our best player (Ian Jackson) is getting recruited by coach (John) Calipari. We thought it was an opportunity to play a game and then watch a (Kentucky) game because they are playing that night (against Florida),” said Lods.
     “Kids like to travel. Adults do not want to travel but we have gone to Texas, Arizona and Massachusetts to play. Now we'll be coming to Kentucky. What can I do when your best players want to travel.”
     Cardinal Hayes is part of the Grind Session Thoroughbred Classic at Mercer County High School Feb. 3-5 in Harrodsburg. Cardinal Hayes will play Louisville Moore at 3 p.m. Feb. 4.
     Jackson is the No. 2 overall player in the class of 2024 according to the 247Sports Composite and has scholarship offers from Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, Oregon, Arkansas, Connecticut, UCLA, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Pittsburgh, LSU Kansas State, Nebraska, Oklahoma State and others.
     He was at UK’s Big Blue Madness in October and has also taken official visits to Oregon, LSU and North Carolina. He did watch Kentucky play UCLA in Madison Square Garden in New York and Calipari and assistant coach Orlando Antigua watched him play the next day.
     “He is a highly ranked off guard. He shoots the ball well. He’s very athletic. He can dunk and finish around the rim,” Lods said. “He’s just an exciting player fans should enjoy seeing. He would be a really good addition to Kentucky if they get him. He’s just a really good player and nice kid.”
     Lods first saw how good Jackson could be when he was in the eighth grade. He said it was obvious he was the “real deal” and would come down to how hard he pushed himself.
     “He scores when he wants to. He is really elusive getting to the basket,” Lods said. “He gets into small places and uses his body so well. He can contract his body and finish in different ways. He can lay it up with his left hand and dunk with his right hand. I am already looking forward to seeing him on the college level with guys pushing him.”
     Jackson, who won a gold medal with USA Basketball playing with UK signee DJ Wagner, is getting pulled in a lot of “different directions” by his nationwide recruitment according to Lobs. There continues to be speculation that he might even reclassify to the 2023 recruiting class.
     “I think he is sick of it (recruiting),” Lobs said. “I don’t think it will go much longer without him committing. Kids want offers. I tell them they just need the right offer. You don’t have to have 20 schools to offer to get the right offer.”
     Lobs said Kentucky coaches are “excited” about Jackson and his teammates coming to Mercer County to play. Lods said “we talk to (assistant) coach

New York guard Ian Jackson, the No. 2 player in the 2024 recruiting class, is an elite athlete who has already taken an official visit to Kentucky. (Twitter Photo)

(Orlando) Antigua a bunch” about coming to the Bluegrass.
     Lods knows many fans who come to the Grind Session Thoroughbred Classic will want a chance to interact with Jackson in hopes he does pick Kentucky.
     “He loves interacting with people. He will sit there if we have a game at 3, sign autographs, take pictures and talk to kids until nightfall if we let him,” the coach said. “I tell him his signature will never be worth anything because he signs so many. But that’s the kind of kid he is. He is just as nice a kid as you can find and fans will really enjoy him.”

     Creativity can pay off in a big way for college athletes now through name, image and likeness but that never occurred to Taylor County junior offensive lineman Hayes Johnson recently when he made a phone call to Kentucky Sports Radio.
     Johnson is a 6-5, 295-pound three-star prospect with eight scholarship offers, including Kentucky, Tennessee and Baylor. He’s also an avid outdoorsman.
     Recently he had been scouting geese when a friend with him suggested he call a local radio station swap shop and advertise they were willing to shoot geese — which are in season now — for anyone who needed help.
     “Then my friend said, ‘You won’t call KSR,’” Johnson said.
     He decided he would but would not use his first name so the conversation would not turn to football recruiting. However, Kentucky Sports Radio co-host Ryan Lemond figured out it was him and they did talk football recruiting before Johnson actually gave out his cell phone number on air in case anyone listening

needed someone to hunt geese on their property.
     “I did a little (goose) business from the call. It was just a joke but it worked out and some people offered to let me come hunt. But I really was trying to hide my identity,” he said. “I also did get some calls from people telling where I should go to school. I know eventually I will have to change it (his cell phone number) eventually since I gave it out to everyone.”
     He said he had never considered his call might eventually lead to a NIL deal in college. One perfect possibility would seem to be Hayes Calls, a company in Oliver Springs, TN., that has waterfowl, deer and turkey calls.
     “I would love to do something like that with NIL but this was all done just by accident,” Johnson said. “I was not looking for a NIL deal. Once you open that can of worms a lot of schools will make a pitch and I do not want to hear that. I want to hear what schools can offer me and not what donors have to offer financially. I love football. That’s why my recruitment is about, not NIL.”

     Former Kentucky guard Tyler Ulis, the 2016 SEC Player of the Year, SEC Defensive Player of the Year and Bob Cousey Award winner as the nation’s top point guard, has returned to the UK basketball program as a student assistant on coach John Calipari’s staff.
     "He's going to be great. He's in our practices and talks to me after. I want him to watch tape and give me ideas,” Calipari said about Ulis.
     Ulis was on UK’s 2014-15 team that started 38-0 before losing to Wisconsin in the Final Four. He averaged 17 points per game as a sophomore in 2015-16 and had 246 assists to break John Wall’s career mark at UK. The Cats also won the SEC regular season and tourney championships.
     He was the No. 34 pick in the 2016 NBA Draft but his pro career ended in the G-League in the 2019-20 season.
     Ulis was seriously hurt in a car accident about a year ago in Michigan and is now back on campus taking courses. He has been on crutches since February.
     Senior point guard Sahvir Wheeler is glad to have Ulis available to help him.
     “His knowledge, his experience, not only here at the high level but in the NBA … his little details, especially at the point guard position because he played it,” Wheeler answered when asked about why he liked Ulis. “I am looking forward to being on the road with us and continuing to have him on the bench at home.
     “He is super cool outside of basketball, too. Being able to talk to him, chop it up and share life experiences … he is just super cool to be around.”
     Ulis says he has a natural bond with Wheeler.
     "We're both smaller guys. The NBA doesn't like us too much but we're guys who fight hard and play with toughness," Ulis said in an interview with Tom Leach. "He leads the team very well. A few things I feel like I can help him out with and we're going to get it done."

     After the unexpected death of head coach Mike Leach, Mississippi State promoted defensive coordinator Zach Arnett to head coach and he led the Bulldogs to a 19-10 win over Illinois in the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa.
     “Obviously coach Leach, Mike Leach has been leading this program for three years, and he was out there leading us today,” Arnett said after the win.
     Leach, 51, got an early college coaching job under Hal Mumme at Iowa Wesleyan and later came with him to Kentucky where he helped coach players like Tim Couch and Craig Yeast as they put up record-breaking numbers. Leach had been head coach at Texas Tech and Washington State before going to Mississippi State.
     Arnett said he was “incredibly fortunate and lucky” to learn under Leach, who had a quirky personality, for three years.
     “I did not realize how much wisdom I would have the opportunity to soak in. He hands out a document that's kind of his career's worth of coaching wisdom to all his coaches, and I will cherish that document and lean on it for the rest of my time as a coach. I'm sure he'll find a way to let me know my mistakes,” Arnett

said.
     Much like UK did to honor John Schlarman after his passing in its game with Vanderbilt, Mississippi State ran a special formation to honor Leach to open the game.
     “It just created an opportunity in the moment to honor coach Leach's legacy in the game of football,” Arnett said.
     Arnett said he celebrated after the win with a “nice beverage, one that me and Coach Leach have probably enjoyed together several times before” before taking a nap.
     Arnett also paid tribute in a funnier way to Leach after he was told one of his assistant coaches had proposed to his girlfriend after the bowl win.
     “I thought coach Leach had enough viral moments talking about what to do in terms of marriage, you wouldn't think that would happen. Coach Washington, I would suggest elope. I would definitely say that,” Arnett joked knowing that Leach had given the same elopement advice during the season on the SEC teleconference.to put in the work and the coaches here taught me that.”

     Linebacker Jacquez Jones made over 300 tackles during his time at Mississippi and then Kentucky and hopes he left advice behind for younger players now that he’s hopefully headed to the NFL.
     “I have told them (younger players) no matter what happens, put your head down and go to work and listen to the coaches,” Jones said. “When times get hard, that is when you have to become a real man.
     “I feel like I gave it my all. That is what I can hang my hat on. I wanted to go out with no regrets and that’s what I did. Coming to Kentucky was a big change but it was a blessing. God makes no mistakes and he put me in this position for a reason.”
     Jones hopes UK’s returning defensive players even learned a lesson in the 21-0 Music City Bowl loss.
     “I told the boys not even to look at the score. Just go out and ball. Everybody was flying around and having fun and that’s what I wanted,” Jones said. “Some people get down and give up but it takes somebody with heart to give it their all even when you are down and that’s what we did.”
     Jones also told younger teammates he had to learn what work really meant when he transferred to UK from Ole Miss two years ago.
     “When I was younger I thought you could just go out and play and not put in the work,” Jones said. “You have got to meet God halfway. God is going to bless you but you have to put in the work and the coaches here taught me that.”

     If you are a University of Kentucky sports fan, then long-time UK writer Jamie Vaught has another book about UK basketball that I think you will enjoy.
     “Forever Crazy About the Cats: An Improbable Journey of a Kentucky Sportswriter Overcoming Adversity” is a 408-page hardcover book about his career covering UK basketball and football despite his hearing loss since birth.
     “This new book actually was written outside of my comfort zone,” Vaught said. “It wasn’t an easy project to do in discussing my severe hearing impairment, but I was encouraged to do this type of book.”
     He shares stories about Adolph Rupp, Joe Hall, Cawood Ledford, Dan Issel, Fran Church, Mark Stoops, Maci Morris, Oscar Tshiebwe and others.
     Vaught has been a professor at Middlesboro’s Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College (SKCTC). He wrote columns for The Cats’ Pause for 13 years.
     The book is now available online on Amazon.com. It is also expected to be available at selected outlets in Kentucky after Christmas.

  Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week 1:

     “The Damar Hamlin injury (in the NFL) reminds all of us that have made a career out of this game that football isn’t a contact sport. It is a violent sport. It’s our job to make sure that all practices and games and workouts are monitored with humans trained in using AEDs )automated external defibrillators). AEDs save lives,” former UK offensive coordinator Tony Franklin after Hamlin's collapse from cardiac arrest in a NFL game.

Quote of the Week 2:

     “The good stuff is poison. It's poison. Don't read it. You're never quite as good as it seems and it's never quite as bad as it seems. The bad stuff creates anxiety, so why would you read it? Why would you look at it?” John Calipari on advice he gives players about social media.

Quote of the Week 3:

     “I feel like I grew a lot from my first year to this year. You know you still have room to grow no matter who you are. You still have room to grow. I feel like I grew a lot,” sophomore linebacker Trevin Wallace after UK’s Music City Bowl loss.