For 26 years, he covered virtually everything that could be covered in local sports
(This article first appeared in the August print edition of the Hendersonian.)
Kevin Patton shrugs his shoulders when asked about the recent announcement of his induction into the Henderson County Sports Hall of Fame.
“I don’t feel like I did any more (than sportswriters) in any other community,” he said. “I just felt like that was my job.”
Those on the nominating committee, however, hold a different point of view after having nominated Patton for the years of sports coverage he provided Henderson County when he was with The Gleaner.
“Patton’s passion for sports and dedication to reporting made him an integral part of the community, leaving a lasting impact on HCHS Athletics and sports around the area,” the committee wrote in a release announcing the 2024 class of inductees.
That’s true. Virtually any running, jumping, sliding, blocking, tackling, shooting, dribbling, passing, pitching and catching in Henderson County—and also Webster and Union counties—were covered by Patton during his 26-year career with the newspaper.
Though it might be difficult for the humble Patton to give himself the nod, it’s not difficult to get him to talk about the teams and athletes he covered during a career that started in 1996 and ended in 2022, when he took a job with the Property Valuation Administration office.
In a winding interview with the Hendersonian, Patton spoke of some of the big games and local teams that highlighted his career.
For starters, the best game he ever witnessed, he said, wasn’t even one he was covering. It occurred during the 2003 girls regional basketball tournament that was being held in Henderson that year. The first semifinal game of the night pitted Henderson County versus Christian County, and because Patton would cover the second game, he took a seat in the top corner of Colonel Gym and watched.
It was a thrilling triple-overtime game, so good, in fact, that Danny Perkins, Lady Cols assistant coach, considers it as one of the two best games ever played in Colonel Gym. Perkins called it a back-and-forth game with an electric atmosphere, and said the Lady Cols had chances to win. In the third overtime, Christian County came out and blitzed HCHS and walked away with a 78-65 victory.
Many who sat in the gym that night called it the greatest game they’d ever seen.
“That’s how good that game was,” Patton said.
Patton didn’t want to single out any athletes as his favorite to cover, fearing that he’d leave someone out and because so many great ones have played locally while he was the sportswriter.
He did say that one of the perks of covering sports in Henderson County has been the relationships that he’s formed with players and coaches. He often sees athletes he covered in high school now in town raising families and they stop and talk.
Though demurring on individual athletes, he didn’t shy from mentioning his favorite team to cover—the 2000 HCHS Colonel baseball team, which won the state championship. He first got to know several of the players on that team when they were younger and playing in the Bambino World Series that was held in Henderson in 1996 and was able to watch them come up the ranks culminating in a state title.
“That’s the one I think about,” he said.
His affinity for that team may also have been influenced by his love for baseball, which he said he could watch and cover every day of the year. His goal early in life was to one day become a beat writer for a Major League Baseball team. But he said that probably wouldn’t be a good career choice now because of a dislike for big cities.
In spring of 1996 Patton was ready to move on from the Mayfield Messenger, where he had been doing virtually everything sports-related in that newsroom, including editing, layout and all the writing. He was looking for a place “where I didn’t have to do it all.”
He sent resumes to newspapers in Kentucky and Tennessee, including one to The Gleaner. That one was sent out via the United States Postal Service on a Friday, Patton said. On Sunday morning, he received a call.
“It was Ron Jenkins,” he said. Adding he was surprised that the former Gleaner editor called so quickly and equally surprised that the USPS moved so quickly.
An interview was set up for that Friday and Patton remembered leaving that meeting with the feeling that the job was his. Within a month, he and his wife, Kathy, had moved to Henderson.
His first big assignment was the aforementioned Bambino World Series. During that assignment, he interviewed former MLB pitcher Scott McGregor and baseball hall of famers Lou Brock and Brooks Robinson.
“Man, this is good,” he thought then. “Is it going to be like this all the time?”
Unfortunately for Patton, the baseball lover, it wasn’t. But he enjoyed all the other sports he covered. That included a couple of Final 4 HCHS football teams, several HCHS girls basketball Final 4s, boys soccer Final 4 teams and a state track team.
As the company that owns The Gleaner, Gannett, continued to make cuts, which included decimating the once proud and award-winning newsroom, Patton said he saw the writing on the wall. He assumed his time there, too, would be cut short. So, when current PVA Andrew Powell offered him a job in 2022, it didn’t take long to accept.
There were some pieces of his old job that he wanted to continue to be a part of, which goes back to his love of baseball. At The Gleaner, Patton and Kathy had always hosted Henderson Flash baseball players for the summer, and Patton—with not much else to cover in the summer—provided coverage for the team. He wanted to be a part of the club, and he asked club President Clay Bolin—“Whatever you need,” he told Bolin, “I just really enjoy being around” the club.
Since then, he’s fulfilled that whatever they need—social media, interviews after the game, scorekeeper, heck, just moving tables.
Patton said he owes a lot of thanks to people in the community but also to those in The Gleaner newsroom all those years.
“I always thought they made me better that what I was,” Patton said.
In addition to Jenkins, he mentioned sports editor Jim Kurk, a great editor, who Patton said caught many of the mistakes a writer can make, especially in the rush of getting back to the newsroom after an exciting game while cranking out a story to beat deadline.
On more than one occasion, he said he handed his copy to Kurk for review, only to have the editor call him to his desk.
“Kevin, what was the score?” he would ask.
“He saved me more than once,” Patton said.
He also is grateful for photographers Darrin Phegley and Mike Lawrence, whom he spent years traveling to and from games across the region and state.
“Their work always made what I did look better,” he said.
And David Dixon, Doug White and Brad Schneider were newsroom veterans who each helped him along the way.
People often ask if he’ll ever write sports again, which he said he takes as a compliment. But the answer is something he’s not sure of, because with his current full-time job, he stays plenty busy and with reporting sports, he said he never wants to do it halfway.
“I don’t know how to do it a little,” he said.
Two years into his new career at the PVA office, Patton said he really enjoys being able to go to a game, watch the game, and when it’s over, head home without the stress of hitting a deadline.
“I don’t miss the schedule,” he said. “I don’t really even miss the games. I do miss the people—the coaches, the athletes, the fans.”
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Also inducted this year will be 1996 graduate Anthony Hay, 2014 graduate Kaleb Duckworth, former HCHS track coach Wade Harper and the 2001 boys track team. The inductees will be introduced at halftime during the Hall of Fame Game, the first Colonels football home game on Aug. 30 vs South Warren. The Hall of Fame banquet will be 6 p.m. Aug. 31 in the HCHS cafeteria.
