High school sports scoreboard radio show ends 21-year run in Kentucky

A Friday night high school sports fixture on Kentucky radio for the last two decades will not return this season.

The “Kentucky High School Scoreboard Show” will not air in 2022 as its “driving force” and host Rick Shaw fully completes his retirement from the industry.

“It was a great run,” Shaw told the Herald-Leader on Thursday. “I had no idea it would last this long or get this big. I was able to pull it together and started with 12 stations 21 years ago.”

At its peak, “High School Scoreboard” was broadcast on more than 50 radio stations and streamed online, Shaw said.

But the logistics of producing a 10 p.m. to midnight weekly live show minus Shaw was a hard sell in today’s internet age when the entire world is connected online and finding scores from Pikeville to Paducah is a bit easier than it was in 2001.

“Rick was the driving force behind the ‘Kentucky High School Scoreboard,’ he did everything from securing the affiliates and sponsors, scheduling the coaches, to hosting the weekly radio show,” said Michael Jordan, senior vice president of programming for 630 WLAP-AM, part of iHeart Media Inc. “We wish Rick a happy retirement, we are thrilled for him, Sharon and the family and we thank him for his outstanding commitment to the ‘Kentucky High School Scoreboard Show’ and high school athletics.”

Shaw actually retired from his main gig in the radio industry (sales representative for Clear Channel in Lexington) in 2012, but his love for high school sports kept him on air with the scoreboard show for another nine years. He shared hosting duties with WLAP’s Billy Rutledge last season as he began to step away.

Shaw originally came up with the idea for the show after hearing a similar show produced in Indiana by Mike Pence, the same Mike Pence who later became vice president of the United States. In its beginnings, Shaw’s show faced hurdles, too.

“At Clear Channel, it got all the way up the line to Pittsburgh and they said, ‘Well, nobody’s interested in high school sports,’ and we said, ‘Well, in Kentucky, they are,” Shaw said.

But as with all things, there comes a time to move on.

“It’s been a thrill of a lifetime to work with Cawood Ledford and Ralph Hacker for 20 years on the UK Radio Network and then 21 years of this show,” Shaw said. “I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to have been on that show and produced it.”

Sayre football gets radio deal

An agreement between Sayre School and LM Communications will keep high school football on the airwaves in Lexington.

The Sayre Spartans’ home and away football games will be broadcast on WZNN-FM 96.1 The Zone with play-by-play announcer Angelo Carriero each Friday.

Sayre, coached by former Marshall and New York Jets quarterback Chad Pennington, plays in Class A, the smallest division of Kentucky high school football. It hosts Eminence on Friday with a 7:30 p.m. kickoff. The broadcast will begin at 7:15 p.m.

Over the last few years, Carriero led “Varsity Game Night” featuring a number of live Lexington public school football and basketball games on WZNN or WLXG-AM 1300.

PrepSpin’s Fayette lockout ends

William Warfield, owner of high school sports streamer PrepSpin.com, has reached an agreement with Fayette County Public Schools and the NFHS Network to return to Fayette County public school campuses beginning this fall.

PrepSpin, a pioneer of high school sports streaming in Central Kentucky for more than a decade, last streamed a Fayette public schools varsity game in 2020 before NFHS Network automated cameras were fully installed at Bryan Station, Frederick Douglass, Henry Clay, Lafayette, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Tates Creek. With those cameras, NFHS Network and KHSAA.tv got an exclusive rights deals to stream football and basketball games thus locking PrepSpin out.

With the agreement, PrepSpin will simultaneously stream select Fayette games on its own feeds and the NFHS Network. The deal came too late to adjust this fall’s PrepSpin football schedule, but Warfield said he will be looking for opportunities to squeeze games in. PrepSpin will have Henry Clay’s game at Lexington Catholic on Aug. 26 as part of its streaming deal with LexCath.

PrepSpin marked the lockout’s end with a preseason Lexington area football season preview show last week that featured head coaches from all nine Lexington high school football teams.