While the great party that is the Kentucky state high school football playoffs is set to begin on Friday — with 192 invited guests — basketball season is right around the corner. Teams have been practicing for the last couple of weeks.

December isn’t that far away either and one of the state’s best holiday tournaments — the Ashland Invitational Tournament — has its field lined up.

The AIT will have a powerhouse lineup for the Dec. 26-28 tournament at James A. Anderson Gymnasium, including preseason top 10 teams Christian County and Mason County.

Covington Catholic, Bishop Brossart, East Carter, Johnson Central, Glasgow and Ashland are also in the eight-team field.

Every school is guaranteed three games.

Glasgow comes with some local ties with head coach Jeff Hall and his son Cameron, who is a senior, coming back to the area for three days.

East Carter and Ashland are top three teams in the 16th Region, Johnson Central will be a 15th Region contender and Covington Catholic and Bishop Brossart are typically strong programs.

Kiwanis Bowl history

Longtime area radio broadcaster Charlie Dunlap called me the other day to relate a story about the 1972 Kiwanis Bowl.

Dunlap remembers broadcasting the Kiwanis Bowl game that year when it was played on a Saturday afternoon in Putnam Stadium.

It was moved from the traditional Thursday night because President Richard Nixon was in Ashland that night.

Dunlap was supposed to be joined by Chuck Warren for the broadcast. However, Warren never showed and Dunlap ended up broadcasting the game solo from the second deck of the press box.

“At halftime, a couple of guys were supposed to come up and talk with me but they forgot about me,” he said. “I remember just stumbling over words trying to think of something to say.”

Dunlap said he doesn’t even remember if Coles or Putnam won the game that day (FYI: Coles defeated Putnam 28-0).

“All I remember is that the sponsors got a lot of extra ads that day,” he said.

Our reporter who covered the Kiwanis Bowl this season had a name wrong in the preview story but it’s a name Tomcat fans are familiar with.

Drew Walters is the freshman who may get the nickname Wolf Man after our error. His father, Phil, who is an Ashland firefighter, played in the 1978 Kiwanis Bowl — the last Coles-Putnam game. Drew’s older brother, Michael, was also a Kiwanis Bowl alum, playing in 2003.

Drew’s grandfather is John Paul Walters, who was a

Tomcat star in the early 1950s. He missed being able to participate in the Kiwanis Bowl by a few years — the bowl game started in 1952.

Smith-Patterson

The reunion between Darryl Smith and Paul Patterson went well last Friday in Athens, Ohio.

Smith was able to officiate a game involving his former high school basketball coach at Ashland. Patterson has coached at Taylor University since 1980.

“He hasn’t changed a bit,” Smith said. “He was exactly like he was 30-some years ago.”

Patterson didn’t come out on the floor until a few minutes before tipoff and he was talking with Ohio University coach John Groce, who played for him at Taylor, when he saw Smith.

“He said ‘Well, not only did you play for me but this guy played for me,’’’ Smith said. “That’s the first he realized it (that Smith was one of the referees).”

Aside from a few one-liners, the game went off without a hitch, Smith said. Ohio U. buried Taylor, 76-40, as expected in the exhibition.

Smith said in the two years he played at Ashland he only saw Patterson receive one technical foul. That came when the Tomcats were playing a team in West Virginia, which back then had the seat-belt rule where coaches could not stand up.

“Somebody on our team made a good play and he got up to applaud him and one of the refs gave him a technical,” Smith said. “That’s the only one I can remember.

“He’s just a class act all the way.”

Smith got a surprise too when he saw 1977 Ashland classmate David Gill, whose son Scott is a starter for Taylor.

Rose Hill omissions

A soccer player and volleyball player from Rose Hill who both made all-district teams were not included in the listing in the paper.

Jacob Mullen was the soccer selection and Claire Virgin the volleyball selection.

MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@

dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.