Brandon Webb is going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, but not the one in Cooperstown.
The Arizona Diamondback star will be one of seven inductees into the University of Kentucky Hall of Fame’s 2009 class.
Webb pitched three years for the Wildcats before being drafted by the Diamondbacks in 2000.
One of Webb’s college highlights came when the Cats defeated top-ranked South Carolina with him on the mound. He is among UK record-holders in career strikeouts (259) and games started (46) from 1998-2000.
Webb rose through the professional ranks and made his Arizona debut in 2003, finishing runnerup for National League Rookie of the Year that season.
Three years later, in 2006, Webb won the NL Cy Young Award and he was second for baseball’s top pitching award in 2007 and 2008.
The rest of UK’s Hall of Fame class includes former volleyball coach Kathy DeBoer, football player Wilbur Hackett, baseball player and contributor Jim Host, swimmer Rachel Komisarz and basketball player Mike Pratt.
The committee also granted diver Tina Johnson Ybarra's request to be moved from the 2008 class to the 2009 class.
Induction ceremonies are Friday and the class will be honored at Saturday’s football game when Kentucky plays Louisiana-Monroe.
Rose Hill updates
Mark Watkins has been named the boys’ basketball coach at Rose Hill, replacing John Bush who resigned after leading the program last season.
Watkins is also the head coach of the girls’ team.
The school board accepted Bush’s resignation. His son, Kyle, is one of five varsity players who have left the school this fall.
Kyle Bush and Corey Gregg, both sophomores, are enrolled at Ashland. Mike Terry, also a sophomore, transferred to Fairview and has been ruled eligible by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association, according to school officials at Fairview.
Colin Kennedy, a 6-foot-7 junior, has enrolled at Chesapeake High School in Ohio where his family now lives, according to his mother Pam.
Senior J.D. Adams, who was at Rose Hill last year, also left the school and is now at Fairview. He played for Ashland as a sophomore.
Reserve sophomore guard Michael Turner transferred to Ironton early in the fall.
The KHSAA has been investigating Rose Hill for the past 18 months but has not released any findings.
Robbie Barber, a 6-4 senior guard at Scott County and a former Rose Hill player, is on the radar of some Division I schools. He received invitations to visit Old Dominion and Wichita State this week.
He has also been invited to East Tennessee State and made unofficial visits to Bucknell and VMI recently.
Barber went to Scott County the same time that Dakotah Euton and Chad Jackson transferred there from Rose Hill.
Dreamy photos
Anyone who attended any of the “Ashland’s Field of Dreams” weekend — either the documentary or the reunion in the park — may have had their photo taken by local photographer Tom Worden.
Photos from the weekend can be seen at wpstudio.zenfolio.com and they are available to purchase.
The documentary has been showing on KET this month and Dave Carter has also updated the CP-1.org Web site with more goodies and more space to accomodate the landslide of visitors.
Proud grandparents
There are several grandparents in the area who have some reason to brag about their football-playing grandchildren who live away from here but still in Kentucky.
‰Casey Robinson, grandson of Roger and Margie Robinson, is a star running back for Bethlehem High School in Bardstown. He’s had several multiple-touchdown games for the Class A school.
‰Mike Burchett, grandson of Earl Heffner, is the quarterback for the Prestonsburg Blackcats. Burchett has completed 104 of 161 passes for 1,749 yards and 19 touchdowns for the 8-0 Blackcats. He also rushed for 299 yards and seven TDs.
‰Zach Hester, grandson of Diane Greene and the late Bert Greene, is a sophomore starter for undefeated Boyle County. Zach has scored three touchdowns, according to his grandmother. His father, Jeff Hester, is an assistant coach on the Boyle staff.
More on Emma
Emma Talley, the Caldwell County High School sophomore who lost the state golf championship because of a scorecard error last week, actually does have some ties to Ashland.
Emma played in the past two NRP Bluegrass Junior Invitationals at Bellefonte Country Club, finishing second this summer and fourth in 2008, according to Tom Cooksey.
In 2008, she was given the Cameron Weis Memorial Sportsmanship Award.
Talley, who won the state golf title as a freshman, was on the way to championship No. 2 on Sunday. She was six strokes ahead of the competition when she finished.
However, when the scores were posted, she noticed something wasn’t quite right. She had a bogey on the 18th hole and had marked down a par score.
Emma and her father went to tournament officials and after a brief meeting they came back with the devastating news that she had to be disqualified.
Not only did Talley lose the state tournament, she also lost the Miss Golf title that is based on points system. She needed to finish no higher than 10th at the state tournament to win that award.
But because of the DQ, her points weren’t enough to claim Miss Golf.
Sacred Heart golfer Lindsay Gahm, who won the title because of Talley’s DQ, tried to give the trophy back to her at the ceremony.
Talley stayed at the tournament and actually re-interviewed with a western Kentucky television station after learning about the scorecard error.
Cooksey, one of the state’s premier rules experts, said the correct decision was made in regards to the USGA Rules of Golf.
This isn’t the first time that Talley has brought a penalty to the attention of a tournament official.
In last year’s regional tournament, she called a penalty stroke on herself when she went to putt a ball and it moved, according to an e-mail from Kim Farmer, an assistant AD at Caldwell County. Talley had not “officially” addressed the ball, but had addressed it for the way she was going to putt it. She called the rule official herself and took the penalty.
Talley also faced the music at school the following day even though she knew there would be a lot of questions from friends.
“Emma’s integrity, morals and values are unspeakable,” Farmer wrote in the e-mail.
I couldn’t agree more.
MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.
