Cawood, Remembering A True Legend
by a2d2 on Sep 6, 2009 12:01 PM EDT
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On September 5th, 2001, Kentucky and the nation were saddened by the news of the passing of "The Voice of the Wildcats". He had been associated with UK sports for many, many years. I must pay tribute to this icon, a true Kentuckian and a true Wildcat fan.
Cawood, as he was called, brought all the sights and sounds of the games into our hearts even when there wasn't any television coverage. He became the person who would vividly inform us at home and away of each pass, fumble, score, foul, kick, dribble, shot, and every offensive or defensive play imaginable. He could paint a picture so real in our minds, with his words, of exactly how the plays looked. He was truly a legend. Someone who knew that thousands, if not millions, were depending on his coverage of the games to guide us through each and every one.
As I have mentioned here before, I was raised listening to this great man. My grandmother would only watch the games on TV, with the sound muted. Cawood would be her choice for the play-by-plays. (Thanks, Grandma.) The time delays between the video signal and the audio signal weren't a problem. We would continue to watch Cawood on the radio. He could answer our unasked questions and read our minds from sometimes thousands of miles away. He was such a joy for this Wildcat fan.
Thanks for the memories, Cawood. You will never be forgotten and always loved by many.
A video tribute to tthe Voice of the Wildcats, "Hello everybody, this is Cawood Ledford."
UK Warmup (via jmduncan01)
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Excellant !
thanks a2d2, I did the same thing, as many did, I stopped after he retired, and your right, you could be driving, and listening to him, and it was like watching it in person, he truly " got it "…….great post
I know bluehound....
When Cawood called a game, we didn’t have to have a “picture box” to know from where a shot was attempted.. He would show us in our minds. He was the greatest.
Blue... there is no other color to Bleed !!!
Very apt tribute To Cawood
I had forgotten when he passed but he was the greatest and indeed an icon for Kentucky sports. Could you hear all the cheers from heaven yesterday with our football Cats getting that win? I could and my Dad was most likely the loudest.
Nice tribute for a truly great professional ....
I remember listening to Cawood in the days before cable (dating myself here) … TV wasn’t an option and to follow the cats from down in GA, you’d go to a high spot and find WCKY …. sometimes with the sound fading in and out – you could here Cawood’s “GOT IT” or “PUTS IT UP AND IN” above the static … Just the sound of his voice let me know I was on the UK game …
Some May Forget What A Great Horse Race Caller He Was
No one called the Derby better than Cawood.
UK Basketball & Cawood
If cable dates you then I’m in real trouble……………we did have TV but it was only on for about 8 hrs a day. As a small child I learned basketball from Cawood and local high school games. The whole family would listen to Cawood!! I would do cheers that I saw at local high school games. When I was in school girls played basketball by GIRLS rules.
Too confining for me. (half court style) ugh! Cawood was Kentucky Basketball and that is all there is to it. Sadly missed and pleased to have known him and I did have one op to meet him. The GREATEST!!!!
With memories such as this....
I don’t mind being “dated”….
:-)
Blue... there is no other color to Bleed !!!
It's times like these that I wish I had grown up in
the Commonwealth just to say that I have listened to greatness when it was being made.
I have heard some of his broadcasts after the fact and Cawood is smooth as butta!
I LOVE COOKING WITH WINE
Sometimes I even put it in the food.
When living in Jamaica with Peace Corps, 1981
DIASPORIC VOICE OF HOME
Living in fragrant Jamaica
I would settle at night
in tropical moonlight
on the stone porch
of my non-electrified
one-room isolated house
on craggy rocky goat hill
and tune in Cats’ games
on nostalgia-powered radio
wistfully tuning the dial
finding Cawood Ledford’s
slightly craggy yet soothe
familiar home-grown drawl
on the far Kentucky station
whose signal fast-breaking
through the ionosphere
was my sole nexus
to Home.
Lee,
quite poetic for an ol’ boy from Muhlenberg Co. Good on you!! Bill
No moral victories--it's all about Ws and Ls!!!
I thought
You two knew one another. He commented on one of your series posts you did last year. I loved his poem to Cawood,
Thanks, Ms. kykat. I see you have paw tracks crossing the face and blue-blood seepage tinting the hair. May I inquire as to which parts of the Kentucky environs you hail?
by leedurhamstone on Sep 11, 2009 11:13 PM EDT up reply actions
I was born and reared
In Lebanon, Marion County, Ky. Do you remember the Club 68 from the 60’s and 70’s? Actually my stomping grounds was the Horseshoe when in my mid 20’s because it seemed to attract the more mature crowd. I met my second husband there and I moved to Campellsville which is only 18 miles from Lebanon. I have been in C-ville since 1978. Really wanting to get back to my hometown since my hubby passed in 2003. That’s where the majority of my sisters and brothers and cousins live. Hey the Cats are playing an exhibition game with C-ville University the first game of the season. Should be interesting.
Well, well, the coincidences rain down like Cats…and that other animal. I, too, was born (on summer solstice 1947) in Lebanon, at the old St. Mary’s Hospital, which must have been the closest birthing facility to Greensburg, from where my Durham clan hailed (as reflected in my middle name). I spent many holidays in Greensburg; traveling to CampbelIsville was always a big trip and I recall the tobacco warehouses. From the 1960s and ‘70s, I remember Club 68 in Lebanon. I had many an occasion to shunpike through the inner and outer Bluegrass and burn up Highway 68 as my personal Thunder Road (I don’t mean I bootlegged!).
by leedurhamstone on Sep 12, 2009 2:01 PM EDT up reply actions
Thanks, Bill. The Muhlenberg folks sure love the Cats, at least the ones who follow sports, as I’m sure they do in your neck of the woods (Adair County?).
I returned to Central City for two semesters and two internships at Madisonville Community College, in 1976-77, in their Mining Reclamation program, just so I could work as a surface-mine inspector for the State Dept. of Natural Resources, out of the Hazard office, with my assigned mines in Leslie and Harlan counties—deep Appalachia. I felt an outsider, a college boy from the flatlands of the Midwest, a separate cultural and topographic region from eastern Kentucky. I quickly realized I had very few inroads with which to personally relate to the mountaineers, and it was NOT eating hog jowl and beans! It was, you guessed it: the preternatural need to constantly discuss the previous game and the next game of the Cats.
There, my main mine-scouting partner related to me that his dad had died of a heart attack while listening to Cawood and the Cats on radio. His tone when relating this bit of startling family-heirloom memory was that his dad had winged his way to the Beyond in an approved and blissful fashion. Perhaps he is now in the Great Hereafter serenely watching all the old games?
Should we have a thread about the heroic efforts to listen to Cats games when they were only on radio?
by leedurhamstone on Sep 11, 2009 7:57 PM EDT up reply actions
That would be a great idea Lee....
Why don’t you do that? I love your writing. :-)
Blue... there is no other color to Bleed !!!
a2d2
Just thought you would like to know that your post to Cawood got a much deserved link from John Clay.
Congrats!
Anyone Who Ever Lived Away From KY
Has probably had the experience of driving around to find the best WHAS signal back in Cawood’s heyday.
My all-time favorite was driving around rural Maryland in March 1992 to keep a good signal for Cawood’s last UK game (Duke versus UK). I was literally in unknown territory but I followed the WHAS signal wherever it went.
used to drive around
St. Petersburg Fl in 1974 trying to keep the signal, it was amazing how far it would reach.
We listened to his last broadcast and watched the game, we lost much, much more than
" a " game that night
"driving around to find the best WHAS signal "
You should have tuned into 1420 am out of Ashland, a whole lot closer and just as strong. Cawood was the greatest!
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