By LARRY VAUGHT
Not every high school recruiting process is the same and Florida pitcher Julie Kelley knows hers certainly was not the norm.
“A lot of girls in my recruiting class committed in the fall of their junior year. I did not get the (recruiting) result I wanted. I talked to my dad, put my head down and got better. My goal since I was a little girl was to go to a Power-Five school,” said Kelley.
Now she’s going to a Power-Five school in the Southeastern Conference — her dream conference — after verbally committing to Kentucky in July after a great travel ball season.
“I knew if I could get my speed up in the high school season and then in the summer the offers would come that I wanted,” she said. “I got to where I was throwing 65 miles per hour consistently.
“I wouldn’t have changed any part of what I went through. I think it made me a better athlete. When people tell you to trust the process I could not grasp what they really meant. But now I do. Once I talked to the coaches at Kentucky, I just knew that was it and I still can’t believe I am going to be playing there.”
She had changed pitching coaches and Brandon Carr told her to give him six months and she would gain four miles per hour on our fastball. She was throwing 62 miles per hour but knew she needed to get to 66 to play in the SEC. He also helped convert her from a rise ball pitcher to a pitcher with a terrific drop ball as well.
“I put in a lot of work on my own. I started taking nutrition seriously. I had always tried to eat somewhat healthy but never was real intent on that before,” Kelley said
She started working on being in better shape and was getting up at 5:30 a.m. five days a week to work out to help make her dream come true.
Kelley was part of a historic game her junior season when she pitched Spruce Creek High School to a 1-0, 14-inning, four-hour win over Florida State commit Jazzy Francik and Melbourne High School. The two pitchers were teammates on Fury Platinum X 18 under team and are good friends off the field.
Both pitchers had no-hitters at the end of regulation play. Both pitchers threw over 200 pitches and gave up just a combined seven hits and seven walks in 27 2/3 innings. Kelley had 31 strikeouts and Francik 33.
“Nobody could score a run in that game. She is an extremely good pitcher and we won on an error,” Kelley said. “It was a pretty crazy game that did not get over until 11:30 at night.”
Kelley started playing softball at age 5 and also played soccer until she was 11 and then chose to stick with softball.
“I was watching girls play (softball) on TV and I decided I wanted to be like them,” Kelley, who lives in Ormond Beach, said. “I had always watched Kentucky softball because they play in the SEC but I didn’t know that much about Kentucky. It was the only school in the SEC that I never went to a softball camp at. We talked about that on my visit.”
Kentucky coach Rachel Lawson saw Kelley play in a tournament in Colorado last summer after her coach, who is friends with the UK coach, was “hyping” her up to Lawson.
“She came to watch a workout and I did very well. She came back the next game to watch me and I was consistently clocking 65 (miles per hour) and my drop ball was working. I also hit a home run,” Kelley said.
Kelley hit .348 combined the last two years with 11 home runs and 42 RBI’s. She also had 396 strikeouts in 238 innings with a 1.38 earned run average as batters hit only .166 against her.
She played travel ball with four current UK freshmen — infielder Cassie Reasner of Alabama along with in-state utility players Emory Donaldson of Ballard, Peyton Plotts of Tates Creek and Ally Hutchins of McCracken County.
“Just getting to play with them and know them made it even easier to pick Kentucky,” she said.
Eastern Kentucky coach Walt Wells was lavish in his praise of Kentucky coach Mark Stoops last week even before the Colonels lost 28-17 to UK.
“He’s one of the best guys ever to work for. He respects your opinion, your family time,” Wells said. “He is going to let you know that is how it is going to be done. Most people want direction.”
Wells has been coaching in Kentucky since he joined Eastern Kentucky coach Roy Kidd’s staff in 1997 from 2002. He also spent 10 years at Western Kentucky, came back to Eastern in 2015 before going to UK for the 2018-19 seasons. He’s been head coach at Eastern the last four years.
Wells also coached at the University of South Florida and New Mexico State and has a huge appreciation for what Stoops has done at UK to make the Cats a consistent winner and bowl team.
“It is a different SEC than when coach (Paul ‘Bear’) Bryant was working at Kentucky and he has done the best job of anybody at Kentucky in the football department bar none,” Wells said.
“He has done a phenomenal job and continues to do so. Ten wins in two different years (2018 and 2021) is pretty phenomenal. Ten wins is hard to get. I just really respect him. I know I sound like his agent but just look at what Kentucky is doing.
“He has to deal with NIL, transfer portal and maybe the greatest coach of all time in Nick (Saban) and other great coaches in the SEC. No disrespect to Kentucky but it was known as a football school until Mark Stoops got there.”
Stoops now has a school-record 68 wins, including 48 home victories. Kentucky has gone 56-33 after Stoops started his UK tenure winning only 12 of his first 38 games.
Kentucky coach Mark Stops believes he has a group of strong leaders but is especially proud of the way junior linebacker Trevin Wallace has become one of those leaders.
Wallace, the SEC Defensive Player of the Week after his play against Ball State, has 19 tackles in two games and is glad teammates view him as a leader.
“I can say I’m a leader and everybody looks at me as a captain. You need that captain or leader to go out there and look at players so everybody can go out there and wrap around and keep going,” Wallace said.
“I had said to myself ‘If nobody is going to make the play then go make it so everybody else can feed off that.’”
Wallace went over 100 career tackles with his seven stops against Eastern Kentucky that includes a quarterback sack, quarterback hurry and forced fumble. He also forced a fumble in UK’s first game that Jalen Geiger returned for a score.
One of the early surprises for the Kentucky football team has been safety Ty Bryant, a Frederick Douglass High School product and son of former UK receiver Cisco Bryant.
He was on the kickoff team for the opening game and has worked his way to No. 4 on the overall depth chart at safety already.
“Ty’s been really solid. I really have been impressed overall with Ty, just the way he approaches it,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said. “He did come in early [enrolled in January]; I like the way he’s progressing.
“I like the way he approaches the game. I like the way he’s very serious about it. He takes pride in it. He’s getting better. He’s instinctual. He helps us on special teams. He’s our fourth safety, and so he will play, and I have confidence in him.”
What does Stoops want to see from him going forward?
“He just has to continue to stay the course. He’s doing good things and, if every freshman approached every workout and every practice and everything, the way he does, then, they’d be further along and he’s done a good job,” Stoops said.
Bryant’s high school coach, Nathan McPeek, has not been surprised by Bryant’s success after his versatility helped the Broncos go 15-0 in 2022 and win the Class 5A state title (he was the most valuable player in the state championship game).
“Coach (Vince) Marrow tells me every time I talk to him how impressed he has been and how impressed everyone in the (football) building has been,” McPeek said. “He was committed so long that a lot of people forgot about him.
“He always wanted to go there (his father played at UK). I told coach Marrow and coach Stoops when they signed him that he would be a team captain because of his intangibles. He is a great kid from a great family and if he’s not good at something, he works at it until he is good.”
It also didn’t surprise McPeek that Stoops praised Bryant’s work ethic.
“That is Ty. I cannot tell you how many nights he stayed with the coaches (at Frederick Douglass) watching extra film,” McPeek said.
It was about 50 years ago when Kentucky beat Virginia Tech 31-26 in the opening game at Commonwealth Stadium — now Kroger Field — in 35-year-old coach Fran Curci’s first game as quarterback Ernie Lewis of Elizabethtown ran for 90 yards and two scores and threw for 84 yards and another score.
Two future Hall of Fame announcers were on the radio networks — Cawood Ledford for Kentucky and Marty Brennaman for Virginia Tech.
“I do remember doing that game. I remember it was a bad Virginia Tech team (2-9) and Alabama beat them (77-6),” Brennaman said. “I had met Cawood at the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association award ceremony. I am sure he had no idea who I was that day.”
Brennaman had done radio play-by-play for William & Mary football in 1972 and had also been doing basketball games for two years for the Virginia Squires of the ABA. Virginia Tech hired him for the 1973 season and he anticipated it would be a long run after becoming the first Tech broadcaster to do both football and basketball.
“I planned to stay there a long time. I was living in Virginia Teach and would fly there (to Blacksburg, Va.) or wherever they were playing on Friday. I spent very little time in Blacksburg,” he said. “I really did enjoy doing football and basketball.”
Of course Brennaman was also the play-by-play announcer for the then Tidewater Tides, the New York Mets’ affiliate in Class AAA. The Cincinnati Reds called him and he joined the Reds on Feb. 1, 1974. He called Reds games until 2019 and his opinionated, passionate commentary set him apart and led to his induction into multiple Hall of Fames.
“I loved my time with the Reds but I do still remember that UK-Virginia Tech game. But to be honest, I forgot it was 50 years ago,” Brennaman said.
Quote of the Week: “I am a Nashville native and former teammate of his high school coach and I have heard about him since eighth grade. He is dynamic and can run. He is tall, long and has range. When he gets that stride going, he’s just really hard to stop,” Eastern Kentucky coach Walt Wells on UK kick returner Barion Brown.
Quote of the Week 2: “Deone is a generational player when he wants to be and can set himself up for generational money (in the NFL) but he’s got to do that at the college level consistently and I think he will this year,” former UK quarterback/KSR football analyst Freddie Maggard.
Quote of the Week 3: “You’ve always seen the best in me and challenged me to believe in myself. What I’ve learned from you could fit into 100 books. I walked into your world five years ago wondering what to expect and worried that you might be a little crazy. All these years later, I now know you’re a little crazy but you’ve become my brother for life,” former UK basketball director of player personnel TJ Beisner on UK coach John Calipari.