Tubby's Back!

University of Minnesota basketball coach Tubby Smith – a man with a reputation for character-building and the last coach to bring an NCAA basketball title to the University of Kentucky (’98) – is certain to jumpstart Year 2 of Billy Reed’s “Conversations with Champions” on Sept. 26.

All of these free, “fireside chat” events will be held in John L. Hill Chapel at 7:30 unless otherwise noted.

Here’s the rest of the 2011-12 “Conversations with Champions” line-up thus far:

Oct. 5 – Seth Hancock, who syndicated Secretariat for a record $6 million in ’72

Nov. 9 – John Carroll, multi Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper editor whose Lexington Herald-Leader won the ’86 award for its investigation of UK basketball transgressions

Nov. 22 – Angelo Dundee, trainer of young boxing champion Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali). Note the special time and place: 2 p.m. in the Richard & Karen Ward Room of the Ensor Learning Resource Center. This is also part of this fall’s College for a Day event.

March 7 – Tori Murden-McClure, author, adventurer (the first woman to row alone across the Atlantic) and now President of Spalding University in Louisville.

Reed, an acclaimed sports columnist and editor formerly with the Louisville Courier-Journal and senior writer for Sports Illustrated, also hopes to have UK football coach Joker Phillips as a guest sometime in February and University of Louisville Athletic Director Tom Jurich in April. All of the “Conversations with Champions” will again be filmed for airing on Kentucky Educational Television.

Last year, Reed joined former Gov. Martha Layne Collins as the College’s second Executive Scholar-in-Residence. He heads up the College’s new Academy for Character in Sport, which will be seeking public involvement as we attempt to be leaders in a national discussion on restoring character, ethics and integrity to (especially) college athletics. Follow Reed’s blog and more at http://acs.georgetowncollege.edu