Chelsea Adams is a KWC junior from Louisville, Kentucky, majoring in Communications with an emphasis in Advertising and PR. She is spending the Spring 2012 Semester in London and is sending updates to KWConnect about her adventures. If you missed previous entries, you can catch up here.

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Barcelona here we come! My friends and I went to Barcelona over Easter weekend. Some of us arrived Thursday afternoon and immediately checked into our hostel. We were pleasantly surprised at how clean it was. We were also met with good and ba d news. The good: teams participating in a local football (soccer) tournament were staying in the same place. The bad: the league was for 12-year-olds. For your information, 12-year-old soccer players have a LOT of energy and are extremely loud. To get away from the noise (and feed our grumbling tummies) we headed to a tapas restaurant right around the corner where we had the best meal of the weekend.  Tapas are delicious little appetizers that I cannot get enough of. When we got back we found out that our hostel offered a deal where they had someone take you out that night, so we thought it would be a great way to see good parts of the city and jumped right on that!

The next day the rest of our friends arrived. There ended up being nine of us total. We headed to the beach to find somewhere different to eat dinner. I wanted to eat paella, which is a rice dish with seafood traditionally served in Spain, so we staked out places with it on the menu (for a decent price) along with a variation of other items. That’s what I wanted so I ordered it even with the scary looking heads of some kind of sea creature on top. It was definitely scary, and I was not a huge fan. We played some volleyball on the beach after dinner and then headed back to the hostel to get ready for salsa dancing!

Saturday we went to Las Ramblas which is a huge street leading down to the beach lined with open air markets, stalls filled with all kinds of goodies, and restaurants. Everything was absolutely gorgeous! We also joined a free walking tour of the gothic quarter of the city It was really cool to be right in the heart of so many cool pieces of history–we sat on the steps where Christopher Columbus informed the King and Queen of Spain that he had found the new world! For dinner we went back to the same tapas place we went the first night. Every one of us let our eyes get way bigger than our stomachs; some of my friends ordered four tapas plates to themselves!

On Easter Sunday we went to mass right down the street. It was a Catalonian mass, but most of my friends and I are Catholic so we could still tell what was going on for the most part. That language barrier was something we struggled with the entire trip. We all thought that by going to Spain our high school Spanish would help us get around. Unfortunately the people in Barcelona speak Catalan, not Spanish. Talk about a culture shock. But with it being Easter and most places being closed we spent the day on the beach and walking around checking out the scenery. Definitely not a typical Easter, but one I’ll remember forever.

Easter on the Beach

Monday morning most of my friends went home to London, but four of us stayed another day. We looked at a lot of Gaudi architecture, including La Sagrada Familia and Park Guell. Let me tell you, if you’ve never heard of Gaudi you should look up his buildings right now because they are so unique you will never want to take your eyes off of them. I can’t believe how long they have been building La Sagrada Familia and it isn’t even finished yet! The detail is absolutely incredible! I’ve loved his architecture since I first heard about it in high school, and am so glad I got to spend an entire day just marveling at how amazing his work is. That night we went saw some awesome views of the city and then called it a night pretty early.

Sagrada Familia

My last day in Barcelona I spent on the beach. It was kind of cold there, so it wasn’t the summer beach weather I was expecting but it was perfect to just be there reading in the sun. I loved Barcelona, but getting so close to the end of the semester I was definitely ready to get back to London and spend as much time seeing as much more of the city as possible!

Next time … last post from London!

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Check out the Lady Panthers’ reaction to their first-ever NCAA tournament bid. Priceless:

Check out this interview of KWC basketball signee Jason Hall on ESPN’s First Take. Jason earned a scholarship even though he has born with only three fingers on each hand:

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George Tinsley

All-Americans George Tinsley, Corey Crowder, King Kelly Coleman, Dallas Thornton and Rod Drake headline Kentucky Wesleyan’s All-Century Basketball Team as the top five vote-getters (in order) among the 30-member honorees as voted by 931 fans from a list of 96 nominees.Joining Tinsley (1966-69); Crowder (1988-91); Coleman (1958-60); Thornton (1965-68): and Drake (1981-84) are Gary Auten (1959-62); J.B. Brown (1985-88); Bill Carlyle (1961-62); Patrick Critchelow (1996-99); Willis Cheaney (1992-95); John Duncan (1968-71); Lorico Duncan (2000-01); Antonio Garcia (1998-99); Ray Harper (1984-85); Dwight Higgs (1981-84); Tom Hobgood (1966-69); LeRoy John (1999-00); Vincent Mitchell (1988-91); Dick O’Neill (1966-69); Marlon Parmer (2003); Joe Roop (1953-56); Mike Redd (1964); Sam Smith (1966-67); Sam Smith (1986-87); Dana Williams (1998-99); Mike Williams (1972-73); Robert “Bullet” Wilson (1928-31); Fairce Woods (1946-49); John Worth (1986-87); and Bobby Zuerner (2000-04).
      
In addition, a five-member All-Decade team for the Winchester Campus Era, the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s consisting of next top 35 vote-getters join the list of honorees.
       
Winchester Campus Era (1907-51) — Kendall Bocard (1930-31); Austin Denton (1931-32); Asa House (1925-27); Alex Kertis (1930-32); and Bruce Strother (1927-29).1950s — Bill Bibb (1955-57); Norman Christopher (1949-52); Mason Cope (1956-57); Logan Gipe (1955-57); and Bill Harrell (1950-52).
       
1960s — Eugene Smith (1968-71); Roger Cordell (1964-67); Martin Holland (1959-60); Jim Smith (1968-71); and Charlie Taylor (1964-65).
       
1970s — James Greene (1971-73); Willie Johnson (1974-76); Jyronna Ralston (1973-74);
Steve Walker (1973-74); and Roger Zornes (1972-73).1980s — Dave Bennett (1985-86); Bunky Lewis (1978-81); Larry Patrick (1977-80); Andra Whitlow  (1984-87); and Ray Zuberer (1980-83).
       
1990s — Steve Divine (1990-93); LeRoy Ellis (1989-90); Tim Griffin (1988-90); Alex Kreps (1992); and
Junebug Rakes (1988-90).
       
2000s — Tyrus Boswell (2002); Ronald Evans (2001-02); Jeff Fahnbulleh (2007-08); Chris Landry (2001-02); and Anwar Perry (1998-01).For complete All-Century and All-Decade Team bios, click here.
      
The 100th-year celebration will conclude with a 100th Gala Weekend on May 21-23, 2010, honoring all men and women players, coaches, managers, cheerleaders, fans and friends from the Winchester and Owensboro campuses. For more information contact Roy Pickerill at 270-852-3347 or pickeril@kwc.edu.

Corey Crowder

King Kelly Coleman

Dallas Thornton

Rod Drake

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From the Messenger-Inquirer:

Give me 10 Minutes: Joel Utley

By Jim Pickens
Thursday, March 11, 2010

The dean of college basketball broadcasters in the commonwealth, Joel Utley, 70, is in his 49th season as play-by-play announcer for the Kentucky Wesleyan College men’s basketball team. In a career that started in 1961, Utley has called many of the Panthers’ greatest moments on the hardwood — including all eight of the program’s NCAA Division II national championships. All told, Utley has broadcast 1,416 Kentucky Wesleyan basketball games.

The native of Madisonville is a 1957 graduate of Madisonville High School. He attended both Murray State and the University of Kentucky, before embarking on a career in broadcasting. He graduated from KWC in 1974 with a degree in speech and drama. Aside from his broadcasting duties, Utley is retired. He and wife Shirley reside in Owensboro.

Q: Considering you’ve been behind the microphone for a half-century, the natural first question is what got you interested in radio?

A: When I was growing up, I never wanted to do anything else. Radio appealed to me from a very young age. I found it fascinating and magical that you could look at a box and see stories come to life in your mind while the radio played. I listened with great interest to UK basketball, St. Louis Cardinals baseball with Harry Caray. Pretty soon, I found myself playing baseball board games by myself and describing the action like a real broadcaster would — and I was hooked.

Q: What brought you to Owensboro and led you to broadcasting KWC games?

A: I had been working in Lexington at WVLK, and a guy I worked with up there took a job in Owensboro at WVJS and broadcast Wesleyan games. He didn’t stay long, the job came open, I applied, and I got the job as news director. I came to Owensboro in July 1961, and I broadcast my first Wesleyan game on Dec. 1, 1961.

Q: WOMI also covered Wesleyan at the time?

A: Yes, but we were the only ones to cover Wesleyan full time, at home and on the road. WOMI did home games and selected road games, but their first commitment was to UK basketball. That was the way it played out until about the mid-’70s, when we became the exclusive station for KWC basketball.

Q: What has made broadcasting Wesleyan games through the years so personally rewarding to you?

A: I absolutely love doing what I do. Wesleyan is a relatively small Division II school, and that has afforded me the opportunity to build great relationships with the players, coaches, administrators and fans through the years. You get to know these people so well, they become like family. I’ve traveled with them, really gotten to know them as people. It’s not about the money by any means. I do it for the love of it.

Q: What sticks out in your mind after nearly a half-century of association with KWC basketball?

A: Well, I consider myself the most blessed sportscaster in the nation — ever. No one could equal the experiences of eight NCAA championships. My goodness, what memories. One thing that really sticks out for me is that Wesleyan competed in six consecutive national championship games (1998-2003), winning two in that span. That’s just an extraordinary accomplishment for any college basketball program, and I feel very fortunate to have been a part of that.

Q: Has being associated with young people for so long kept your spirit young?

A: I would say that’s true. You know, trends change, and I don’t exactly identify with the music played before games at the Sportscenter these days, but that’s OK. Being around young people provides me a tremendous perspective on what’s going on in the world today. It’s given me energy and kept my spirit about life pretty youthful. My experience with KWC has changed my perspective about age. I’ve discovered that your age is a state of mind more than a number.

Q: Any thoughts about retiring from broadcasting?

A: None. I’ve never worked a game when I didn’t want to be there. I always want to be there. I feel very blessed in that way. Very honestly, I can’t imagine doing anything else.

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The high school girls basketball 9^th District Tournament Championship this Thursday night at Apollo High School has a distinctly Kentucky Wesleyan feel about it.

The game features Daviess County High School, coached by Pat Hume ’92, against Owensboro Catholic High School, coached by Ray Zuberer ’84 and Allison Estes Ross ’02.

Zuberer and Ross both played basketball for KWC. Hume’s mother, Ruthie, is a long-time employee of Kentucky Wesleyan.

If you’re a KWC fan or just a fan of basketball, come out to Apollo High School Thursday night at 7 to get a look at how KWC’s basketball tradition is trickling down to local high school programs.