All Episodes

September 8, 2025 • 12 mins
Former NBA and University of Kentucky basketball national champion Tony Delk has assembled an incredible group of former Wildcats and Louisville Cardinals to play golf with friends and fans on Monday, September 15 at Big Spring Country Club in Louisville.

Lots of prominent basketball and football players from the Cats and the Cards will compete and you can be on their team(s).

Full details on the UK vs UofL Celebrity Golf Challenge are available from Mike Vine 502-639-1519 or Bryan Hudson 502-821-3045
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Coming next Monday is an opportunity before you get out
and play golf with some of the guys you love
from basketball teams around here, the Kentucky Wildcats and the
Louisville Cardinals, and a couple of football players too. But
first we're gonna talk to a guy who is a
nineteen ninety six national champion for the Kentucky Wildcats, Tony
delk Hey, Tony, good talk to you again, Terre.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I appreciate you having me on to promote the charity
golf tournament. I'm excited about it and some of the
four former players. We're looking forward to battleing the Louisville
Cardinals once again.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
There's no doubt about it. You guys always love teasing
each other, right, I mean, there's so much fun to
be had when you see the other guys because some
of your Wildcat buddies like sky Man Kenny Walker, Shepherd,
Willie Carley, Stein, Da Ron Mercer, Bowie Rember.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
One of the first guys, Sam Kenny Rex was when
I came to Kentucky nineteen ninety two and older, our
older ojes as we call them now. Yep, those guys
took us under their wings and made me a huge
Kentucky fan because of how well they treated us and
they were just extremely nice guys.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
How different was Kentucky life compared to what you thought
it would be when you were headed there.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
One of the honest with you, I really didn't know
comes from Tennessee. I grew up being a mississ State fan,
which is now the University of mississ And I really
didn't know a lot about Kentucky at all. You know,
I knew more about Louisville because at the time Louisville
was a robbery with mississ State. I think, I think
in the Metro Conference.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Was intense way way back business.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Very intense, very intense. You talk about like you know,
from from my From my side, it was William Beth
and Keith Lee basketball from homes Elliott Carry. Like, I
really grew up being a mississ State fan, and there
was Donovan wasn't the one that kind of changed me.
Uh changed my mind about you know, the mississ State
Blue and and focusing more on the Kentucky Blue, which

(01:57):
was the best decision I think I ever made.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, Belly, Donovan going down the Hall of Fame. Coach Pete,
are you still in touch with coach Beatina.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, yeah, coach, and we spoke about two weeks ago
for this year. Then I called coach and he's gonna
sign three balls at Centema Way just for auction nighters.
But I always stay in close proximity too work whatever
he's doing. As far as like this recruiting and games
are playing. And I actually could. I was recruited with

(02:27):
the Dallas Mavericks last year and got a chance when
I was in New York to stop by his Saint
John campus. Spent about an hour with him and Steve
Mesclo and we just catched up on old time, you know,
and just seeing, uh, he still has a love and
passion for the game that's never left.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
You think the people in Dallas will call him down
a little bit now if they have Cooper flag, because
the trade last year shook, you know, rocked everybody's world.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
It did it did no it did? You know? Cooper
is gonna be great for the Dallas marriage. Just get
a chance to watch him play before I left there.
Just an ex national talent, you know, works hard and
for him to fall into the right team, you know,
it's one of those situations where if you're number one
drafted normally. You know, football, you can go down the
line to these teams. Baseball, you're going to a bad

(03:12):
team and you have to take the weight of that
whole city organization on your shoulders. And he doesn't have
to do that. And that's the good thing about you know,
coming to Dallas. Going to Dallas would be for him
a great place to learn for some of the veteran guys,
and that's that's kind of where you would like for
it to be. But unfortunately, you know, when teams are
in the lottery, they're in the lottery for a reason.

(03:34):
They have a bad team.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
It's a month and a half till they get rolling again.
And everybody in Dallas as mad as hornets anyway, because
they saw Michael Parsons sack Jared Golf yesterday for Green
Bay and they're like, what's happening to my universe? So
that's sports stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, No, No, it comes down to money negotiation. And
you know, for for professional athletes that Windo was not
fifteen twenty thirty years. You know, you have to capitalize,
you know, within a small amount of time you have
and it could be five years, it could be ten years,
and the post or a player like Lebron, whoever felt
like that he would be twenty years into a professional career.

(04:10):
But to let you know what kind of special talent
he is, how he's taking care of his body and
the window is not as big as people think. I
can remember back twenty thirty something years. You know, I
was like, man, we played basketball for the next twenty
five years, and I played eleven years professional basketball that
I really enjoyed. But you know, towards the end of it,
more about the body. You know, your body is not

(04:33):
for me. It wasn't responding to what I wanted to
spawn like I needed instead of when they say low management,
I needed about two or three days off myself.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, and that was a phrase we all had to
learn for sure. We're speaking with Tony Delk. Tell me
about your basketball academy you.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Have now, Well, this is our eighth year. We've been
doing it out of Mary others the Starvation Army. We
started a fall league. It started with a Fall League,
and then it started with the Winner League, went out
to the Winner League, and then we did an AA
season and we're eight years in and just being able
to share some of my knowledge, give nuggets and give good,

(05:07):
good tips to parents who you know right now to
a much different recruiting process than when I played. You know,
they have to deal with the NIL and kids transferring
from school and school, so it's it's a different landscape
of youth basketball. But I'm very happy to be in
the space to be able, not like I said, to
share my stories with other parents, but also just the

(05:29):
decent kids. You know, that's been the most fun part
of a starting basketball academy is being in the gym
and spending time with them. I was with a group
of middle school kids yesterday and high school kids and
probably spent about six hours in the gym just you know,
helping with training on both sides of the ball, teaching defense,

(05:50):
teaching and offense. And it's what I do, is what
I enjoyed. That's my passion. Uh And it has been
fun for me just to be able to talk to
so many kids and see those kids progress and see
them grow as young athletes.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
And Tony, how much work do you have to do
to keep kids from their their brains are bent from
the NIL universe. Now they look at sports in a
different way than you did when you were a kid.
And I did yeah, you know, So how do you
keep them focused on getting better at their athleticism and
their their their knowledge of the game instead of worrying
about getting paid.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
I think for me, you know, just having kids and
as young as probably six years old and all the
way up to at seventeen, is to teach them and
give them the foundation and to give us some structure,
to give us some discipline. That is what that's what required.
But really it's the parent. I think the kids are,
you know, are just feeding off of what the parents
are preaching them or conversations having with them. So the

(06:47):
parents are the ones that can be the ones that
can be distracted. Distracted because there's a lot of money.
You know, it's so so different now, and I'm glad
you know that those athletes are getting paid. You know,
I wish back in nineteen ninety six, when I went
to school in nineteen ninety two that you know, there
was nil money. So I think, you know, every year
you're free agency. So every year you know you have

(07:07):
good stats, you know, you go back to the GM
of that team and say, hey, I want to beat
go to see my contract, and you can do that
each and every year. But I think with us, it
kept us hungry because we didn't have the money, you know,
so we were really trying to get it, and we
was playing playing at a whole other level. Not to
say these players are not playing at that level. But

(07:28):
when you don't have anything and you come from nothing,
you know, the work ethic and the love and the hunger,
you know, it's there every day. I commend those those
those parents for having to deal with the universities and
just making sure the kids are ready to prepare it.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Indeed, all right, Next Monday it's the UK versus U
of L Celebrity Golf Challenge. I mentioned a bunch of wildcats,
the Cardinals involved. There's a lot of prominent names in
there too, Kenny Payne, Milt Wagner, Roger Berkman, Peyton Siva,
Steven Van Triech, Darryl Rip. I don't know what he
plays golf. Is he coming to this thing?

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Hey man? I'm hoping doctor Duncan Steim will be there.
You know, it's one of the guys that I grew
up watching him in the eighties. When I say messis State,
you know those those local cars sad you know, they
were real, they were real. You know these from the
Tens play coach Daddy Krum and Larry Fitch was around
and Dana Kirk. You know, I really was a methics dude.

(08:26):
I lived forty forty minutes from there, but you know,
just being in the area where Tennessee was close by.
But yeah, they have some good talent. They've always had
a good talent, you know. And just getting in contact
with from of those guys and having having worked with
campaign when I was with Coach cavill all this staff
about twelve or thirteen years ago. Great guy, and you know,

(08:47):
we made friends with a lot of the love players.
You know, like I said, it was a rivaly game,
but you know, basketball is attorney. All of us are
in it to have fun and joy. And when we compete,
we compete, but once we're off the court, you know,
it's still lost for one.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, and I noticed that Louisville has two football players,
Chris Redman and Michael Bush. I've played golf with both
of those guys. They can both smash it.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, they are you know, Chris is unbelievable. I just
thought Chris last week and he was kind enough to
come and join us, and we're just trying to make
sure as we you know, we do this and then
we want to involve not only basketball players for baseball,
track and field football, it doesn't matter. We just want
to have former athletes that it's not all about playing,

(09:29):
it's just about your participation and you know, you represent
the university and you know we'll retire players and we
just want to come out and have a good time
and showing and leave happy, you know, whether when we
want to move. So I'm excited about the different charities
that we've done a lot of work with, you know,
Jordan West, Louisville Hospital, Gluoislle, Central Community Center, West End School.

(09:52):
But none of this would be possible if it wasn't
for I called him the MVP, Mike bind Right, He's
done an exceptional job of this race and money through
his contact along with Mith Brown bound Husse to Tuffy
Wood Kemp Park, and so it took a team to
really bring this all together, but it started last year.
Just having the right people involved makes the biggest difference.

(10:15):
I've been so excited about this event. You know, it's funny,
you know, if trying to bring it all together, get
all the players, make sure that the local guys are available,
and uh, you know, still trying to work on Tubby
right now. And he has a busy caliber And it
was funny. I thought Tubby last week was like I
was like, I'm like, coach, I told you this day
at least four or five times I had to I

(10:37):
had to call. I had to call it. Giz find
of like he said, my calendar. He's like, my calendar.
Gar Me said, what's the day again? What's the coach?
Not only have I told you to that, we were
in Vegas together doing some of it. I'm like, coach,
here's the date. That's when we're going to do it.
Called them again, send them a text me, send him
an email. He was like, what's the date again.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
I'm like, coach, Tony Delk, it's great talking to you.
This is next Monday Day, September fifteenth, Big Spring Country Club.
You mentioned Mike Vine, and the people love the Vine
family here in Louisville. You can still registers, still room
for somebody to get on some teams. And then you
get one of these celebrity ballplayers. With your threesome, you
you had three, and then that's your fourth person. Mike

(11:16):
Vine's numbered six, three, nine fifteen, nineteen sixty three, nine
five one nine, Tony Delk last thing for you. How
many times a week does someone bring up your shooting
nights there at the Meadowlands for the nineteen ninety six
National Championship.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Well, it's always, you know, when you run Ato Kentucky fan,
it's like, hey, I'll watch the game. So so many
people watch the game. Remember the mount of threes I made?
But you know it was for me just uh making
it and getting that far and having won a championship
with you know, with great teammates. You know, something that
we can we will always share it. You know we
have that the banner is hanging in Ruugh Arena. But

(11:53):
if it's the hard work that we put in, and
you know, I'm so excited, you know, you know we talked,
We talked throughout the year, but you know, to put
our you know, that's that says a lot about how
much how much you love and care for each other.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Dude. I was in New Jersey for forty eight hours
and never slept a wink. It was so much fun.
It's the only time I've ever been to that state. Great,
great talking to you, Tony. We'll see you.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
Next Monday, thank you, okay, take care bye bye okay.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
That's Tony Delton, national champion for the Kentucky Wildcats in
nineteen ninety six. Next mondays ukuf L celebrity golf challenges
a big Spring country club. Want to get on one
of those teams? Call Mike Vine six three nine one
five
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

24/7 News: The Latest
Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.