Over the Sweet Sixteen’s first 99 years, names iconic in Kentucky basketball history — Cliff Hagan, Wes Unseld, Darrell Griffith — have used the state tournament to first show their greatness.
Yet as the Kentucky boys’ state basketball tournament prepares to tip off for the 100th time, its rich lore has also been filled with a very different kind of hoops hero. Sometimes, destiny has given the most unlikely of players the role of deciding state championships.
There might never have been a more unexpected hero than Clay County sophomore reserve Eugene “Boxhead” Rawlings in the 1987 state finals.