Organizing High School Sports In Kentucky: The Early Years

Around the turn of the 20th century, football and basketball were both relatively new sports, but were catching on quickly. The first game of American football was played in November 1869, and basketball was invented by Dr. James Naismith in December 1891. As the sports were catching on around the country and in Kentucky high schools, the rules of the games (many of which seem completely standardized in the minds of today’s sports fans) were also still evolving, along with the rules of baseball, as well. For example:

• In 1901 Major League Baseball introduced its rule that all foul balls not caught on the fly would be counted as strikes until the batter had two strikes, and two years later in 1903 they standardized the height of pitcher’s mounds to no more than 15-inches above the height of the base lines.

• In 1904 the National Football League elected to change from awarding 5-points for a successful field goal kick to 4-points, and then in 1909 they elected to drop the point value to 3 for each successful field goal kick.

• The NFL adopted the forward pass in 1906.

• In the early winter of 1909 the Amateur Sports Federation (the organization which Dr. James Naismith had charged with governing the rules of his game of basketball) decided to both approve the use of glass for basketball backboards, as well as ruling that a player would be disqualified from the remainder of a basketball game after committing their 4th personal foul in the game.

With such rapid and significant changes developing for the games their teams were playing, college and high school teams playing around the turn of the century would often have lengthy exchanges between coaches and athletic directors to agree on the rules they would be playing by prior to inking final game contracts and playing their games. Additional to that, complaints from fans and coaches frequently popped up newspaper reports covering prominent games about rumors of “ringer” players showing up on gamedays to play for the winning teams.

So with the intent of both standardizing gameplay and standardizing students’ eligibility to participate in athletic events, a group of representatives from several schools in western Kentucky created the Western Kentucky Athletic Association in the spring of 1911.

April 1911 Charter Members of the Western Kentucky High School Athletic Association:

1. Henderson City / Barrett Manual High School

2. Hopkinsville High School

3. Madisonville High School

4. Owensboro High School

5. Paducah High School
   

Within 3-1/2 years, eyeing the relative success of the WKHSAA, a group of schools from central Kentucky created their own Central Kentucky High School Athletic Association.

October 1914 Charter Members of the Central Kentucky High School Athletic Association:

1. Cynthiana High School

2. Frankfort High School

3. Georgetown High School

4. Maysville High School

5. Morton High School (later renamed Lexington High School, and then Henry Clay)

6. Mount Sterling High School

7. Paris High School

8. Winchester High School

Charter Of The Kentucky High School Athletic Association & The Kentucky Interscholastic Conference

In the first quarter of the 20th century, nearly all school districts in Kentucky were funded by the cities in which they were immediately located. With schools being that localized, enrollment in most of the individual public high schools remained relatively low compared to enrollment in most modern-era high schools. As such, the faculties and administrative bodies of those schools remained relatively small as well. This introduced a problem for many schools: With more and more students and families pushing for the introduction of high school athletic teams, that meant there was suddenly a need for universal rules to govern those teams as well as officials familiar with those rules to oversee the games.

The administrators from those school districts were quick to look to the WKHSAA and CKHSAA as an example of how to solve those problems, and it wasn’t long before the idea of organizing a statewide athletic organization became a major topic of discussion at the annual meetings of the Kentucky Educational Association in Louisville. It was only 6 years after the creation of the WKHSAA that the Kentucky Educational Association announced the charter of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association following their spring meeting in April of 1917. Chartered with 18 member schools, the KHSAA was complimented with a second organization, the Kentucky Interscholastic Conference, also chartered at the KEA’s 1917 annual meeting. The KHSAA had been the brainchild of public school educators, and as such they had drafted their original bylaws to only extend membership to athletic programs from public schools. That created a problem, which was answered with the charter of the Kentucky Interscholastic Conference, with its original 8 member schools.

The problem had arisen during a heated discussion at the annual meeting regarding the decision whether or not to admit the Kentucky Military Institute as a member of the KHSAA. Many KEA members contended, that despite operating as a private school, the Kentucky Military Institute had been conceived through a 1847 charter of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and thereby should be offered the same opportunities in athletics that were offered to all Kentucky public schools. Seeing as KMI had been operating as a military preparatory school near Louisville for 7 decades with the financial backing of the state, the argument that the KMI Cadets athletic program should be permitted into the KHSAA held some water. That argument was further supported by the fact that KMI’s football and basketball programs were among the earliest high school teams to compete in Kentucky, and in nearly every year the Cadets football and basketball teams appeared on the schedules of many of the top-rated teams in the state. However, with KEA members unable to agree upon concessions regarding how to deal with tuition students attending KMI from out-of-state, the decision was eventually made to create the separate Kentucky Interscholastic Conference to govern sports involving teams from private schools. Comprised of 8 larger schools from around the state, the KIC was not exclusive in its membership, as 4 of their 8 charter members were also charter members of the KHSAA.

With all 8 of the charter Kentucky Interscholastic Conference schools competing in football, the KIC took early responsibility for organizing football rules and officiating around the state, and they would adopt any rules set forth by the KHSAA for baseball, basketball, and track & field, while the KHSAA would adopt any football rules set forth by the KIC once it had established its own league.

From the outside looking in, many of the lines dividing the KHSAA from the KIC were muddy, at best, with newspapers frequently using the names of the two interchangeably. In 1920, the KHSAA expanded by extending membership to private schools and admitted Louisville’s Saint Xavier High School as a member that year. In the years immediately following, the Kentucky Interscholastic Conference schools all joined into the KHSAA, thus ending the need for the KIC, and compelling the dissolution of the conference.

April 1917 Charter Members of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association:

1. Anderson County High School

2. Ashland High School

3. Carlisle High School

4. Carrollton High School

5. Clark County High School

6. Covington High School (later renamed Holmes High School)

7. Cynthiana High School

8. Danville High School

9. Frankfort High School

10. LaGrange High School

11. Lexington High School (previously named Morton High School, later renamed Henry Clay)

12. Louisville Male High School

13. Monticello High School

14. Morganfield High School

15. Owensboro High School

16. Paris High School

17. Somerset High School

18. Stanford High School

April 1917 Charter Members of the Kentucky Interscholastic Conference:

1. Henderson City/Barrett Manual High School

2. Hopkinsville High School

3. Lexington High School (previously named Morton High School, later renamed Henry Clay)

4. Louisville Male High School

5. Kentucky Military Institute

6. Owensboro High School

7. Paducah High School

8. Somerset High School

Establishing The State Basketball Tournament And The Rise Of Mid-Season Tournaments

Among the first official orders of the KHSAA was the establishment of their first state basketball tournament. For the two years prior to the KHSAA’s organization, the Centre College Athletic Board had held an annual high school basketball tournament in early spring, with the tournament champion each year being dubbed “state champion” by the college and by newspapers around the state. High school teams across Kentucky were invited in December for admittance to that season’s tournament, and in February the Centre College Athletic Board Of Control would select the top teams among the applicants to qualify for spots in the tournament. Centre’s tournament, with eight teams competing in 1916 and nine competing teams in 1917, was not without its detractors, though. Some schools argued that without the full basketball season being completed prior to the announcement of qualifying teams in the tournament, the establishment of the “top teams” in the state was conducted with incomplete information. Others argued that some teams competing in Centre’s tournament had easier schedules, resulting in more impressive win/loss records. These were among the disputes that the KHSAA was tasked with resolving, moving forward, when they assumed control of the official state basketball tournament.

In March 1918 the KHSAA’s first state basketball tournament was held at Centre College, with seven qualifying teams competing from around the state. Districts were not established around the state until the fall of 1920, so for the first three years of the KHSAA’s state basketball tournament there was still a great deal of conjecture as to which teams truly belonged in the tournament, with qualifying teams appearing solely on the basis of “best records.”


MARCH 1918 NEWSPAPER HEADLINE FOLLOWING THE FIRST
KHSAA KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL STATE TOURNAMENT

Lexington High School earned the first official KHSAA state title in 1918. In 1919 the state tournament expanded from 7 teams and the tournament was moved from Centre College to the University of Kentucky gymnasium, with Lexington High School repeating as champions. In 1920 the KHSAA held its first sixteen-team state tournament – while still relying on selecting the 16 teams with “best records” from across the state. Lexington High School repeated for a third-straight tournament win, and still remains the only boys basketball team to win the state tournament three years in a row.

The KHSAA established regions across the state in 1921, originally beginning with 10 regions, then expanding to 17 regions in 1922, and then expanding further to 18 regions in 1924. Prior to the start of the 1931-32 basketball season the KHSAA reduced the state’s regional structure from 18 regions to 16 regions, taking the top team from each region for the state basketball tournament and thus officially giving birth to the "Sweet Sixteen" tournament as we know it today. The phrase “Sweet Sixteen” itself began being used colloquially almost immediately after the establishment of the 16-region format for the state tournament. The KHSAA began referring to the tournament under that title in 1958, and in 1987 the KHSAA applied to register both “Sweet 16” and “Sweet Sixteen” with the US Trademark & Patent office; they were both successfully registered to the KHSAA in June of 1988. In the late 1990s the NCAA attempted to register both phrases along with other names associated with their own national basketball tournament, but found that the “Sweet Sixteen” and “Sweet 16” were already registered to the KHSAA. The NCAA has had a licensing agreement with the KHSAA allowing them to use both phrases since March of 1998.

Considered a groundbreaking measure in sports, state athletic associations in Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia held their first-ever girls basketball tournaments in 1919. Following suit, the Kentucky and Iowa both announced their first girls basketball state tournaments for the end of the 1920 basketball season, with the KHSAA holding their inaugural girls basketball tournament in March 1920 at the YMCA gymnasium in Paris, KY. The KHSAA’s girls tournament ran for 13 years before being disbanded following the 1931-32 basketball season. The tournament was resumed for the 1974-75 basketball season following Title IX’s passage into law as part of the United States Education Amendments of 1972.

Athletic conferences remain around the Commonwealth today as a vestigial remnant of the pre-KHSAA era from more than a century ago. These conferences – typically established solely on a geographical basis – were originally put together as groups of schools who would agree to schedule one another annually and would compete for a conference championship in the pre-state-title-era. After the establishment of the KHSAA and the KIC in 1917, conferences hung on to play a particularly prominent role among schools competing in football, as there was not an official state title established in football until 42 years later. Conference titles typically remained the standard “championship” title for football teams around the state until the first state football championships were held in the fall of 1959.

With the conferences still operating in the state, though, football was not their only interest. Basketball “tournament play” began to increase in popularity in the country beginning around the 1930s, and mid-season conference tournaments quickly began popping up. The larger teams from the original Kentucky Interscholastic Conference had been reorganized into a sixteen team "All-Kentucky Conference," which was comprised of some of the largest and most prominent high school sports programs around the Commonwealth. The All-Kentucky Conference held its first winter basketball tournament at the Louisville Male Gymnasium on February 2 & 3, 1940. Almost from the get-go there were complaints about how the tournament was organized. The tournament's 8-team field was established by selecting the top 8 teams from the conference according to their Dickinson System ratings. One of the significant flaws of the Dickinson System was its reliance on teams' overall winning percentages to calculate its ratings. This was problematic because with the difficulties of weather and travel impacting governing most of the teams' schedules in the early 1940's, there were arguments about how winning percentages should be calculated when some basketball teams would have already played a dozen or more games prior to tournament ratings being calculated, while other teams would sometimes only have played 5 or 6 games prior to the tournament ratings being calculated and released.

In the 5 or 6 years to follow the inaugural AKC Tournament, there were coaches calling for the tournament to begin including strong teams from non-conference schools, while others felt there was no need to invite non-conference schools to compete in what had clearly been created as a conference-exclusive tournament. Further issues arose in 1946 when the member schools of the Western Kentucky Conference (a conference established by the KHSAA and frequently known as the "Little Sixteen") began talks of establishing their own February basketball tournament. The Western Kentucky Conference included AKC member programs Central City, Madisonville, Hopkinsville, Owensboro, and Henderson City/Barrett Manual, and sentiment among the other AKC members was that without the involvement of Central City, Owensboro, and Barrett Manual, whose basketball teams had all been regular participants in the previous AKC Tournaments, the prominence of AKC Tournament would be reduced too greatly and it would fall by the wayside.

In early 1947 the Western Kentucky Conference went ahead and proceeded with their inaugural tournament after agreeing to hold their tournament the weekend after the AKC Tournament, leaving WKC member teams available to play in both the AKC and WKC tournaments. The 8th Annual AKC Tournament was hosted at Louisville Male, as usual, on Jan 31 & Feb 1 while the WKC Tournament was hosted at Madisonville on Feb 7 & 8. Then some 10 months later in December of 1947, as arguments continued among basketball coaches and athletic directors within the AKC, a group of local coaches in Jefferson County decided to create a new tournament, the Louisville Invitational Tournament, which they intended to supersede the AKC Tournament. With the majority of the past AKC Tournament participant from Western Kentucky and Louisville opting to forego tournament participation that year, plans for the 1948 AKC Tournament were abandoned and the tournament came to an end, signaling what eventually became an end to the All-Kentucky Conference as a whole. The Louisville Invitational Tournament has been played every season since.

Ashland Invitational Tournament, begun in 1956, is another prominent KHSAA-sanctioned basketball tournament in Kentucky, with it’s hey-day taking place in the 1960s and 1970s. Fairdale High School’s King Of The Bluegrass Tournament, begun in 1981, and Lexington Catholic’s Holiday Classic, tracing its roots back to 1960, also stands as a prominent high school basketball KHSAA-sanctioned basketball tournament.

Perhaps the most prominent mid-season invitational basketball tournament in the state, though, is the All “A” Classic basketball tournament, which was founded in 1980 by Stan Steidel of Dayton High School, Fr. Ed Heile of Covington Latin School, and Bill Frey of Covington Holy Cross High School. The tournament began, initially, as an invitational for the smaller basketball programs around Northern Kentucky. In its third year they extended invitations to 6 additional programs from around the state, bringing them to play against 10 small-school programs from around NKY. In 1990 the tournament was expanded to the format known now, with 16 regional tournaments among small “All-A” schools, and the regional winners competing in a final tournament held in Lexington. The tournament began including a girls bracket in 1991, originally with 4 girls sectional winners competing in a final tournament, then enlarging the girls bracket to 8 sectional winners in 1992, and then finally expanding in 1993 to 16 girls regional winners competing in the finals in the same format as the boys tournament.

Crowning Football State Champions

During the earliest years of football in Kentucky and prior to the charter of the KHSAA, trying to establish a who’s-who among high school football teams was really anybody’s guess. Newspaper coverage of high school football in Kentucky was most consistent around Louisville and Lexington, but with teams having to travel far and wide to find opponents, and with reporters rarely able to travel with teams, relying on phone calls and word of mouth made reliable coverage of high school football a rare thing, on the whole.

With high school football in Kentucky dating back to 1892, there was little-to-no reason for dubbing a “state champion” in football’s earliest years. DuPont Manual’s team was organized in 1892, and it wasn’t until November 1893 that there was even another team to play in the state, when Male Bulldogs took to the gridiron for the very first time and challenged the Crimsons to the first edition of The Old Rivalry football series. Kentucky Military Institute started their football program in 1896, Bardstown High School & Ashland High School first played football in 1900, Covington’s Rugby Military Academy fielded their first football team in 1902, Morton High School (Henry Clay) fielded their first football team in 1903, Covington High School (Holmes) and Paducah High School (Paducah-Tilghman) added football teams in 1904, Saint Xavier High School’s football team started in 1909, and Mayfield High School’s team got its start in 1911. ⁽¹⁾ Since there were few competitors in the state to challenge in the first place, claiming the title of “state champion” for your team really wasn’t much of a prize in those days.

Enter the “mythical state championship” into the discussion.

The earliest claims to a “state championship title” (aka – mythical state championship) were made simply by teams claiming that they had won. Not all mythical state championships are made equal, though. One of the more notable early claims to a state title came out of Mayfield. In 1920, the Cardinals had beaten their eight regular season opponents by a combined score of 395-7. Only one team, McTyeire Preparatory School from McKenzie, TN had managed to score on them. After finding no luck seeking post-season opponents to challenge for a “bowl victory,” Mayfield went so far as to take out an ad, shown below, in the November 25,1920 edition of the Louisville Courier-Journal, stating that “The Mayfield High School Football Team Claims the Championship of Kentucky. We are ready to defend the title any date after Thanksgiving. We are members of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association and play by their rules. We can prove our team is eligible.”


NOVEMBER 25, 1920 COURIER-JOURNAL ADVERTISEMENT
PURCHASED BY MAYFIELD HIGH SCHOOL LAYING CLAIM TO
THE 'MYTHICAL' 1920 KENTUCKY FOOTBALL STATE TITLE

Mayfield’s biggest problem in making that claim (aside from the fact that they had only played 4 teams that season from within the state of Kentucky, and that none of their in-state opponents came from anywhere further east than Daviess County) was that exactly one week after publishing their claim to the Championship of Kentucky in the Courier-Journal, the KHSAA – whose rules Mayfield advertised playing by – ruled that stemming from complaints lodged by two of Mayfield’s regular season opponents, they had conducted an investigation that determined Mayfield’s quarterback, Watt Seay, and their star halfback, Clifton Lemmon, had both played during the football season while ineligible.

A few other claims to “mythical state titles” from the pre-championship era of Kentucky high school football:

• 1930 Highlands (10-0) – Only played 5 teams from Kentucky.

• 1942 Ashland (10-0) – Beat DuPont Manual 7-6, beat Russell 70-0.

• 1942 Holmes (10-0) – Beat Male 20-7, beat St. Xavier 13-6, beat Henry Clay 18-13.

• 1943 Highlands (10-1) – Lost the second game of the season 14-13 to Dayton High School.

• 1949 Dayton (11-0) – Outscored opponents 371-77. Beat Louisa High School 38-7 in the Recreational Bowl, and beat Corbin High School 38-6 in the Shrine Bowl.

• 1957 Highlands (11-0) – Outscored opponents 411-44, but only played one team from outside the NKAC, beating Danville 20-6. DuPont Manual had beaten Danville 23-0 the week prior.
  

As football advanced in the state, so did the push for the KHSAA to formally organize a state tournament. In the earliest years of the KHSAA, most of the pushback against a state tournament was result of popular opinion of the day: football is dangerous. In 1917 when the KHSAA was organized, college football reported 12 practice or game-related deaths among players – down from 18 the year before. In 1925 a New York Times article about high school and college football in the United States stated “20 Killed Playing Football. Average age of those injured is 19 – only two college men on the list.”

Despite nearly annual petitions and proposals for a state championship coming in from any number of member schools, the KHSAA took an early and clear stance that, although they would oversee football games in the state, they would not entertain adding a state football tournament to extend the football season and add risk of injury or death to high school athletes around the state. The KHSAA further added that the extension of the football season would impede on the basketball season and the availability of officials for the games in both leagues.

However, as the game of football advanced, so did the equipment. In 1939 John T. Riddell and his son John T. Riddell, Jr. invented the plastic football helmet by wrapping traditional leather helmets with Tenite, a transparent plastic developed by the Eastman-Kodak company to replace metal parts in their photography equipment. Soon thereafter the Second World War created plastic shortages in the United States, which delayed widespread production and use of the Riddells’ helmets. After the conclusion of the war, the National Football League had fully transitioned to plastic football helmets by 1949 and the rate of hospital visits and deaths due to football-related head injuries across the country immediately began to plummet.

The KHSAA didn’t hold their first state tournament until 1959, but in the meantime there was the Louisville Courier-Journal and their reclusive math guru, Dr. Edward Earl Litkenhous. Litkenhous was a 1926 Louisville Male grad who had gone on to play basketball at the University of Louisville, graduating with a science degree and then earning his doctorate at the University of Minnesota. Litkenhous became a professor of chemical engineering UofL’s Speed School before moving on to Vanderbilt University where he would serve as head of that school's engineering department. E.E. Litkenhous and his younger brother Frank had always kept a close eye on high school and college sports, and in the early 1930’s they developed a calculus-based equation to rank high school and college football & basketball teams. In 1936, after signing an exclusivity contract with the Litkenhous brothers, the Louisville Courier-Journal began posting weekly “Difference By Score” football ratings for college and high school football in the fall of 1936. These rankings, which later went by the name of their creators, or simply as “Lit Ratings,” were a staple of the Courier-Journal sports page through October 2018, at which point the program used by the newspaper to work through the Litkenhous algorithm was lost in the wake of an outdated computer programming language.

However, from 1936-1958, the Courier-Journal would annually name their own mythical state champion, determined by end-of-season ranking via the Litkenhous formula. Even with the mathematically-based backing of the Litkenhous formula, as you can see from several the mythical championship claims listed above, there was still no lack of arguing over who had been the true state champions in Kentucky, year to year.


LIST OF KENTUCKY HIGH SCOOL 'MYTHICAL STATE CHAMPIONS"
AS PUBLISHED BY THE LOUISVILLE COURIER-JOURNAL BETWEEN
1936 AND 1958, AS DETERMINED BY LITKENHOUS RATINGS

Finally, before the 1959 football season, the KHSAA acquiesced and moved forward with a state football tournament to establish state champions, culminating in three state championship games - one for each of the three classifications created for football programs around the state by the KHSAA. From 1959-1974 there were three classes of high school football in Kentucky. Class 3A, typically considered the largest, was comprised of all the schools from Jefferson County. With nearly one-in-five of all Kentucky’s residents living in Jefferson County, it was determined that giving Jefferson County its own football division and its own state tournament would make things easiest on the largest school district in the state, JCPS. Class 2A, then, was comprised of the larger half of the remaining football-playing high schools, and Class 1A was comprised of the smaller half of the remaining football-playing schools.

Using the Dickinson System, the KHSAA established qualifying teams for their playoffs based off of each team’s overall winning percentages among the other KHSAA conference teams. This system had its obvious pitfalls, but its use was continued until 1975 when the KHSAA conducted its first overhaul of their Kentucky high school football system. To replace the Dickinson System, the KHSAA moved to a seeding system for the state football tournament based on teams’ records in district play rather than basing things on overall winning percentages. In addition to the new playoff format, the state’s football classification system was expanded to 4 classes, organizing all of the football schools by size, with Class 1A schools being the smallest, and Class 4A being the largest. Although the 1975 reorganization of KHSAA football did away with the “Jefferson County” classification, most of the JCPS schools have continued to stay classified in the KHSAA’s largest football classification as many of the state’s largest high schools are located in Jefferson County.

KHSAA football was expanded further to a 6-class system beginning in 2007. Then in the spring of 2026 it was announced that beginning under the 2027-2028 alignment of classifications, the KHSAA would be adopting a private school multiplier for football classification. The KHSAA surmised that by applying a 1.35 multiplier to enrollment numbers for all private schools prior to dividing teams into classifications (which are based on male enrollment numbers), the multiplier would address any advantages held by private schools when it came to their ability to accept students from outside any geographical school districts. However, the multiplier does not apply to any of the many independent public school districts in the state that also allow students from outside of their geographical school districts to attend their schools by paying tuition.
 
⁽¹⁾ The Henderson High School and Owensboro High School football teams are often erroneously cited as fielding their first teams in 1894. The Henderson Gleaner did, in fact, publish an article on Nov 30, 1894 about the first game every played in the big Henderson-Owensboro rivalry, but the rivalry was, in fact, between football teams fielded by the Henderson Athletic Club and the Owensboro Athletic Club, which were amateur athletic clubs unaffiliated with any high schools. The article lists Owensboro’s 1894 team captain as James R. Rash. James R. Rash was brother to Dr. Otway Watkins Rash, Jr. who is namesake of Owensboro High School’s football stadium. However, born in 1872, James R. Rash was 22 years old when the game was 1894 "Henderson vs. Owensboro" game was played, providing further evidence that the game was not held between competing high school teams.

Other Kentucky High School Sports & State Championships

Archery:
- Archery was sanctioned by the KHSAA for the 2017-18 school year to include boys individual and boys team composite state titles, girls individual and girls team composite state titles.
- Archery State Championship held 1918-Present

Baseball (Boys):
- Sanctioned by KHSAA in 1940
- Baseball State Tournament played 1940-Present

Bass Fishing:
- Sanctioned by KHSAA in 2013, to include a Boys/Co-Ed division and an All-Girls division.
- Bass Fishing State Tournament held 2013-Present

Bowling:
- Sanctioned by KHSAA in 2012, to include Boys Singles, Boys Team, Girls Singles, and Girls Team divisions.
- Expanded in 2017 to include a Unified Bowling division and expanded again in 2019 to include an Adapted Bowling. Both divisions exist to reach out for greater participation by special needs students and students with physical disabilities
- Bowling State Tournament held 2012-Present

Competitive Cheer:
- Sanctioned by KHSAA for the 2012-13 school year, to include All-Girls divisions and a Co-Ed division.
- Competitive Cheer State Championship held 2012-Present

Cross Country:
- Boys Cross Country was sanctioned by the KHSAA in 1957 to include individual and team composite state titles.
- Boys Cross Country State Championship held 1957-Present
- Girls Cross Country was sanctioned by the KHSAA in 1975 to include individual and team composite state titles.
- Girls Cross Country State Championship held 1975-Present

Dance:
- Sanctioned as a co-ed sport by KHSAA for the 2017-18 school year, to include state titles for jazz, hip-hop, and pom disciplines.
- Dance State Championship held 2017-Present

ESports:
- Sanctioned as a co-ed sport by KHSAA for the 2019-20 school year, with seasons held in both the fall and spring, and championships held at the conclusion of each season in varying games.
- ESports State Tournament held 2019-Present

Field Hockey (Girls):
- Sanctioned by KHSAA in 2014
- Field Hockey State Tournament played 2014-2026
- KHSAA Un-Sanctioned Girls Field Hockey following the 2026 season.

Golf:
- Boys Golf was sanctioned by the KHSAA in 1935 to include individual and team state titles.
- Boys Golf State Championship held 1935-Present
- Girls Golf was sanctioned by the KHSAA in 1965 to include individual and team state titles.
- Girls Golf State Championship held 1965-Present

Lacrosse:
- Sanctioned by KHSAA for the 2024-25 school year, to include a Boys division and a Girls division.
- Lacrosse State Tournament held 2025-Present

Soccer:
- Boys Soccer was sanctioned by the KHSAA for the 1972-73 school year.
- Boys Soccer State Tournament held 1972-Present
- Girls Soccer was sanctioned by the KHSAA for the 1992-93 school year.
- Girls Soccer State Tournament held 1992-Present

Softball (Girls Fast-Pitch):
- Sanctioned by KHSAA in 1995
- Fast-Pitch Softball State Tournament played 1995-Present

Softball (Girls Slow-Pitch):
- Sanctioned by KHSAA in 1997
- Slow-Pitch Softball State Tournament played 1997-2007
- KHSAA Un-Sanctioned Girls Slow-Pitch Softball following the 2007 season.

Swimming & Diving:
- Boys Swimming & Diving was sanctioned by the KHSAA in 1946 to include individual and team composite state titles.
- Boys Swimming & Diving State Championship held 1946-Present
- Girls Swimming & Diving was sanctioned by the KHSAA in 1962 to include individual and team composite state titles.
- Girls Swimming & Diving State Championship held 1962-Present

Tennis:
- Boys Tennis was sanctioned by the KHSAA in 1931 to include a tennis doubles state title.
- Expanded in 1932 to include a tennis singles state title.
- Expanded in 1982 to include a team composite state title.
- Boys Tennis State Championship held 1931-Present
- Girls Tennis was sanctioned by the KHSAA in 1960 to include individual and doubles state titles.
- Expanded in 1982 to include a team composite state title.
- Girls Tennis State Championship held 1960-Present

Track & Field (Indoor):
- Indoor Track & Field was sanctioned by the KHSAA for the 2023-24 school year to include boys individual and boys team composite state titles, girls individual and girls team composite state titles.
- Indoor Track & Field State Championship held 1924-Present

Track & Field (Outdoor):
- Boys Outdoor Track & Field was sanctioned by the KHSAA in 1920 to include individual and team composite state titles.
- Boys Outdoor Track & Field State Championship held 1920-Present
- Girls Outdoor Track & Field was sanctioned by the KHSAA in 1966 to include individual and team composite state titles.
- Girls Outdoor Track & Field State Championship held 1966-Present

Volleyball:
- Girls Volleyball was sanctioned by the KHSAA for the 1979-80 school year.
- Girls Volleyball State Tournament held 1979-Present
- Boys Volleyball was sanctioned by the KHSAA for the 2024-25 school year.
- Boys Volleyball State Tournament held 2025-Present

Wrestling (Boys):
- Sanctioned by KHSAA for the 1963-64 school year to include individual and team composite state titles.
- Wrestling State Championship held 1964-Present

KHSAA Presidents & Commissioners, Past To Present

PRESIDENT OF THE KHSAA (PART-TIME)

1.) Dr. Moses E. Ligon (1917-1926)



Previous Roles:
- Franklin Elementary School Principal (1908-1910)
- Owensboro High School Science Teacher (1910-1913)
- Morton High School Principal (1913-1919)
- Henderson City Schools Superintendent (1919-1921)
- Ashland City Schools Superintendent (1921-1923)
- University of Kentucky Professor of Secondary Education (1923-1930)
- University of Kentucky Model High School Principal (1923-1930)


2.) Charles I. Henry (1926-1928)



Previous Roles:
- Bagdad High School Principal (1919-1922)
- Madisonville High School Principal (1922-1940)
- KHSAA Vice President (1925-1926)


3.) Glenn O. Swing (1928-1929)



Previous Roles:
- Wilmington High School (OH) Principal (1917-1918)
- Covington High School Math Teacher (1918-1919)
- Holmes High School Principal (1919-1927)
- Holmes High School Superintendent (1927-1960)


4.) Dr. William F. O'Donnell (1929-1941)



Previous Roles:
- Carrollton High School Principal (1908-1909)
- Carrollton City Schools Superintendent (1909-1922)
- Richmond School Superintendent (1925-1941)


5.) Russell E. Bridges (1941-1947)



Previous Roles:
- Piner High School Vice Principal (1916-1918)
- Piner High School Principal (1918-1919)
- Crittenden High School Principal (1919-1922)
- Highlands High School Math Teacher (1922-1930)
- Highlands High School Basketball Coach (1922-1935)
- Highlands High School Vice Principal (1930-1941)
- Highlands High School Athletic Director (1930-1941)
- Little Five Athletic Conference President (1933-1935)
- Northern Kentucky Athletic Conference  President (1940-1941)
- KHSAA Vice President (1937-1941)
- Highlands High School Principal (1941-1943)
- Highlands High School Superintendent (1943-1957)


COMMISSIONER OF THE KHSAA (FULL-TIME)

1.) Ted Sandford (1947-1972)



Previous Roles:
- Danville High School Principal (1934-1936)
- Carrollton City Schools Superintendent (1936-1941)
- Henderson City Schools Superintendent (1941-1947)
- KHSAA Executive Secretary-Treasurer (1937-1947)


2.) Billy Joe Mansfield (1972-1975)



Previous Roles:
- Horse Cave High School Basketball Coach (1937-1949)
- Cave City Schools Superintendent (1944-1949)
- KHSAA Board of Control (1945-1949)
- KHSAA Assistant Commissioner (1949-1972)


3.) L. Tom Mills (1975-1991)



Previous Roles:
- Perryville High School Teacher (1958-1960)
- Stanford High School Principal (1960-1964)
- Harlan High School Principal (1964-1965)
- Frankfort High School Principal (1965-1968)
- Frankfort City Schools Superintendent (1968-1969)
- KHSAA Board Of Control (1969-1972)
- KHSAA Assistant Commissioner (1972-1975)


4.) Billy V. Wise (1991-1994)



Previous Roles:
- Lexington Recreation & Parks Athletic Director (1957-1969)
- KHSAA Assistant Commissioner (1969-1981)
- KHSAA Executive Assistant Commissioner (1981-1991)


5.) Louis D. Stout (1994–2002)



Previous Roles:
- Lookout Mountain School for Boys Teacher (1963-1965)
- Lookout Mountain School for Basketball Coach (1963-1965)
- Lookout Mountain School for Athletic Director (1963-1965)
- Dunbar High School Sociology Teacher (1965-1967)
- Dunbar High School Sociology Basketball Coach (1965-1967)
- Tates Creek High School Sociology Teacher (1967-1971)
- Tates Creek High School Sociology Basketball Coach (1969-1971)
- KHSAA Assistant Commissioner (1971-1992)
- KHSAA Executive Assistant Commissioner (1992-2009)


6.) Brigid DeVries (2002–2010)



Previous Roles:
- Nicholas County High School Assistant Volleyball Coach (1972-1973)
- University of Kentucky Women's Volleyball Coach (1973-1975)
- Ohio University Women's Swimming & Diving, Track Coach (1976-1979)
- KHSAA Assistant Commissioner (1979-1994)
- KHSAA Executive Assistant Commissioner (1994-2002)


7.) Julian Tackett (2010–2027)



Previous Roles:
- KHSAA Sports Information Director (1984-1991)
- KHSAA Business Affairs Director (1991-1994)
- KHSAA Assistant Commissioner (1994-2010)

This is excellent @Colonels_Wear_Blue! Great work!