WUKY SportsPage: Basketball 'Renaissance Man' Lloyd Gardner

By Alan Lytle

Published June 12, 2025 at 7:05 AM EDT

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Lloyd Gardner is a member of the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame and the Kentucky High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame.

Lloyd Gardner has had an amazing career in basketball, and is still active today. He is a member of the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame and the Kentucky High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame. He coached Fairdale High School to the 1994 boys state championship, and was an assistant on two other championship teams at Fairdale. He organized and continues to coordinate the King of the Bluegrass Tournament, one of the leading high school tournaments in the country since he started it in 1981. Before all that, he was the trainer, equipment manager and traveling secretary of the Kentucky Colonels, who won the ABA championship 50 years ago. He talks about it all on this edition of the WUKY SportsPage.

Lloyd is the author, along with Gary West, of the book “Kentucky Colonels of the American Basketball Association: The Real Story of a Team Left Behind,” and wrote all the captions for “Shots from the Sidelines,” a compilation of 500 photos of Colonels basketball. He has the first-hand memories – and the memorabilia – from the Colonels, who played only one more season after the championship year.