Feature 2

Creamer named to KHSAA Hall of Fame
Posted: 4/26/2010

By James Mulcahy

Tom Creamer may have bounced around some as a high school basketball coach, but the pinnacle of his career came when he lighted in Shelby County and took the 1978 Rockets to the top.

When it was time to settle down somewhere a little more permanent, he again looked toward Shelby County; it has been his home since 1992.

Creamer, who spent 40 years as a math teacher and football, basketball and golf coach, will take his place among the elite in Kentucky high school sports May 15 when he is inducted into the 2010 Class of the Dawahares/KHSAA Hall of Fame.

 "It's the icing on the cake," he said. "The Hall of Fame is something that you don't sit around and wait for, but when it comes you're happy that it's there."

Long career

Ironically, Creamer's coaching career began on the gridiron rather than the hardwood. While an assistant football coach at Russell High School, he was asked if he'd like to "work some basketball."

"I said, 'Well, I don't know. After a long football season, you're kinda worn out.' "

But he did take the assignment and turned it into a winning choice. Over his long career, Creamer had 665 wins and only 290 losses -- a nearly 70 percent winning record. Besides the state championship, a Creamer team was a state runner-up. He had three state semi-finalists, nine region champs and 22 district championships.

"I feel real good about my career," he said.

"The 1978 state championship was by far the pinnacle," he said. "That team seemed to take everything in stride." The Shelby boys beat Covington Holmes by 2 points in overtime.

But he said being runner-up was quite exciting, too. In 1999, his Assumption girls' team ran out of steam against a tough Lexington Catholic in the finals.

"That's pretty high on my list," he said.

Creamer coached football at Beechwood High School, in Fort Mitchell, where others began to notice his ability to shape winners.

"I think they'd lost 15 or 16 games in a row," he said. "They were not as powerful as they are now. Everybody said, 'You don't want to go to Beechwood and coach football. You'll be selling insurance in a couple of years.' I love to teach, and I think that's what kept me motivated.

"They had a real structured program there, so they only let you play eight games. Their philosophy is, the first of November the cold comes in, so we don't want to play after that. The first year, we lost all eight, but we were close in a couple of games. The second year we were 3-5, then 5-2-1. We kept getting better and I had some really good kids."

Then the school's basketball coach left for another job, and again Creamer took the job.

"I just said I'd coach them both; they were the same kids," he said.

After a couple of years, he jumped at an opening to coach roundball at Maysville High School.

"That was the break I needed," he said. "They'd been to the state tournament about as many times as anybody. Brenda, my wife, said that sounded good, so we took off."

Over the next six years, Creamer would rack up two district crowns, two region championships, and state semifinal honors.

Maysville, he said, is a "good sports town."

From Maysville, he spent a year coaching at Danville High School. He may have even finished his career there had Shelby County not snatched him up.

"Danville turned out to be a pit stop. It's a beautiful town and if we'd stayed there the rest of our lives we'd have been happy. I was sitting at home one day and Buzz Frazier called me and said, 'Tom, I was just at Shelby County High School, and they're looking for a basketball coach. Would you be interested?' There are about 10 schools you could write down in Kentucky that you'd like to coach, and Shelby County would be one of those. Lo and behold, I got the job."

"We had a good career here, and we loved it," Creamer said of Shelby County. "I would have liked to have stayed here and gone into administration, but there wasn't anything available. A friend called from Scott County said they had an assistant principal's job. The principal left after a year and I became principal of Scott County High School. I left after two years; that was not my cup of tea."

Creamer left administration and went to coach at Bishop Brossart in Alexandria, where he stayed for two years.

"We really missed Shelbyville," he said. "We found out something that a lot of people really don't realize: where you raise your children is your home. We raised our girls here. They all graduated from Shelby County and went their separate ways. When they would visit us at northern Kentucky from college, they'd stay with us a couple of days and go to Shelbyville, because all their friends were here. The second year we said, 'You can go to Shelbyville, if you take us with you.' We have a lot of great memories here."

Creamer continued his coaching career, but used Shelby County as his home base. He started at Louisville Holy Cross, where he coached for two years and had a dismal 4-38 record -- including a 6th Region All "A" championship.

"Holy Cross was a tough situation for me," he said, shaking his head. "We just didn't have real good athletes. We were playing people like PRP and Valley. The school was all about football. I was getting tired of that because they didn't want to do anything for baseball, track ... all they wanted to do was for football."

Then another opportunity arose.

"My wife picked up the Sunday paper and saw that Assumption was looking for a basketball coach and math teacher. She said, 'Do you think you could coach girls?' I said, 'Why, sure!' I called Sam Chandler, who was assistant principal.

"The principal asked me what made me think I could coach females. I've got a wife, three daughters and a couple of female cats. I've been around females all my life!

"That job was a blessing because I got a whole new career," he said. "A lot of people don't get that opportunity."

Chandler, of Shelbyville, a former member and president of the KHSAA Board of Control, nominated Creamer for the Hall of Fame.

"Coach Creamer has the rare ability to relate effectively to students, faculty, parents, administrators, parents and athletes," Chandler said in his letter of nomination. "He accepts responsibility readily and carries out his duties with efficiency. He seems to have the ability to sense the needs and feelings of others and make them feel that they are contributing part of the whole picture ... Mr. Creamer has proven himself to be an outstanding ambassador for basketball across the entire state of Kentucky."

Creamer, who was also inducted into the 8th Region Hall of Fame during this year's region tournament, said he has enjoyed the ride, and still likes being among the basketball crowd.

"I've been so fortunate in my coaching career to work for people who were so instrumental in athletics," he said. "That's probably the thing that sticks with you the most -- the kids you've coached and the people you meet. When I go to Rupp Arena, I can't go 10 or 15 feet without seeing someone I know.

"I had just a great time over the years. When it gets warm, I want to go to Maysville, and Danville, and even Shelby County, and find all the yearbooks I don't have. I want to do that just for me.

"And I want to drive to Alaska."

Coach Creamer's Q&A

Q: Are you a teacher who coaches, or a coach who teaches?

A: I love to teach math. When you look back over my career, I was in nine school systems, and I think teaching may have helped me get the jobs (except for Scott County). Even in Shelby County, back in those days athletics was No. 1 on people's minds, but teaching was also there.

Q: Would you change anything in your career?

A: Maybe the score at the end of a couple of games.

Q: Why did you teach math and not physical education?

A: I have a minor in PhysEd. The thing is, if you teach PhysEd and are in the gym all day, then you have to come back to the gym to coach basketball, I wouldn't like that.

Q: What are some names of players you've coached that we might recognize?

A: I've coached Charles Hurt, Norris Beckley, Jenny Bennifield (Miss Basketball at Assumption), Lea Wigger (golfer when Assumption won the state tournament who is now on the LPGA tour), Mark George, Mike George. The first team we had at Shelby County was tremendous team. It was a blend of Shelbyville and Shelby County boys.

Q: What's your favorite quote?

A: Dr. Seuss said, "Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened." I like that.