Beech Tree News Network

He came to Kentucky known as the “Blonde Bomber” because of his bleach blonde hair and long-range shooting ability. 

Jay Shidler laughs at the thought of the nickname now 40 years after he was part of Kentucky’s 1978 national championship basketball team. 

“That’s how I came in and I had a decent freshman year and caught people’s eyes. I don’t back down from it. I did like all that went with that nickname,” he said.  “Maybe I should have left it (his hair) like that. Maybe I would have played a little better. I don’t know. 

“Might have been my Samson hair or something. I enjoyed that and that’s what everybody remembers even though it was just that color for one season. But I am not going to back away from that. It’s just a different shade of blonde now.”

Karen Guess Eversole of Louisville was one of many fans glad to see the 1978 championship team recognized at UK last month — and she still remembers the “Blonde Bomber” and the impression he made on her when she was 13 years old.

“He immediately caught my attention,” she said. “I decided to keep a scrapbook that season and each page would have clippings of the games and I would have a special stat dedicated to Jay. I also logged his points.”

She was so infatuated with Shidler — like a lot of other young female fans were — that she wrote him a letter. There was no Wildcat Lodge then and she addressed it to Haggin Hall, one of the UK freshman dorms. She never heard back and has no idea if he ever got her letter. 

“During those years Kentucky had an annual game at Freedom Hall and my dad would take me and my best friend to the (open) practices. We would get as close to the court as we could and shout his name hoping he would acknowledge us,” she said.

“Back then, a lot of the games would be shown on tape delay at 11:30 p.m. I would beg my parents to let me stay up and watch, even though I had already listened to Cawood (Ledford) call the game (on the radio) and knew the outcome. I couldn’t stand the thought of not seeing them play.

“That season was so special. I guess I knew it would be and that’s why I chose to create the scrapbook. I remember being crushed that we lost two games (during the season) and being delirious when we won the title. Great memories. Can’t believe it has been 40 years,” she said.

Shidler finished his four-year UK career with 733 points (there was no 3-point shot then), 203 steals, 150 rebounds and 41 steals. He shot 45.5 percent from the field and 83 percent at the foul line. He took just 648 shots in 122 career games. That’s only about five shots per game and more than a third of those came his freshman year in 1976-7 before the arrival of guard Kyle Macy.

Shidler had scored 2,193 points in his Illinois prep career, including 1,013 his senior year that still ranks as the 14th best single-season mark in Illinois history. He also played football, baseball and golf. At times he even found time to run track.

“It kept me out of trouble staying busy,” he laughed and said.

Eversole has remained a Kentucky fan. Her grandmother was from Marion, Ky., and was a 1931 UK graduate. 

“She’s the one that instilled in us the love of UK. She lived with us and would watch the games in a separate family room because she’d get too nervous, but we could hear her yelling at the TV,” Eversole said. “During timeouts she would come into our family room to discuss game strategy.”

Eversole attended UK from 1982-84, got married and has raised two “fanatical” UK fans in Louisville. Her oldest son is high functioning autistic and she says he knows “everything” about UK — he even wrote some columns for Kentucky Forward, an online publication. Her youngest son graduated from UK in 2016.

She eventually did get a Shidler autograph at a Kentucky open practice. 

“Though when I was 13 that would’ve made my day,” she said.

Shidler admits there are a lot of fans who share similar type stories with him. He wishes now there would have been a way to interact with more fans but he enjoys being remembered.

“I was not the best player at Kentucky but apparently I did enough to make people remember me and make me think I should have kept that blonde hair more than just one year there,” Shidler, who still lives in Lexington, said.