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Kenny Klein, the beloved longtime Louisville Athletics sports information director of four decades who saw the Cardinals through two men's basketball national titles and an ascendance through five conferences, has died. He was 65.
Klein's family confirmed his death to The Courier Journal on June 25. The Southside, Tennessee, native spent 39 years working for the Cardinals — arriving in 1983 as a sports information director and retiring in 2022 as a senior associate athletics director.
During a June 18 meeting of the University of Louisville Athletic Association board, athletics director Josh Heird said Klein had been hospitalized after "a pretty tragic event a week ago" and was "battling to survive."
Klein was best known as the primary spokesperson for Louisville men's basketball — logging 1,309 consecutive games, according to a university release when he announced his retirement. He worked alongside two Hall of Fame coaches in Denny Crum and Rick Pitino, then moved into a part-time position as a consultant when the program changed hands from Chris Mack to Kenny Payne.
In 2010, Pitino famously gifted Klein a red Lexus IS 350 convertible for his 50th birthday. Klein spent the past two seasons as a special advisor to the coach at St. John's. In multiple posts to X during that stretch, Pitino referred to him as his "main man."
"We all love him so much, and our hearts are totally broken," the coach wrote in a June 23 post to X.
The Cards went 888-421 during Klein's tenure, making four Final Four appearances and winning national championships in 1986 and 2013. They also weathered scandals that thrust him into the spotlight, including one that ultimately led to their most recent title being vacated in 2017.
"You just try to be truthful and just try to work your way through it," Klein told The Courier Journal in 2022. "It's not something that anybody necessarily would enjoy, I would think, but you understand that that's part of it.
"We've had some tough times, but we've managed to come out well on the other side of it."
A 1981 graduate of Murray State, Klein was 23 years old when he arrived at UofL after a stint of nearly two seasons as an SID at Morehead State. At the time, he was the youngest SID of an NCAA Division I basketball program at a school with a football team. He also spent a season as a student assistant in sports information at Austin Peay and wrote for The Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle's Sports section.
In addition to those titles, Klein coordinated the computerized statistics operation at the Final Four for more than 35 years. He also assisted annually in media relations for the Kentucky Derby, serving as a liaison to help journalists access interviews with VIP and celebrity guests.
Klein was inducted into the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Hall of Fame in 2015, then earned a spot in the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame two years later. In 2012, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association presented him with the Katha Quinn Award for providing outstanding service to media members covering college basketball.
With his retirement looming, reflecting on the way his job had changed across four decades, Klein noted a couple of poignant throughlines. "You still have to treat people well," he told The Courier Journal. "You still have to do your best to try to connect."
Klein is survived by his wife, Donna; sons Alex and Brady; and three grandchildren.
Known by decades of UofL athletes as “KK,” within months of Klein's hiring, he was quickly elevated to head SID.
He handled that transition the way he would handle department regime changes from Bill Olsen to Tom Jurich, then Vince Tyra and now Josh Heird — with unwavering professionalism, passion for the school and unrelenting good cheer.
“He’s one of one,” Jurich said. “There’s nobody that’s ever been like him and no one that will ever be like him again.”
Klein would do it again when Louisville changed conferences: from the Metro to Conference USA, then the Big East to the American and now the ACC.
And KK would navigate change again when Hall of Fame basketball coach Denny Crum was pushed from the program in 2001 with two national championships, and the department hired a former University of Kentucky coach who had beaten UofL quite a bit. Klein managed to stay close with Crum, and Pitino instantly loved him.
For four decades, he led the athletics PR department: handling interviews for athletes, keeping statistics and game notes to give to sportswriters, record keeping for programs and media guides, writing stories and athlete biographies on the Cards’ website, press releases — and a whole lot of other undefined job duties.
Simply put, a sports information director is the go-between.
Former longtime Courier Journal sports columnist Rick Bozich worked with Klein for 40 years.
“He had a remarkable job of understanding what the coaches' jobs and interests were, and what the university’s jobs and interests were, but also what the media’s jobs and interest were,” Bozich said. “The access and the cooperation that we got from Louisville was better than anywhere else.
“If he couldn’t tell me something, he’d say, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I can’t say,’ but he always tried to help you.”
Klein taught his staff to respond to journalists questions. It’s exactly why Rocco Gasparro jumped at the opportunity to work with Klein beginning in June 2003.
“If they call you, you get back to them, whatever answer that might be,” Gasparro said.
Klein also was one of the last SIDs in the country to keep the basketball team locker room open after games. Now, most interviews are picked by the athletics department and held at a microphone on a stage.
“He made everybody around him better,” said Nancy Worley, who was Klein’s first hire at UofL. They also worked together for four decades. “We held our standards very, very high because he did.”
In a market of ever-rising ticket prices, Klein still focused on the reporters. Staying until the last story was filed, he was known for grabbing a cardboard box, raiding a suite and walking around the press box with beers.
"Beverage?" he’d say, offering tired sports writers a post-game beverage for after deadline.
Throughout the conference changes, Klein was adamant that no one considered the Kentucky university “a country cousin.” He never wanted anyone to say, "Well, Louisville doesn’t do this," Worley stressed. He made sure his communications team was organized, hospitable and ever a proponent of the athlete.
He also worked to showcase the southern hospitality of his city — helping bring NCAA championships and regionals to Louisville in field hockey, volleyball and basketball. He was a good host, a driving force, and he had a way of instantly building trust and credibility.
“Kenny is University of Louisville athletics,” Bozich said. “SID can be a thankless job. He did it better than anybody could imagine.”
Pitino and Klein became really close during their time together in Louisville. Several incidents involving the basketball program — including the Karen Sypher scandal and the NCAA title violation — became news for media outlets nationwide. He relied on Klein’s judgement on how to navigate it all.
Pitino was so grateful, he gifted Klein that red Lexus for his birthday.
But it wasn’t the only luxurious gift Pitino bought for his SID. Although Klein had retired from UofL, when the SID at St. John’s had a health issue, Pitino called up Klein and asked him to come to New York for the 2024-25 basketball season.
Klein lived in New York, went to all the games and helped Pitino like a personal PR person. Pitino even brought him back this past season. In return, Klein received a Rolex watch.
"For me, it's a big treat, because I spent 17 years with him, and in 17 years we had so many great times," Pitino said during the 2026 NCAA Tournament.
“They’re very, very close,” Worley said. “They crack each other up. … They couldn’t be from two more different backgrounds.”
One grew up near a tobacco farm and the other grew up on Long Island, yet everyone who knows them said there was no other word to describe their relationship than family.
Klein also oversaw the Final Four statistician crew for NCAA men’s basketball.
LJ Wright, the director of NCAA men’s basketball championships, referred to Klein as the “constant, solid, stable force.”
“He quietly did his job at the scorer’s table,” Wright told The Courier Journal. “He’s got one of the best seats in the house sitting courtside. He had a lot of talent run up and down the floor in front of him in those 40 years, that’s for sure.”
His statistics and notes were the "One Shining Moment" for national media members each March. Doug Vance, who gave Klein his first job in an athletics department, said Klein was a “behind-the-scenes guy” who had “no ego.”
“He stays out of the spotlight and tries to help others get the attention,” Vance said. “One of the master national writers called him the gold standard of sports information directors, and I couldn’t agree with that more.”
Klein was also a fixture for Churchill Downs communications during Kentucky’s biggest racing weekend for at least 20 Derbys. Darren Rogers, the racetrack’s communications director, echoed other colleagues' glowing words about Klein. As soon as Kenny showed up, it was a relief. He just handled what needed to be handled.
“He’s a pro’s pro,” Rogers said. “He’s a Hall of Famer for a reason.”
Across their 19 years working together, Rogers said his favorite story is from the 2021 Kentucky Derby, the first “post-COVID” Derby.
“Our attendance was capped at 33% or 50,000 people,” Rogers said. “We were coming off the 2020 Derby, which was held in September with no fans. Kenny was so happy to be back amongst people.”
Most of Klein’s duties on race day surrounded helping media members get interviews.
“You get around Derby post time and his job in the media department is essentially done,” Rogers said.
Since Klein is well-known around Louisville and athletic circles, Rogers told him to go spend the Derby with his friends at the track.
“Kenny likes his bourbon,” Rogers said. “He maybe had a little too much bourbon because after the race, he was so happy that he came back down to the media center and he was just hugging everybody. Now, we’re fresh off social distancing. But he’s so happy to see people in a large space again that he’s just laughing and giving hugs.”
Internally, the department now refers to it as “The Hugging Derby.”
While Klein is beloved around Louisville, he is also widely known and respected in nearly every college athletics department.
In the weeks since tragedy struck, the outpouring of support to Klein and his family has been nearly constant. It's been a tough few weeks for many across the country coming to terms with one of the best in the business no longer being courtside.
Gasparro and others all shared the same sentiment about Klein: He always had a smile on his face.
“I don’t know if you followed Louisville Athletics over the last 10 years,” Gasparro said, jokingly referring to a decade of turmoil. “But he still never had a bad day … He enjoyed his job, but he enjoyed life.”
Just hours before his passing, Pitino took to X with a photo of him and KK.
The coach wrote: "No words can describe how much I love this man."
Reach Louisville men's basketball reporter Brooks Holton at [email protected] and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
Stephanie Kuzydym is an enterprise and investigative reporter. Reach her at [email protected] or @stephkuzy.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kenny Klein, longtime Louisville Cardinals basketball SID, dies at 65
Continue reading...
Klein's family confirmed his death to The Courier Journal on June 25. The Southside, Tennessee, native spent 39 years working for the Cardinals — arriving in 1983 as a sports information director and retiring in 2022 as a senior associate athletics director.
During a June 18 meeting of the University of Louisville Athletic Association board, athletics director Josh Heird said Klein had been hospitalized after "a pretty tragic event a week ago" and was "battling to survive."
Klein was best known as the primary spokesperson for Louisville men's basketball — logging 1,309 consecutive games, according to a university release when he announced his retirement. He worked alongside two Hall of Fame coaches in Denny Crum and Rick Pitino, then moved into a part-time position as a consultant when the program changed hands from Chris Mack to Kenny Payne.
In 2010, Pitino famously gifted Klein a red Lexus IS 350 convertible for his 50th birthday. Klein spent the past two seasons as a special advisor to the coach at St. John's. In multiple posts to X during that stretch, Pitino referred to him as his "main man."
"We all love him so much, and our hearts are totally broken," the coach wrote in a June 23 post to X.
The Cards went 888-421 during Klein's tenure, making four Final Four appearances and winning national championships in 1986 and 2013. They also weathered scandals that thrust him into the spotlight, including one that ultimately led to their most recent title being vacated in 2017.
"You just try to be truthful and just try to work your way through it," Klein told The Courier Journal in 2022. "It's not something that anybody necessarily would enjoy, I would think, but you understand that that's part of it.
"We've had some tough times, but we've managed to come out well on the other side of it."
A 1981 graduate of Murray State, Klein was 23 years old when he arrived at UofL after a stint of nearly two seasons as an SID at Morehead State. At the time, he was the youngest SID of an NCAA Division I basketball program at a school with a football team. He also spent a season as a student assistant in sports information at Austin Peay and wrote for The Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle's Sports section.
In addition to those titles, Klein coordinated the computerized statistics operation at the Final Four for more than 35 years. He also assisted annually in media relations for the Kentucky Derby, serving as a liaison to help journalists access interviews with VIP and celebrity guests.
Klein was inducted into the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Hall of Fame in 2015, then earned a spot in the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame two years later. In 2012, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association presented him with the Katha Quinn Award for providing outstanding service to media members covering college basketball.
With his retirement looming, reflecting on the way his job had changed across four decades, Klein noted a couple of poignant throughlines. "You still have to treat people well," he told The Courier Journal. "You still have to do your best to try to connect."
Klein is survived by his wife, Donna; sons Alex and Brady; and three grandchildren.
The man in the middle
Known by decades of UofL athletes as “KK,” within months of Klein's hiring, he was quickly elevated to head SID.
He handled that transition the way he would handle department regime changes from Bill Olsen to Tom Jurich, then Vince Tyra and now Josh Heird — with unwavering professionalism, passion for the school and unrelenting good cheer.
“He’s one of one,” Jurich said. “There’s nobody that’s ever been like him and no one that will ever be like him again.”
Klein would do it again when Louisville changed conferences: from the Metro to Conference USA, then the Big East to the American and now the ACC.
And KK would navigate change again when Hall of Fame basketball coach Denny Crum was pushed from the program in 2001 with two national championships, and the department hired a former University of Kentucky coach who had beaten UofL quite a bit. Klein managed to stay close with Crum, and Pitino instantly loved him.
For four decades, he led the athletics PR department: handling interviews for athletes, keeping statistics and game notes to give to sportswriters, record keeping for programs and media guides, writing stories and athlete biographies on the Cards’ website, press releases — and a whole lot of other undefined job duties.
Simply put, a sports information director is the go-between.
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Former longtime Courier Journal sports columnist Rick Bozich worked with Klein for 40 years.
“He had a remarkable job of understanding what the coaches' jobs and interests were, and what the university’s jobs and interests were, but also what the media’s jobs and interest were,” Bozich said. “The access and the cooperation that we got from Louisville was better than anywhere else.
“If he couldn’t tell me something, he’d say, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I can’t say,’ but he always tried to help you.”
Klein taught his staff to respond to journalists questions. It’s exactly why Rocco Gasparro jumped at the opportunity to work with Klein beginning in June 2003.
“If they call you, you get back to them, whatever answer that might be,” Gasparro said.
Klein also was one of the last SIDs in the country to keep the basketball team locker room open after games. Now, most interviews are picked by the athletics department and held at a microphone on a stage.
“He made everybody around him better,” said Nancy Worley, who was Klein’s first hire at UofL. They also worked together for four decades. “We held our standards very, very high because he did.”
In a market of ever-rising ticket prices, Klein still focused on the reporters. Staying until the last story was filed, he was known for grabbing a cardboard box, raiding a suite and walking around the press box with beers.
"Beverage?" he’d say, offering tired sports writers a post-game beverage for after deadline.
Throughout the conference changes, Klein was adamant that no one considered the Kentucky university “a country cousin.” He never wanted anyone to say, "Well, Louisville doesn’t do this," Worley stressed. He made sure his communications team was organized, hospitable and ever a proponent of the athlete.
He also worked to showcase the southern hospitality of his city — helping bring NCAA championships and regionals to Louisville in field hockey, volleyball and basketball. He was a good host, a driving force, and he had a way of instantly building trust and credibility.
“Kenny is University of Louisville athletics,” Bozich said. “SID can be a thankless job. He did it better than anybody could imagine.”
Pitino’s Main Man
Pitino and Klein became really close during their time together in Louisville. Several incidents involving the basketball program — including the Karen Sypher scandal and the NCAA title violation — became news for media outlets nationwide. He relied on Klein’s judgement on how to navigate it all.
Pitino was so grateful, he gifted Klein that red Lexus for his birthday.
But it wasn’t the only luxurious gift Pitino bought for his SID. Although Klein had retired from UofL, when the SID at St. John’s had a health issue, Pitino called up Klein and asked him to come to New York for the 2024-25 basketball season.
Klein lived in New York, went to all the games and helped Pitino like a personal PR person. Pitino even brought him back this past season. In return, Klein received a Rolex watch.
"For me, it's a big treat, because I spent 17 years with him, and in 17 years we had so many great times," Pitino said during the 2026 NCAA Tournament.
“They’re very, very close,” Worley said. “They crack each other up. … They couldn’t be from two more different backgrounds.”
One grew up near a tobacco farm and the other grew up on Long Island, yet everyone who knows them said there was no other word to describe their relationship than family.
One Shining Career
Klein also oversaw the Final Four statistician crew for NCAA men’s basketball.
LJ Wright, the director of NCAA men’s basketball championships, referred to Klein as the “constant, solid, stable force.”
“He quietly did his job at the scorer’s table,” Wright told The Courier Journal. “He’s got one of the best seats in the house sitting courtside. He had a lot of talent run up and down the floor in front of him in those 40 years, that’s for sure.”
You must be registered for see images attach
His statistics and notes were the "One Shining Moment" for national media members each March. Doug Vance, who gave Klein his first job in an athletics department, said Klein was a “behind-the-scenes guy” who had “no ego.”
“He stays out of the spotlight and tries to help others get the attention,” Vance said. “One of the master national writers called him the gold standard of sports information directors, and I couldn’t agree with that more.”
The Hugging Derby
Klein was also a fixture for Churchill Downs communications during Kentucky’s biggest racing weekend for at least 20 Derbys. Darren Rogers, the racetrack’s communications director, echoed other colleagues' glowing words about Klein. As soon as Kenny showed up, it was a relief. He just handled what needed to be handled.
“He’s a pro’s pro,” Rogers said. “He’s a Hall of Famer for a reason.”
Across their 19 years working together, Rogers said his favorite story is from the 2021 Kentucky Derby, the first “post-COVID” Derby.
“Our attendance was capped at 33% or 50,000 people,” Rogers said. “We were coming off the 2020 Derby, which was held in September with no fans. Kenny was so happy to be back amongst people.”
Most of Klein’s duties on race day surrounded helping media members get interviews.
“You get around Derby post time and his job in the media department is essentially done,” Rogers said.
Since Klein is well-known around Louisville and athletic circles, Rogers told him to go spend the Derby with his friends at the track.
“Kenny likes his bourbon,” Rogers said. “He maybe had a little too much bourbon because after the race, he was so happy that he came back down to the media center and he was just hugging everybody. Now, we’re fresh off social distancing. But he’s so happy to see people in a large space again that he’s just laughing and giving hugs.”
Internally, the department now refers to it as “The Hugging Derby.”
From Louisville across America
While Klein is beloved around Louisville, he is also widely known and respected in nearly every college athletics department.
In the weeks since tragedy struck, the outpouring of support to Klein and his family has been nearly constant. It's been a tough few weeks for many across the country coming to terms with one of the best in the business no longer being courtside.
Gasparro and others all shared the same sentiment about Klein: He always had a smile on his face.
“I don’t know if you followed Louisville Athletics over the last 10 years,” Gasparro said, jokingly referring to a decade of turmoil. “But he still never had a bad day … He enjoyed his job, but he enjoyed life.”
Just hours before his passing, Pitino took to X with a photo of him and KK.
The coach wrote: "No words can describe how much I love this man."
Reach Louisville men's basketball reporter Brooks Holton at [email protected] and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
Stephanie Kuzydym is an enterprise and investigative reporter. Reach her at [email protected] or @stephkuzy.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kenny Klein, longtime Louisville Cardinals basketball SID, dies at 65
Continue reading...
