By RUSS BROWN
If you watch local television news/sports telecasts, you have noticed by now that Louisville’s dean of sportscasting has been missing for two months. This is to report that Cowgill, 66, is alive and well, and thriving in a new environment after his unprecedented 38-year run on WLKY-Channel 32 -- longest in the history of the market -- ended on May 24.
When classes resumed at Jeffersonville (Ind) High School on Aug. 1 after summer break, Cowgill began teaching TV and radio, although he was hard at work nearly two months before then setting up his classroom, planning a curriculum and performing other tasks so he would be well-prepared and could hit the ground running by the time students showed up.
After he left WLKY as its Emmy-winning Sports Director he wasn’t interested in kicking back and enjoying retirement, and his new occupation filled a mutual need for both him and Jeffersonville High School.
“I had been looking for a new adventure for about a year,” Cowgill said. “I just felt that God had something else in store for me. I had a lot of interest from businesses out there locally and nationally, but one by one they fell by the wayside for a variety of reasons. They just weren’t the right fit.”
That all changed with, first, a call from Jeffersonville High School athletic director Larry Owens to gauge his interest in taking over direction of the school’s radio/TV department, and then a followup conversation with principal Pam Hall.
Hall is fond of saying that she tries to swing for the fences with everyone she hires, and she thinks she has hit a home run with Cowgill.
“Fred was at the top of my list for our Radio/TV program,” Hall said. “I believe my students deserve the best and a four-decade Louisville legend like Fred Cowgill is not only the best, but a dream come true for our Red Devils. In his short time on campus, he has already met with some of his students, collaborated with fellow teachers and been working with community partners to ensure we evolve into an award-winning radio/TV department. I am blown away by his vision and passion for this program. I feel Fred is going to catapult us to the next level.”
It’s certainly difficult to imagine anyone more qualified than Cowgill, a native of Johnson City, N.Y., about 75 miles south of Syracuse. He earned degrees from the University of Tennessee and Boston University, then began his TV sports career in 1980 at CNN. He later worked for the ABC affiliate in Rochester, N.Y., before moving to WLKY, where he has won an Emmy Award for coverage of Muhammed Ali’s funeral, 17 “Best of Louisville” Awards, and various Best Kentucky Sportscaster Awards. He has taught classes in the University of Louisville’s Communications Department.
“I have been enormously blessed in my 49-year career,” he says.
Cowgill’s value to the community doesn’t stop on the TV screen, though. He has hosted charity golf tournaments for three decades, raising more than $2 million to fight cancer and diabetes. He and his wife Cindy have four children.
However, life hasn’t been all seashells and balloons for Cowgill this decade. He suffered a severe knee injury when he was slammed to the ground by a player while working the sideline at a Trinity High School football game in 2021. The injury required two years of surgery and rehabilitation involving both mental and physical anguish and left him unable to pursue his favorite hobby, golf, to the extent he had all of his life. He was also heavily criticized on social media when he sued the school, a lawsuit he eventually dropped because “getting a glimpse of the future, I didn’t like where it was going.”
“That incident at Trinity was very painful, one of the toughest times of my life,” Cowgill said. “My kneecap was at a 90-degree angle. I couldn’t walk for a long time and I couldn’t take pain-killers because I’m allergic to them. I was in agony. I was screaming. I didn’t sleep for weeks. At one point the doctors thought about possibly amputating. I was in a pretty dark place. Little by little, I fought my way back. You have to fight because the world is going to drag you down. I wanted a happy ending.”
He got the happy ending, and now he’s writing another chapter, an epilogue if you will.
While searching for a new vocation or another opportunity in TV, Cowgill had a list of 10 boxes that needed to be checked.
“Frankly, the biggest one was I wanted to be needed and wanted,” he said. “But it also had to have meat and potatoes with it. For example, I wanted to do something to help people.”
One potential opportunity checked nine of those boxes. Jeffersonville High School checked all 10.
“When this came along, I looked up at the sky and thought, ‘So this is the one.’”
In talking to Cowgill, it’s obvious that he is energized and passionate about his new gig, in no large part due to the Greater Clark County Schools’ commitment to Jeffersonville High School radio/TV program, as evidenced by tools that are already in place to the tune of nearly $4 million. Cowgill said he was told that two years ago a national survey of high school radio/TV departments and facilities nationwide ranked Jeffersonville High School in the top five.
“It’s overwhelming,” he said. “This facility is so amazing that it’s almost sensory overload. We have our own radio studio, TV studio, TV control room, as well as a classroom, amazing technology, an Adobe Premiere system that’s the best in the business. UofL doesn’t have this kind of equipment and almost no high school does. It’s just jaw-dropping. There are numerous layers to this job and two separate parts. There’s the facilities, the TV and radio stations, plus you have the teaching aspect, so I have to imagine how that’s going to be taught.”
Cowgill’s teaching load will consist of six 45-minute classes per day of sophomores, juniors, and seniors, with a total of about 150 students.”
“The good news is I have all the ‘toys’ I need,” he says.
Jeffersonville High School’s low-power, 24/7 radio station, WJHI-98.5 FM, is on the air with coverage in much of the Metro area. The TV station, Channel 184 on Spectrum, will start its programming soon. Cowgill’s tentative game plan for the outlets includes newcasts by students, broadcasts of football games, boys and girls basketball games, and more. Initially, the radio station will primarily be music.
Teaching young people is a huge responsibility,” Cowgill said. “We’re going to spend the first nine-week grading period getting to know these kids and understanding their skill set, what to teach them, and then go from there. I’m excited. This is going to be fun.”