– In the search to replace Dr. Lee T. Todd, Jr., who will retire at the end of June after 10 years as the University of Kentucky president, the UK Board of Trustees has selected Eli Capilouto, provost of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, as the preferred candidate to be the 12th president of the University of Kentucky. Capilouto, 61, has been provost at UBA since 2005. In that capacity, he serves as the chief academic officer for a university with 11 schools and colleges, 17,543 students and some $460 million in annual external research.According to UKnow, Capilouto will travel to Lexington for a series of forums on Monday with faculty, staff and students as well as other meetings. The Board of Trustees will meet Tuesday to consider whether to extend a formal offer to Capilouto.What does this all have to do with UK Athletics? As was outlined in a story on this website Wednesday, the athletics department is hoping the next president will share the same vision and partnership with athletics as Todd did. The new president will have an effect on the UK Athletics Department one way or the other.Read the full story here.- A bit surprisingly, UK running back Derrick Locke was not selected in the final rounds of the NFL Draft on Saturday. While disappointed, Locke said he was not surprised and explained why he did not hear his name called, via Twitter.
“I was prepared for this to happen. Teams wouldn’t pass me on my medicals & took me off draft boards but this not the end of my story”
“They say I have a spine injury which to some teams would be bad for business but I feel fine and have played after my injury wit no problems”
Usually players would have the opportunity to sign free-agent contracts immediately following the draft, but that process has been halted by the NFL lockout. – The inaugural Kentucky Combine begins Monday at the Joe Craft Center. The combine will give Terrence Jones, Brandon Knight, DeAndre Liggins and Josh Harrellson an opportunity to work out in front of NBA personnel and receive feedback. The personal workouts will include one-on-one interviews with the players and should give UK’s underclassmen (Jones, Knight and Liggins) a fairly good idea of their draft stock before the May 8 deadline to withdraw from the draft.The workouts are private and are not open to the media, therefore we likely won’t be able to provide any coverage of how the workouts fared.
