Tom Hammond: Growing Up in Cooper House

By Aimee Nielson

The corner of Cooper Drive and Nicholasville Road in Lexington hasn’t always been a bustling hub of activity. In fact, fewer than 100 years ago, it was the scene of an idyllic, Greek Revival-style house, surrounded by acres and acres of farmland and a few barns—the home of agricultural research for the University of Kentucky.

“There was nothing else there; it was just a typical farm,” said Tom Hammond, UK alum and iconic NBC sportscaster. “The Good Barn was actually there; it was the dairy barn. There was no football stadium, no medical center. It was all farm. There wasn’t even a Cooper Drive. You had to take Tates Creek [Road] and go all the way around from Chevy Chase and back out. Even Central Baptist Hospital wasn’t there. It’s changed so much.”

Soon after Hammond was born in 1944, his father Claude Hammond was deployed with the U.S. Army. His mother Catherine Cooper Hammond took Tom and they moved in with her father, Thomas Poe Cooper. Cooper was the dean of the UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, and he lived in the farmhouse Hammond described above. They lived on the farm until Claude Hammond was discharged but continued to visit often after that.

Living on the farm was magical. Hammond likens the experience to living at a Disney theme park. His grandfather always raised a garden behind Cooper House with a rose-covered entry way.

It wasn’t all roses and fun though. Hammond said the house was already old when they lived in it and it had a lot of noises— moans and groans in the night.

“It was enough to scare a young boy,” he said. “Sometimes I had to run into my grandfather’s room and jump into bed with him.”

He remembers tractors on the farm, but also recalls a few draft horses employed to pull wagons and such.

“There was one named Billy,” Hammond recalled. “When he would see me in the garden, he would come over to the fence. I’d find something to feed him, whether it was corn shucks or something else, and we became friends. That was my first interaction with horses.”

As a rambunctious youngster, Hammond admits he probably raised a few eyebrows with his antics.

“I’m sure I was a terror to most of the workers,” he said. “They had to rescue me one time. When they were planting a tree, somehow, I fell into a hole. I don’t know how long I was in there, but I was there crying, and they finally came and got me out.”

Hammond can tell stories of his memories of Cooper House all day.

“If you’re facing Cooper House, the living room would have been the first room on the right,” he reminisced. “I can remember the radio being in the corner. There was no television then. At Christmastime, the Christmas tree would go in that spot. On the left side, the first room was my grandfather’s office. He had a desk in there that UK President Dr. (Frank L.) McVey gave him when he retired, which I now have in my home.”

His memories of the way the house looked at the time are vivid.

“I remember my grandmother reading to me as we sat in the hallway, sometimes in the living room,” he said. “After you enter the hallway of Cooper House, there was a cherry wood spiral staircase on the left. We used to sit opposite that. The first thing you would notice as you walked into the house was an oval stained-glass window, right by the spiral staircase. The door then led out onto the porch. I remember it all so well.”

His time on the farm and his relationship with his grandfather heavily influenced Hammond’s decision to attend UK and pursue a degree in animal science. He graduated in 1967, also following in the footsteps of his parents, both UK graduates. While attending UK, Hammond met his wife of 54 years, Sheilagh Rogan. Together, they have three children.

Hammond said he never intended to have a career in journalism and broadcasting. He describes himself as shy, not a great candidate to be in the public eye. His primary interest was horses. In the summers, he visited racetracks and even worked as a groom.

“I got into broadcasting by accident,” he said, explaining that his friend Tom Gentry introduced him to Dave Hooper, who worked for the “Daily Racing Form” and had a nightly race results show on WVLK.

Tom with former University of Kentucky basketball player and sports broadcaster, Larry Conley.

“Dave Hooper was being transferred by the ‘Racing Form’ to Miami. He couldn’t find anybody to take his spot on the radio … I said, ‘I bet I can do that.’ And he said, ‘Well, see you down there tomorrow at 5.’ I’m sure I was horrible, but there wasn’t anybody else to choose, so I got the job reading the race results on the radio for $35 a week.’”

That job was the first of many media gigs that eventually led Hammond to become news director for WVLK and then to be an announcer for horse sales in Ocala, Illinois, Oklahoma, Maryland and the All-American Sale in Ruidoso, New Mexico. From there, he moved into television with a job at WLEX 18 in Lexington and then moonlighted as sales announcer for Keeneland. Before long, Hammond was rubbing shoulders with NBC Sports greats Billy Packer, Al McGuire and Dick Enberg when they came to town for basketball games.

“I befriended the producers, Dick Enberg especially,” he said. “One of these trips in, this was at the old UK Memorial Coliseum, he said, ‘I sure would like to see Secretariat. Can you arrange for me to see him?’”

He said he had some time after the [basketball] game before he flew out. So, I took him to see Secretariat. Seth Hancock was with us, and Enberg asked Seth and me, “Now, how do you know a good horse?” I asked what he meant, pedigree, confirmation and then Seth says, “Sometimes you can see it just in their eyes,” and then Secretariat looked Enberg right in the eye. He told that story for years. It really made an impression on him.’”

The NBC connections eventually led to Hammond calling his first Breeder’s Cup in 1984, and the rest is history. He became part of the broadcasting elite. For the next 34 years, he announced major Thoroughbred stakes races and the National Football League. He was NBC’s play-by-play announcer for Notre Dame football and the AFL on NBC. He was involved in the coverage of 13 Olympic games as chief commentator for track and field in the summer and figure skating and ice dancing in the winter.

Hammond formally retired from his NBC duties in 2018. Even at the height of his career, he remained humble and always kept Lexington as his home base. He said one thing that kept him humble was a simple philosophy that bodes well in all aspects of life.

“Don’t try to prove how much you know, because you will just prove how much you don’t know,” he said. “That applies as a broadcaster in a lot of sports. I always felt like we were reporters. Now, it seems like everybody must be a personality. But I always thought that people didn’t tune in to hear me. They tuned in because they wanted to see that event. And if I could help them enjoy that event, that’s my job.”

As for a bit of advice for current students wanting to pursue a similar career, Hammond believes in hands-on experiences in the field, flexibility and honesty.

“Education is great, but experience is what really helps distinguish one person from another, and it enables them to get and keep a job. So, in your summer vacations or whatever, do whatever relates to what you want to do. And of course, be flexible, because you might wind up doing something completely different from what you thought, like me, that you find that you have an aptitude for which could be good. So be flexible and don’t turn down any opportunities to find out about something you might want to do.”

Tom speaking to a group of students inside Cooper House.

“And if you’re going into broadcasting learn to write, relax and be yourself. Don’t try to be what you think a broadcaster should be. It’s easy to say to relax, but hard to do sometimes, especially when you’re going before 50 million people for the Olympics. When you’ve done it often enough, you can relax. And when you relax, then your abilities and your stories and all the good things can come out.”

Since retirement, Hammond has done some recording and a few special projects. He’s also concentrated his attention more on his family’s legacy. He’s looking forward to seeing the Cooper House restored and repurposed once again as a gateway to the UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. He said he’s excited to see it return to some semblance of its original grandeur.

“My grandfather spent his adult life devoted to the college, and it’s been a big part of my family as well,” he said. “South campus gets lost in the shuffle these days, so it will be a nice anchor there. Hopefully the restored home will help perpetuate my grandfather’s memory. You can measure his impact to the university by all the things named after him … Cooper House, Cooper Drive, Cooperstown, the Thomas Poe Cooper Forestry Building, the Cooper campus of KET. It would be great to be able to go to the top floor of [Cooper House] and get a glass of Kentucky craft beer, wine or Kentucky bourbon.”

Tom after receiving his Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Kentucky in 2018.