Ronnie Lyons was 5'9" tall, great ball handler, very quick but had great difficulty guarding tall, physical SEC guards. He played on some of the mediocre UK teams in the early 70's when the talent level was not up to par. Ronnie had a tendency to take some 20' plus set shots often times when the team was losing. Sometimes the fans would boo him when he would take an untimely long shot. On one occasion the booing triggered a " good ole Harlan county ass chewing" from Cawood Ledford. I remember Cawood saying " I've said it before and I'll say it again booing a Ky player is bush league, Ronnie Lyons has played on two SEC championship teams and has been a great representitive of the Ky program and doesn't deserve this type of treatment" That's what I admired about Cawood, he called it as he saw it. I remember numerous times the fans would boo a referee for a questionable call but Cawood would often say the fans didn't like it but I thought it was a good call. Conversely, if the referee was incompetent or obviously bias he didn't hesitate to call him out for his incompetency. The one referee he would criticise throughout the game was Soriano who i think called the 1975 Ky -Ind mideast regional game. If Soriano was calling a Ky game Cawood wouldn't hesitate to tell the listening audience during the pregame show that he was the sorriest referee in the NCAA. There will never be another Cawood!
