How did Stacey and Jeff Sheppard actually meet?

Stacey and Jeff Sheppard met while both were playing basketball at Kentucky and now their son, Reed Sheppard, is a UK signee. (Les Nicholson Photo)

Kentucky basketball signee Reed Sheppard is having another terrific season for North Laurel averaging 24 points and 9.1 rebounds per game. He’s coming off an incredible triple-double — 32 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds — in a 90-83 loss to Lyon County.

He’s a double legacy recruit as his father, Jeff Sheppard, was the 1998 Final Four Most Outstanding Player and his mother, Stacey Reed, is still second on UK’s all-time steals list with 309.

Reed’s parents met at UK during her sophomore year and his freshman year. She heard Jeff, a Georgia native, loved to fish and that then UK coach Rick Pitino was not always overly  nice to freshmen.

“I heard Jeff was having a hard time,” Stacey, a Laurel County native, said. “I sent him a note in (basketball) study hall telling him I was from Kentucky and if he would like to go fishing I would be glad to take him.

“He wadded up the note and threw it in the garbage. It was about a year and a half later when he came over to me. I was in the training room with my foot in an ice bucket when he finally said he would like to hang out.”

Their first date was to the Ichthus, a Christian music festival in Wilmore.

“Coach Pitino actually told him that he needed to get rid of that girl,” Stacey laughed and said. “All I had done was offer to take him fishing but that’s how we started dating.”