She grew up in a family with three brothers, so Masai Russell often played basketball and football with them even though the first sport she tried was gymnastics.
     “I have always been really athletic. I did the gymnastic and ballet stuff that young girls do,” said the University of Kentucky graduate student. “Then my mom took one of my brothers to a track meet. I saw what he was doing and wanted to try to. I was still doing gymnastics but there was something about track that I could not stay away from.
     “I was 8 or 9 years old when I started running track. It’s the only sport I have done competitively my whole life. Actually, track is my life.”
     It has turned into a really good life.
     She broke the collegiate record for the 60-meter indoor hurdles Jan. 20 in Lubbock, Texas, with a time of 7.75 seconds (the previous mark was 7.78). The UK record was 7.87 by Keni Harrison, an eventual Olympic medalist, in 2015 when she won the NCAA championship.
     Russell, already an 11-time All-American, is on the watch list for The Bowerman, the top award in track and field. Kentucky has had three other finalists — Harrison (2015), Olympic champion Sydney McLaughlin (2018) and 2022 winner Abby Steiner.
     At last weekend’s SEC Indoor Championships at Arkansas, Russell won the 60-meter hurdles in 7.77 seconds — only .02 off the collegiate mark she set last month in Lubbock. Russell’s victory marked the fifth time in the last six years a Wildcat won gold in the SEC 60 hurdles but was her first SEC title.
     Russell has always been fast. She can remember elementary school field day where she would “always beat everybody” in races and has always been in the top three in age division competitions.
     “I have always been relevant but I was never the best at what I do until now. I was working hard before but still was not doing enough. Now all that hard work has come together this year,” she said.
     She was an eight-time national champion in high school and two-time national record holder. Russell was a bronze medalist at the 2018 Pan American Junior Games in the 400 hurdles and the 2018 Gatorade Athlete of the Year in Maryland.
     Yet it was not a simple journey that got her to Kentucky. She calls her recruiting story “pretty insane” but could not be happier with the way it ended.
     She had verbally committed to Texas A&M before signing with Tennessee. Kentucky was never in her top five schools and she never visited UK. Her scholarship offer to Texas A&M got pulled one day before the national signing period opened and she signed with Tennessee because of assistant coach Tim Hall.
     “I was always told I should get a family vibe about a school but I never got that. The closest was Texas A&M and then my offer got pulled,” Russell said. “I did not have any real interest in Tennessee. It wasn’t what I wanted in a school but I wanted to have coach Hall teaching me.”
     However, a few weeks before she was scheduled to go to Tennessee, Hall stopped responding to her messages and then she saw a post on Twitter about Hall going to coach at Kentucky.
     “I wondered if he was going to bring me with him. Then he contacted my parents. I got offered the same money, same scholarship at Kentucky if I would come. I was just going on faith when I signed with Kentucky and it ended up being the best of any school I looked at,” Russell said. “Literally my dream came true.
     “I had run at Kentucky in a high school invitational my junior and senior years. I looked up the dorms on YouTube. It ended up being one of the best decisions I ever made.”
     Russell knew Kentucky had produced incredible hurdles like Harrison, McLaughlin and CAMACHO under previous coaches but head coach Lonnie Greene arrived from Purdue along with Hall and Harris at the same time.
     “I knew both coaches had always had a lot of success but I was coming to a new team. I just embraced what they told me. I had a successful freshman year

Masai Russell is a record-setting hurdler but also has a social media influencer with 480,000 followers on TikTok. (UK Athletics Photo)

and made nationals. Since then my career has just progressed every year,” Russell, the silver medalist in the 60 hurdles at the 2022 NCAA Indoor Championships, said.
     Russell and Steiner arrived at UK together and were roommates who still remain “great friends” even with Steiner now pursuing a professional career.
     “To see the progression Abby has had is inspiring,” Russell said. “I know my time has come. As hard as Abby worked, I work just as hard. Ask our coaches who have been the hardest workers and they will see Masai and Abby. I am not comparing myself to her. Your work does not always show up when you think and clearly I am a year later than her. But you just have to trust your path.
     “I just want to stay true to myself and be me. We have a lot of season left and if I get caught up in the now I will get left in the past. You have to create success every single day. In track, it does not matter what you did yesterday. You have to continue proving what you can do. That’s what made Abby so great and relentless because she kept showing what she could do. I want to do that, too.”
     Russell is a social media superstar with 192,000 followers on Instagram along with 480,000 followers on TikTok. Her YouTube channel has 29,000 subscribers.
     “None of that was ever really planned,” Russell said. “I think it was just meant to be. I love what I do on and off the track.”
     She has a wide variety of sponsored posts on Instagram and TikTok as she may have benefited more from name, image and likeness changes than any athlete at Kentucky.
     “I pick up followers each day. I don’t spend a crazy amount of time on it. I just post what I want. Doing NIL work does require me to work a lot from home and even at meets. Probably 50 to 60 percent of the day I am on my phone and the rest of the day I am trying to get better in the weight room or on the track,” she said.
     “Social media is just a part of my life. That is who I am. I did get into trouble early recording some things I shouldn’t have. My parents have always told me once you put something out there you can’t take it back. I decided to take a clean route (with social media postings). I want people to know who I am as an athlete and as an influencer.”

     Former UK basketball standout Jeff Sheppard has seen a lot of teams play this year he thinks could win the state championship if they can get out of regional tournament play this week.
     “The regions are so difficult and there are always upsets and phenomenal games,” said Sheppard. “I could probably point to 20 teams and if one of those 20 won the state I would still say that makes sense. For the field to be that open makes for a very exciting tournament and in a one-game setting anything can happen.”
     His son, Kentucky signee Reed Sheppard, hopes to lead North Laurel back to the state tourney and North Laurel is one of the teams with a chance to win the state crown.
     “We are having a blast with this season. Basketball is a game you cannot perfect. Mistakes are made every time you play,” Jeff Sheppard said. “I have seen Reed play since he was a little fellow. I know him and his mannerisms. I see things with him a lot of other people don’t see.
     “I am happy with Reed’s level of maturity as a player and leader. That’s what is important as he continues to work on strength training, shooting, ball handling, decisions you have to make when the other team is playing great or maybe the officiating is just a little bit off or you are seven down on the road. Those are the moments you have to have maturity to focus and execute and he’s getting better in those areas.”
     Jeff Sheppard said his son will fight and battle for his “team in every scenario” no matter whether things are going good or bad.
     “We want him to be a great young man who appreciates every moment and is a fighter for his team, state and university,” Jeff Sheppard said.
     He recently was named a McDonald’s All-American just like UK signees Justin Edwards, Aaron Bradshaw and DJ Wagner were.
     “Reed has not had a ton of goals in regards to trophies but this was one of them,” Jeff Sheppard said. “He really wanted to win that honor. You do the best you can and hope to get picked but it’s tough.
     “We knew how much it meant to him but also knew he would be the same player whether he was picked or not. But it was such a big deal for him and he was happy, so we were happy for him.”

     Kentucky’s 2023 recruiting class has four McDonald’s All-Americans — Justin Edwards, Aaron Bradshaw, DJ Wagner and Reed Sheppard. A fifth signee, Rob Dillingham, was not eligible for that honor but he was named to the Iverson Classic along with Wagner, Bradshaw and Edwards.
     Wagner and Edwards have both also been picked to play in the Nike Hoops Summit.
     If that wasn’t enough recruiting hype for a class many UK fans believe can win a national title, the excitement will only grow based on ESPN's Jonathan Givony latest 2024 NBA mock draft.
     He has four of the incoming freshmen going in the top 30 of the 2024 draft and another UK player going in the top 40 also:
         No. 4 — Justin Edwards.
         No. 7 — D.J. Wagner.
         No. 28 — Aaron Bradshaw.
         No. 30 — Rob Dillingham.
         No. 40 — Ugonna Onyenso.
     The 7-foot Onyenso reclassified to sign with UK this year and has played sparingly even though coach John Calipari consistently praises his play.

     Kentucky softball will again play in the Clearwater Invitational next season, one of the nation’s premier non-conference tournaments hosted by ESPN in Clearwater, Fla. It will be the fifth year for the event and UK’s second time participating since it was also in the inaugural tournament in 2019 when it went 4-2.
     The tournament will start Feb. 15 and end Feb. 18 at the Eddie C. Moore Softball Complex in Clearwater. Every tourney game will be shown live on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network or ESPN+ with Beth Mowins, Amanda Scarbrough and Michele Smith calling the biggest games.
     SEC rivals LSU, Tennessee and Georgia will be in the field. Twelve of the 16 teams that will be playing are ranked in the top 25 currently and four reached the College World Series in 2022.
     Non-SEC teams in the field will be Florida State, Georgia Tech, Minnesota, North Carolina, Northwestern, Oklahoma State, Stanford, Texas, Central Florida, UCLA, Washington and Wisconsin.
     Ticket information and schedules will be released during the offseason.

     Just in case you missed it, last Friday was a night to remember for University of Kentucky alumni in the NBA as three former Wildcats scored 42 or more points in a game.
     Julius Randle, had 46 points for the New York Knicks in a 115-109 win over Washington when he was 7-for-14 from 3-point range and 16 of 29 overall from the field. At the foul line, he went 7-for-7.
     Immanuel Quickley came off the bench to score 16 points for the Knicks on 6-for-11 shooting (3-for-6 on 3’s) and also had three rebounds and one assists in 30 minutes
     Sacramento teammates De’Aaron Fox and Malik Monk made history in a mind-boggling 176-175 double overtime win over the LA Clippers in Los Angeles when they became just the second pair of college teammates to score 40 or more points in the same NBA game as teammates. The only other time it happened was in the 1995 playoffs when Houston’s Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon did it.
     Fox was 17 of 27 from the field (2-for-4 on 3’s) and 6-for-11 at the foul line in his 42-point performance. He also had 12 assists and five rebounds.
     Monk was just the fifth player in the Kings’ history and second in the NBA this season to score 40 off the bench. He was 15 of 24 from the field and 6-for-12 from 3-point range in his 45-point game. He also went 9-for-10 at the foul line and had six assists and two rebounds in 41 minutes.
     Kawhi Leonard had 44 points for the Clippers to make it just the fifth time in NBA history there had been three 40-point scorers in the same game and first time it had happened since 2012.

  Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week 1:

     “He is a NBA level defender in terms of skill and ability. He has to continue to grow in tactical stuff but he is at the NBA level with his lateral quickness and movement,” Sporting News columnist Mike DeCourcy on UK freshman Cason Wallace.

Quote of the Week 2:

     “I usually start with the pants, I think. Pants, then the shirt, then the jacket. Unless there's like a piece that I really want to wear, whether it's like a jacket or whatever my main piece is, that will be my first piece. I kind of work off that,” former UK standout Tyler Herro on how he put his outfit together to wear at the NBA All-Star weekend.

Quote of the Week 3:

     "It was killing me. I talked to God all the time. I asked God. 'What are people talking about? I can guard pick-and-roll,'” Oscar Tshiebwe joking about his defense after the win over Auburn.