By Vinny Porco

Longtime U of L Sports Information Director Kenny Klein passed away Thursday evening at the age of 66.

Klein’s career in sports media lasted over four decades, with 39 of those years being spent at the University of Louisville after brief two-year stints at Murray State University and Morehead State University. Following his June 2022 retirement from U of L, he spent the past two seasons working with his dear friend Rick Patino at St. John’s University.

I just missed Kenny Klein. I began shooting basketball photos for The Louisville Cardinal during the 2023-24 season. Zach Greenwell was a great help.

What I know of Klein comes primarily from my father, Tim Porco. The son of Louisville football legend Ken Porco, he got his start in sports photography shooting local high school sports. More importantly, however, he also became a student intern for Klein in U of L’s Sports Information Department in the early 1990s.

My father is also a great storyteller. So naturally, I was told about his old boss Kenny Klein on many car rides before I ever picked up a camera for myself. However, I only really began to appreciate the portrait being painted of a great man when I stepped into the field myself.

At every turn at U of L and working for the The Louisville Cardinal, there are people that think the world of Klein. Our faculty advisor Ralph Merkel has always spoken incredibly highly of him, and his occasional mention in the media room before U of L events never fails to make people smile.

And still, what I’m personally able to tell of him is so inferior to all he truly amounted to, that I considered not writing this piece at all.

But that word of mouth is the essence of legacy. That is what this editorial is about. Although the current staff did not have the priviledge of working and interacting with Klein, it would be irresponsible to let slip his importance. Kenny Klein meant the world to The Louisville Cardinal and beyond.

So, with all of this being said, I believe I’ve shared with you all I can. I will hand it off to others.

Another local titan

Former Assistant Sports Editor of The Louisville Cardinal Jody Demling wrote a wonderful piece about Klein for Cardinal Authority that I encourage all of our readers to check out.

He wrote about being a brand new reporter for the paper in 1990, and being assigned a story about Louisville basketball star LaBradford Smith. Klein was immediately supportive.

“He acted as if I were a reporter with 25 years of experience — not 25 minutes,” Demling wrote. “He was always willing to help in any way he could.”

The rest of his piece discusses how Klein helped him build his career in Louisville from student reporter to local media titan.

Kenny Klein in ink

I spent a few hours late Thursday night and Friday morning combing through The Louisville Cardinal’s digital archives hosted by U of L Libraries. I found exactly one photo of Kenny Klein in The Louisville Cardinal in a collection of around thirty years worth of search results.

This is not to say that Klein was not important to The Cardinal. Of course he was. To explain, I’ll hand it off to WDRB’s Eric Crawford.

The following is a full story written about a young Klein by Staff Writer Barbara Forbes in Sept. 1984. It is accompanied by a portrait of a working Kenny Klein taken by former Cardinal Photographer and longtime Associated Press Photographer Timothy Easley.

Click on images to view them larger. The full archived issue of The Louisville Cardinal can be found here.

Social Media

Klein’s hospitalization and passing has commanded an intense wave of wonderful sentiments on social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. Pictured are some of the highlights.

 

Outlook

Kenny Klein has unfortunately left this world, but the difference he made in people’s lives will ring through generations.

The silver lining in what is one of the most saddening moments in U of L history is the fact that the capacity to be that Kenny Klein kind of person is yet within us all.

We can all possess and share that same joy. We can all do our best to help those that are younger, less experienced and more vulnerable than us. We can all make every person around us feel like a friend.

We can all be a little more like Kenny Klein.

Rest in peace, K.K.

Feature Photo by Timothy Easley / The Louisville Cardinal