A Weekend to Remember a Pair of Lindsey Wilson University Legends

Golf, swimming events honor the impact of the late Brady Button, Scott Dillery

by Duane Bonifer

COLUMBIA, Ky. (09/28/2026) — They were known as everyone's best friend and the swimming program's dad.

Working mostly behind the scenes, the late Brady Button and Scott Dillery both quietly influenced scores of Lindsey Wilson University students -- Button as a development officer, Dillery as a mathematics professor.

But those were their day jobs. They spent their spare time heavily involved with the university's athletics program -- Button with basketball, Dillery with swimming.

And over the weekend, their contributions to students were celebrated by the Lindsey Wilson community at events that now bear their names -- Button's at the fifth edition of a golf scramble started in his memory, Dillery's at a swim meet that was recently renamed in his memory.

Button and Dillery were also cancer victims. Button died in 2021 of melanoma at the age of 45, and Dillery died of cholangiocarcinoma, also known as bile duct cancer, two years later at the age of 61.

"You have to keep people's memory and legacy alive," said Alicia Kemnitz, Lindsey Wilson senior woman leader for athletics and coach of the men's and women's swim programs. "I think it's really important we do that and let future generations of students know who these individuals were and what they meant to our student-athletes."

The Button

On Friday, Sept. 25, 15 teams of golfers gathered at the Pines at Lindsey Wilson golf course to honor and celebrate Button's contributions to the university. The previous four gatherings had been called the Brady Button Memorial Golf Scramble, but organizers changed the event's name this year to The Button.

"This is a special event because Brady meant a lot to so many people, a lot of them who are here today," Lindsey Wilson men's basketball coach Chris Starks told the golfers shortly before their noon CT start. "We did this the very first year just to do something nice to remember Brady. And it's grown over the years into something that not only honors Brady but helps Lindsey Wilson students."

A Barren County, Kentucky, native and 1998 Lindsey Wilson graduate, Button was a standout basketball player and later a development officer who spent more than 16 years raising money to fund scholarships for Lindsey Wilson students.

Starks recalled how Button would show up to Lindsey Wilson men's and women's basketball practices whenever he was on campus, offering observations on players and opponents to the men's and women's programs.

"Brady loved basketball, came from a family that loved basketball and he always shared his wealth of knowledge of the game with our programs," said Starks.

This year's Button raised more than $10,000 for the Brady C. Button Endowed Scholarship and Lindsey Wilson men's basketball program.

"Scholarships made his Lindsey Wilson experience possible," said Dr. Emiley Button, Button's wife of 19 years who is also director of the university's nursing program. "He loved Lindsey Wilson so much that he worked for Lindsey after he graduated because he wanted to help make even more scholarships available to students."

In addition to a new name, this year's Button also featured the first corporate sponsor, Cumberland Pipeline of Columbia, and inaugural T-shirts for participants to wear.

"He had friends from a lot of different areas," said Lindsey Wilson women's soccer coach Drew Burwash '94, whose Lindsey Wilson paths crossed with Button, first as a student, then as a co-worker. "He was a guy people gravitated toward, and he was a humble guy who could do a lot of different things."

Button's family members once again attended The Button, including his daughter, Landree, a Barren County High School senior who started 37 SPFA (Sun Protection For All), a nonprofit that raises awareness about skin cancer and sun safety. The 37 in the name represents the age of her father when he was first diagnosed with melanoma.

"I want people to know about the person my dad was and how he went out of his way for everybody else," said Landree. "The way people are showing up today for him shows the impact he had on everybody."

Swim dad

Dillery was also a former college athlete, swimming as an undergraduate for Alma College in his native Michigan. He also served as an assistant swim coach while finishing his doctorate in mathematics. Dillery came to Lindsey Wilson to teach mathematics, but he never lost his passion for swimming.

Shortly after Kemnitz arrived at Lindsey Wilson in 2010, Dillery was "one of the first people to reach out to me."

"The pool had only been open for 12 days, and he contacted me to see what he could do to help build the program," said Kemnitz.

For the next 13 years, Dillery served as a kind of super supporter, utility volunteer and unofficial adviser to Kemnitz and the rest of the swim team's coaching staff. If Dillery wasn't in his office in the Jim and Helen Lee Fugitte Science Center or teaching classes somewhere on campus, he could often be found in the Doris and Bob Holloway Health & Wellness Center's natatorium, either working with Lindsey Wilson swimmers or swimming laps.

In the early years of his involvement with the program, Dillery would do seemingly little things to help out, such as converting swimmers' times whenever the team competed in a pool measured by yards instead of meters.

"He was a math guy, and swimming is perfect for somebody who just does math all the time," said Kemnitz.

Dillery and his wife, Susan, would frequently prepare meals for the students, including during the January period when swimmers burn extra calories because of extra practices held between semesters. He also quietly made financial contributions to the swim program, which Kemnitz said helped it purchase additional equipment.

Dillery once helped transport the swim team to a meet at Midway University. When the van the team was traveling in broke down in rural Woodford County, Kentucky, Dillery made a series of shuttle runs in his sport utility vehicle to get the team to Midway on time.

And whenever the swimmers had free time, Dillery would offer to take them to see the region's sights, such as Mammoth Cave and the National Corvette Museum.

"A lot of college swimmers come from other countries and states. Their support system is back home, so all that they have are the people that are here," said Annissa Crewe-Brown '23, who came to Lindsey Wilson from South Africa and is now head swim coach at Campbellsville (Kentucky) University. "So Scott showed those acts of kindness, it made them feel like they have a family away from home. That's why we called him our 'volunteer dad.' He was always there in the stands encouraging us."

Dillery was also in the stands in March 2020 in Knoxville, Tennessee, when the men's swim program finished third at the NAIA Swimming National Championship, its best in school history.

"It meant a lot to have him there to see us make school history that weekend, right before COVID shut everything down," said Kemnitz.

Dillery also spread the gospel of swimming to a campus that did not sponsor its first swim team until the 2009-10 school year. Dillery and recreation, tourism and sport management professor Ginni Dilworth attended nearly every home meet as both of them became host parents to some of the school's international students. Dilworth said that sitting next to Dillery at a swim meet was an education in all things aquatic.

"We'd sit there and he'd explain everything," said Dilworth. "I didn't like it when he was officiating at a meet because he wasn't sitting in the stands with me telling me what was going on."

After Dillery received a second cancer diagnosis that would soon confine him to a bed, he kept up with Blue Raider swimming by helping the Sports Information Office implement a video system that allowed him to watch home events livestreamed. And until about two weeks before he died, he continued to teach his mathematics classes by using Google Meet.

"After his family, he loved swimming, math and teaching," said Kemnitz. "He was so dedicated to teaching and to students."

In September 2023, Lindsey Wilson renamed the swimming program's fall frenzy, which held its 14th competition over the weekend, the Dr. Dillery Fall Frenzy. Ironically, the fall frenzy was one swim meet that Dillery usually did not attend.

That's because he would instead compete in an outdoor triathlon near Asheville, North Carolina. The year after he died, Kemnitz allowed about half of the team to also miss the fall frenzy so they could compete in the outdoor triathlon to honor Dillery's memory.

Lindsey Wilson alumnus Evan Smiley '23, who served as the swim team manager, returns each year to work in the Dr. Dillery Fall Frenzy as a way to honor a person who gave so much to others.

"Dr. Dillery was a one-of-a-kind man in more than one way," said Smiley, who is now a teacher in Meade County, Kentucky, schools, and also teaches part-time at Lindsey Wilson. "Not only was he a gifted academic, he was a passionate supporter of our student-athletes. He instilled in me a passion for academia, sports statistics and most importantly a love for the game. Dr. D was our team dad, our biggest cheerleader and dearest friend; his kind soul is missed every day."

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