From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)

Born in Frankfort, KY and spent his childhood from 5 years old on in Danville, KY, Sanford T. Roach played basketball and football as a student and was also the 1933 high school class salutatorian when he graduated from Bate High School in Danville, KY.

Roach was a 1937 graduate of Kentucky State University, where he taught for one year. He also served as a guard at Kentucky Village with the Kentucky Houses of Reform, schools for delinquent children. He started teaching general science at Bate High School in 1938 and was also the basketball coach; he achieved a record of 98-24 while coaching there. In 1941, Roach became a teacher and basketball coach at Lexington Dunbar High School, where he coached the Dunbar Bearcats to a 512-142 record over a 22-year period.

Roach later became the first African American principal at an integrated elementary school in Lexington, KY, at Carver School in 1965, and was the first African American board member of the University of Kentucky Athletic Association.

Sanford T. Roach was inducted into the National High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. In 2009, he was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Legacy Award at the 19th annual Lyman T. Johnson Homecoming Awards Banquet at the University of Kentucky.

Watch the Sanford T. Roach interview online on "Connections with Renee Shaw," program #219, at the KET (Kentucky Educational Television) website.

For more see Transition Game, by B. Reed; Sanford Roach Biography, a HistoryMaker website; "Legacy knows no bounds," Lexington Herald-Leader, 9/1/2010, pp. 1, A2, and A8 [two articles - M. Fields, M. Davis]; his entry on 100 Years of Kentucky High School Basketball; "Legendary Prep Coach S T Roach Dies" on Kentucky School News and Commentary; Sanford Roach honored at Lyman T. Johnson Banquet, a University of Kentucky news release (online); Sanford Thomas "S. T." Roach at Find a Grave.