LEXINGTON, Ky. – Former Eastern Kentucky University wide receiver and long-time professional and collegiate football coach Larry Kirksey became EKU's 10th inductee into the Kentucky Pro Football Hall of Fame.
 
Kirksey joined former EKU coach and athletics director Glenn Presnell (2020) and former players Wally Chambers (2006), Jason Dunn (2006), John Jackson (2009), Yeremiah Bell (2010), Chad Bratzke (2013), Aaron Jones (2015), Myron Guyton (2016) and Tim Lester (2018).
  
Kirksey was a four-year letterman and three-year starter for coach Roy Kidd's Colonel football team from 1969-72. He caught 32 passes for 502 yards as a senior, earning all-conference honors. 

Following his graduation from EKU in 1974, he began his coaching career as an assistant coach at Miami University for three seasons. From 1977-81, he coached wide receivers and tight ends at Kentucky, the same post he held the following year with Kansas. In 1983 he was head coach at Kentucky State University before returning to the Southeastern Conference at Florida from 1984-88 as running backs coach. Other collegiate coaching stints included Pittsburgh (1989), Alabama (1990-93), Texas A&M (2000) and Middle Tennessee (2006).


In 1994, he began his NFL career as wide receivers coach for the San Francisco 49ers, coaching the NFL's all-time reception and receiving yards leader, Jerry Rice. Under his tutelage, Rice set an NFL record with 1,848 receiving yards and had a career-high 122 receptions in 1995. San Francisco's receivers set a Super Bowl record in Super Bowl XXIX with six touchdown catches, including three by Rice. Kirksey coached in the NFL for 17 seasons, making stops with the 49ers, Lions, Jaguars, Broncos and Texans. In his seven seasons in Houston, he helped Andre Johnson average an NFL-best 93.6 yards per game, lead the league in receiving yards in 2008 and 2009 and lead the NFL in receptions in 2008.

He was out of coaching in 2005 while serving as deputy executive director of the Kentucky Sports Authority before returning to coaching in 2006 as assistant head coach at Middle Tennessee, helping lead them to the Sun Belt Conference crown.

Kirksey returned to coaching in 2020, serving as the wide receivers coach for the XFL's Seattle Dragons for one season and head coach of The Spring League's Sea Lions in 2021. In 2022, Kirksey helped lead the Birmingham Stallions to a USFL championship as the running backs coach.