I Am A Kentucky Wildcat Basketball Fan
I don't understand how I can be the only one on SW that follows this group and is a Kentucky Wildcats basketball fan.
There are more members of the "I am From Kentucky" group than just one. Thus, that would mean that there are people from Kentucky who are not fans of Kentucky basketball. That does not compute.
I attended UK for both undergraduate and law degrees. I would acknowledge that Louisville is out great intrastate basketball rival - WHEN we play each other. However, I have always believed that fans from both schools supported each other when we played out of state basketball teams. I especially thought this was true when Kentucky played anyone from outside of Kentucky. After all, Louisvillians are after all, by definition, still Kentuckians.
I have always cheered for Louisville when they played any school other than UK and expected the same in return.
I know some ignorant UK fans were upset when Louisville hired Rick Pitino. I pointed out their ignorance to them on many occasions. When Coach Pitino left UK to try his hand with the Nets in professional basketball, the school hired "Tubby" Smith to replace him. When Pitino decided to return to college basketball, it would have been wrong for UK to fire Tubnu to rehire Pitino.
And, saying that Louisville did not have the "right" to hire the available Pitino, is completely ignorant. It is as mindbendingly stupid and disgusting as the guy who gets blind mad at any other guy who dares to date a woman the first guy had dated and broken up with. In the first guy's warped mind, once he has dated a woman, he has put his brand on her and she is forever off limits to other men - even if he breaks up with her and puts her up on his dating shelf.
Some Kentucky fans - including my idiot sister who is the only one of the four kids in my family to have flunked out of UK - feel that Pitino had been put on the coaching shelf and Louisville had no RIGHT to hire him. You can't make this shit up. My sister moved to Lexington many years ago - well after the flunking out incident - and did much of her shopping in Louisville - which is only 80 miles from Lexington. However, once Louisville hired Pitino to coach basketball, she refused to buy ANYTHING in Louisville, a vow she kept assiduously until a few months ago when Louisville fired Coach Pitino over his alleged involvement in the brand name kick back scheme.
I don't know whether Pitino was aware of the scandal - or even if he "should" have known about the scandal - but, if he was aware of it, I agree he should have been fired. However, he should not have been fired merely because he had previously coached at Kentucky. My sister celebrated his being fired ONLY because he had coached at Kentucky.
Back to my original point, I can't believe that I the only fan of the University of Kentucky basketball team. Come on now folks, only UCLA has more national basketball championships than Kentucky - and their's were all under one coach, the incomparable John Wooden.
Now, I could understand if the SW group was about Kentucky football. Although the Kentucky football team does occasionally have a winning season, and has had great players like Art Still, it is still not a great team on a regular basis.
By the way, there is a great Kentucky sports family. Art Still was a wonderful football player and All-American football player at UK, and his sister, Valerie IS the highest scoring Kentucky basketball player of all time - men or women. She played for the Lady Cats.
Although Kentucky has occasionally had good years in football, the last time that they have had a really great football team was in the early Fifties- when Bear Bryant was the coach and Babe Parilli was the quarterback.
Adolp Rupp was the basketball coach then, and both he and Bryant had massively oversized egos, and decided the campus wasn't big enough for both of them. Rather than working to figure out how they could both stay, the University of Kentucky administration basically let them fight out who would leave.
In doing so, the university in essence gave Alabama their great football heritage. I think the school sort of gave up up the dream of being a two sport school.
There are many perennial two sport schools - Alabama, Ohio State, Notre Dame (although they have slipped up in recent years), or Louisiana State to name just a few, but Kentucky is not one of them.
Kentucky is really a one sport team - basketball - but they almost always are in the very top echelon of teams in that sport. Lord, how they play the game!
Of course, Eddie Sutton, did his level best to get them out of the top basketball schools by getting them put on "sudden death" probation for three years.
That brings up one sore point with me: when a coach's violations get a school put on probation, the penalty should follow the coach for the same period that it is imposed on the school he just left. Eddie left Kentucky on probation and went to Oklahoma State as though nothing had happened. If Oklahoma wanted Sutton that badly, sure they could hire him, but their program would suffer as the penalties followed the coach. The Florida coach, Charlie "Whoever", put two teams in succession on probation, and went blithely on to a third school. The coach is the one who generally commits the violations; they need to be punished just as the school that hired them is.
Anyway, get on board, and become University of Kentucky basketball fans - especially if you live in Kentucky, and even more especially if you are Kentucky born and bred!!!
Quakertrucker
There are more members of the "I am From Kentucky" group than just one. Thus, that would mean that there are people from Kentucky who are not fans of Kentucky basketball. That does not compute.
I attended UK for both undergraduate and law degrees. I would acknowledge that Louisville is out great intrastate basketball rival - WHEN we play each other. However, I have always believed that fans from both schools supported each other when we played out of state basketball teams. I especially thought this was true when Kentucky played anyone from outside of Kentucky. After all, Louisvillians are after all, by definition, still Kentuckians.
I have always cheered for Louisville when they played any school other than UK and expected the same in return.
I know some ignorant UK fans were upset when Louisville hired Rick Pitino. I pointed out their ignorance to them on many occasions. When Coach Pitino left UK to try his hand with the Nets in professional basketball, the school hired "Tubby" Smith to replace him. When Pitino decided to return to college basketball, it would have been wrong for UK to fire Tubnu to rehire Pitino.
And, saying that Louisville did not have the "right" to hire the available Pitino, is completely ignorant. It is as mindbendingly stupid and disgusting as the guy who gets blind mad at any other guy who dares to date a woman the first guy had dated and broken up with. In the first guy's warped mind, once he has dated a woman, he has put his brand on her and she is forever off limits to other men - even if he breaks up with her and puts her up on his dating shelf.
Some Kentucky fans - including my idiot sister who is the only one of the four kids in my family to have flunked out of UK - feel that Pitino had been put on the coaching shelf and Louisville had no RIGHT to hire him. You can't make this shit up. My sister moved to Lexington many years ago - well after the flunking out incident - and did much of her shopping in Louisville - which is only 80 miles from Lexington. However, once Louisville hired Pitino to coach basketball, she refused to buy ANYTHING in Louisville, a vow she kept assiduously until a few months ago when Louisville fired Coach Pitino over his alleged involvement in the brand name kick back scheme.
I don't know whether Pitino was aware of the scandal - or even if he "should" have known about the scandal - but, if he was aware of it, I agree he should have been fired. However, he should not have been fired merely because he had previously coached at Kentucky. My sister celebrated his being fired ONLY because he had coached at Kentucky.
Back to my original point, I can't believe that I the only fan of the University of Kentucky basketball team. Come on now folks, only UCLA has more national basketball championships than Kentucky - and their's were all under one coach, the incomparable John Wooden.
Now, I could understand if the SW group was about Kentucky football. Although the Kentucky football team does occasionally have a winning season, and has had great players like Art Still, it is still not a great team on a regular basis.
By the way, there is a great Kentucky sports family. Art Still was a wonderful football player and All-American football player at UK, and his sister, Valerie IS the highest scoring Kentucky basketball player of all time - men or women. She played for the Lady Cats.
Although Kentucky has occasionally had good years in football, the last time that they have had a really great football team was in the early Fifties- when Bear Bryant was the coach and Babe Parilli was the quarterback.
Adolp Rupp was the basketball coach then, and both he and Bryant had massively oversized egos, and decided the campus wasn't big enough for both of them. Rather than working to figure out how they could both stay, the University of Kentucky administration basically let them fight out who would leave.
In doing so, the university in essence gave Alabama their great football heritage. I think the school sort of gave up up the dream of being a two sport school.
There are many perennial two sport schools - Alabama, Ohio State, Notre Dame (although they have slipped up in recent years), or Louisiana State to name just a few, but Kentucky is not one of them.
Kentucky is really a one sport team - basketball - but they almost always are in the very top echelon of teams in that sport. Lord, how they play the game!
Of course, Eddie Sutton, did his level best to get them out of the top basketball schools by getting them put on "sudden death" probation for three years.
That brings up one sore point with me: when a coach's violations get a school put on probation, the penalty should follow the coach for the same period that it is imposed on the school he just left. Eddie left Kentucky on probation and went to Oklahoma State as though nothing had happened. If Oklahoma wanted Sutton that badly, sure they could hire him, but their program would suffer as the penalties followed the coach. The Florida coach, Charlie "Whoever", put two teams in succession on probation, and went blithely on to a third school. The coach is the one who generally commits the violations; they need to be punished just as the school that hired them is.
Anyway, get on board, and become University of Kentucky basketball fans - especially if you live in Kentucky, and even more especially if you are Kentucky born and bred!!!
Quakertrucker
70-79, M