The Strange, Sad Case of Billy Gillispie

This was perhaps the last smile we saw on Billy Clyde’s face.

If you’ve read my posts, first, I apologize for rarely making a salient point. Second, you know that I am a dyed-in-Blue University of Kentucky sports fan. I have been since I was 8 years old. That’s 42 years for those scoring at home.

In my time as a resident of Big Blue Nation, as we somewhat arrogantly refer to ourselves, I’ve seen some odd things. We once lost a football game on consecutive pass interference penalties with time running out. The Cats also once gave up a 75 yard Hail Mary pass with no time left to lose a football game. These stories, as they relate to football, are many and varied. Basketball, on the other hand, has brought mostly joy. Oh, we remember the 1984 National Semi-Final game when the Cats shot 3 for 33 in the second half. Then, there was Christian Laettner’s dagger to the heart in 1992. Those, however, are mostly blips on the Big Blue radar.

Probably, our biggest disappointments have come off the court with our occasional run-ins with the NCAA’s Draconian rule book. Questionable ACT scores, money in envelopes, etc., have blighted our landscape. Of course, like any True Blue fan, I can offer you vigorous and persuasive defenses for all our transgressions. Perhaps I will do so in a future post. Now, though, I turn to the strangest period in UK sports–the Billy Gillispie Era.

I suppose it’s hyperbole to refer to a two-year span as an “era,” but that’s what we call it. Billy G as we lovingly called him, succeeded Orlando “Tubby” Smith as Kentucky’s basketball coach in the Spring of 2007. Smith had finished an 10 year run as coach which included a national championship. He won that title in his first year as coach and was never able to repeat. In fact, despite some near misses, Tubby never got the Cats back to the Final Four, an unforgivable sin. Some called him “Ten Loss Tubby” in reference to his losing at least ten games in a season several times, despite averaging 26 wins a season in Lexington. By the 2006-2007 season, many fans felt like Tubby’s time was up.

Smith did the smart thing and jumped at the chance to leave UK and coach the University of Minnesota where he still coaches. UK fans rejoiced! Message boards lit up! Now, we would get us a coach to push us back over the top!

Who would it be? Now, we UK fans believe everyone wants the Kentucky job, except maybe Mike Krzyzewski. Maybe. Would it be former UK All-American and NBA coaching royalty Pat Riley? What about former coach and current villain Rick Pitino? John Wooden was 96 years old at the time, but maybe he would come back. While the fan base was engaged in its own demented fantasy world, the university was pursuing candidates who might actually want the job.

At first, it sounded like it might be Rick Barnes, the surly and moderately successful coach at the University of Texas. That didn’t pan out. What about John Calipari at Memphis? Nah, we don’t want that guy. We settled on Billy Donovan, hot-shot coach at the University of Florida.

I rarely spend time on message boards but couldn’t resist during those days. People were using software programs to track flights between Lexington and Gainesville, Florida. Donovan was spotted at various locations in and around Lexington. I even heard that a clandestine meeting had been held on the tarmac of undisclosed airport to hammer out the final details.

Bottom line: No deal with Donovan. He wanted the Orlando Magic job, which he took and then quit 5 days later. Oh, well. Then, the name Billy Clyde Gillispie rose to the top. We in BBN knew Billy Clyde. Why? Because his Texas A&M team had just upset the accursed Rick Pitino and the University of Louisville in the NCAA Tournament–at Rupp Arena. Thus, this otherwise obscure coach was already something of a hero in BBN. What did it matter that none of us knew anything about him? A lot, as it turns out.

Gillispie was announced as the new head basketball coach at UK on April 6, 2007. As is our practice, a large and unnecessary pep rally was held. Billy G was introduced to the fans. They cheered wildly. He said all the right things. Let the good times roll!

Gillispie seemed uncomfortable in front of those fans. He said the right things but looked like a guy who wanted to catch the next bus out of town. I chalked it up to being in the spotlight for the first time. Wouldn’t any of us be nervous?

Then, there were rumors that Gillispie told his A&M players he was leaving via text message. If true, that was odd. Hmmm.

It took no time for people to start beating the drum for Billy G–or Billy Clyde as many called him. He was a relentless recruiter. He was tough, not soft like Tubby. He pushed his team. People called him The Warrior. He was a great X’s and O’s coach. We were confident that we’d hit a home run when we were still in the on-deck circle. No honeymoon ever ended as abruptly as this one.

My first problem was with Billy G was his disturbing resemblance to Squiggy of Laverne & Shirley fame. I couldn’t get past it.

Separated at birth? I would rather have given Squiggy a shot at the job.

Of course, I’m joking–sort of. He does look like Squiggy.

The first problem most other folks had with him was called Gardner-Webb. That’s a college. I knew that because that’s where Artis Gilmore had gone to school before he attended Jacksonville State. UK fans now know G-W because they laid an 84-68 ass-whipping on UK in Gillispie’s second game. There were other ignominious losses, but the Cats wound up going 12-4 in the SEC, and Billy Clyde was even named SEC Coach of the Year.

Despite our ending the season on a bit of an uptick, there were signs that things weren’t right:

Our recruiting was going nowhere fast. He was getting commitments from players no one knew, even an 8th grader in one instance.
His media performances were tepid, to say the least. Even his Coachspeak was limited to repeatedly saying that the Cats must “compete.”
Rumors abounded about his off-the-court lifestyle. It sounded as if Austin Powers had taken the reins of our beloved program.
We heard stories of grueling game day practices with feet bleeding from non-stop running.
Worst of all, Cats finished 18-13 and lost to Marquette in the 1st Round of the NCAA Tournament.

Billy G’s second season was not an improvement. VMI was our Gardner-Webb beating the Cats 111-103. Billy G famously insulted an ESPN reporter during a game. The Cats sputtered to a 22-14 record losing in the freakin’ NIT! Billy G sealed his fate by stating that being the face of the basketball program wasn’t part of his job. If he had any supporters, they didn’t make much noise. Three stories, in particular, rankled Kentucky fans:

Perry Stephenson, a forward from Louisiana, was the epitome of the player who needed fill out his frame. He never did. The story was that Billy G, incensed over Stephenson’s lanky frame, forced him to eat a box of Pop Tarts.

Did Billy G really force Perry to eat a box of Pop Tarts? We thought so.

Billy G became so irate with Josh Harrellson that he forced him to stand in a bathroom stall during halftime of a game. Later, he forced Harrellson to ride back to Lexington in the equipment van.
He even kicked one of the walk-ons off the team for laughing on the bench during a loss.

Right or wrong, UK basketball players are beloved. Beloved. Abusing them–either through grueling practices or outright embarrassment– was unacceptable, especially when the NIT was the result.

By the end of that second season, Billy G had dribbled out the clock. Game over. UK fired him on March 27, 2009. The next day, the ex-coach held a bizarre farewell press conference. He said he was happy and that everything was great. With that, he was gone. Sort of.

First, he decided to sue over his well-deserved firing. Second, he re-appeared on our local news six months later after being arrested a mere 20 miles from Lexington after a late night of golf and drinking. Like a bad penny, he kept turning up.

He then did an obligatory stay at John Lucas’s rehab facility. He emerged a new man, contrite over his old ways. Declaring himself a non-alcoholic, he was ready for a second chance.

We were just glad that he’d already been fired when this mug shot was taken after Billy G’s DUI arrest.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once observed that “there are no second acts in American life.” Of course, this was before Big Time Sports. Billy G would get another chance. Texas Tech was that chance.

Texas Tech was the ideal job. Lubbock is in his home state, far removed from the national spotlight. He had great success turning around moribund programs at Texas-El Paso and Texas A&M. Texas Tech is, at its heart, a football school. Basketball success is a bonus. He would have time to build what he wanted.

It took Billy Clyde two years to squander one of the top jobs in college basketball. Somehow, in a year at Tech, he has himself back on the ledge. By the time you read this, he may already be fired. In the past couple of weeks, the following events have transpired:

Players have met with the Tech Athletic Director to complain about Billy G’s practices, accusing him of exceeding the NCAA’s twenty hour a week limit and forcing injured players to practice.
The Tech administration has announced that it takes these allegations “extremely seriously.”
Billy G has been hospitalized for what he thought was a stroke or heart attack.
He has now been placed on indefinite medical leave.

We know the end of this story. He is on his way out. Remember this, too: His immediate predecessors were Bob Knight and his Hellish offspring, Pat–two coaches never to be confused with Dale Carnegie. There may not another chance after this.

I’ve never met Billy Clyde. Those I know who did during his time in Lexington were not impressed. I don’t know what his problems are or why he’s blown two chances that others would fight for. But, I know his type–Me. In my own way, I used to act like him: Drink too much and dismiss it as no problem. Force my way upon others, even when my way was not effective and sure to alienate those around me. Fight with authority when that authority held all the cards. Then, when things turned out poorly, we wonder why things went so wrong. I was younger than Billy G when I started to grow up, to take responsibility for my actions and find a better way to live. Growing up before one grows old is always preferable. Any time otherwise successful people pull their world down around them bad things are under the surface.

I don’t what his medical leave is about, but I hope he is addressing whatever demons have created his problems with living. A cynic (realist?) would suggest that this is a ploy to force a buy-out of his contract. Maybe it is. I make no judgment about his drinking or his emotional state. I don’t engage in pop psychology. What I do know is that people who consistently sabotage themselves have problems with living that a new job won’t cure.

I’m not so naive that I believe Billy G would have the same conflicts if he were consistently winning games. Look no further than Bob Knight for an example of contemptible behavior being deemed acceptable if balanced with enough winning. Billy G, it seems, has too few wins to be Bob Knight.

Will he get another chance? Probably. Sports fans are forgiving, especially if contrition is shown. A record of success doesn’t hurt either. Billy is still a young man, 52 years old. He’ll likely emerge as an assistant somewhere. Sadly, he may repeat this tired act again. Even though he wasn’t success at UK, I wish him well. For as many negatives as we’ve heard, many other people saygood things about him. Like of all us, he’s probably a mixture of good and bad. No one, it has been said, should be judged by his worst. Whatever gnaws at him compromises that good. Let’s all hope he gets a third act and is ready for his role.

©thetrivialtroll.wordpress.com 2012

5 Comments Leave a comment

The Go Big Blues

I am an unabashed fan of University of Kentucky football. I’m not the only one, either. There are a bunch of us. I have been a fan for 40 years. The Cats’ record during that span? 193 wins, 250 losses, 5 ties. Our most successful coach, Fran Curci, won a whopping 48% of his games.

I date my fandom to the beginning of the Fran Curci Era in 1973. Prior that, all I knew was that John Ray was a terrible coach (according to my Dad). Dad talked a lot about the Cats winning the Sugar Bowl in 1950. Kentucky fans still talk about that. It’s our high water mark.

All of mankind knows UK won 13-7. This was a mere 60 years ago.

Curci got us to 10-1 in 1977. We beat Penn State and finished 6th in the polls (somehow Penn State was 5th). Oh, we didn’t play in a bowl game. Probation. Such are the fortunes of UK football.

The hiring of Fran Curci ushered in a golden era of Kentucky football which saw us win almost half our games.

It’s 2012, and we’ve never gotten back to those halcyon days. We won 9 games one year and 8 several times. We’ve been to a few bowl games but never really challenged on the national stage. In fact, we’ve never really challenged in our own conference, the formidable SEC.

Historically, UK fans have been optimistic to the point of delusion. I have a friend who looks at the schedule every year and sees 9 wins. I haven’t talked to him about this season, but he’ll probably give me this assessment:

Louisville: Of course, we’ll beat them.
Samford, Kent State, Western Kentucky: Win, win, win. 4-0.
Florida: They’re down and we’re due, having lost 26 in a row. 5-0.
Vanderbilt: We always beat them (This isn’t true, but UK fans believe it).
Tennessee: They’re down, too. Plus, we broke our long losing streak against them last year. We own them now. That’s 7 wins.
Mississippi State: Should have beat them last year. We’ve got them. 8 wins.
Georgia: We always play them tough (not true, either). Probably a loss, but it will be close.
Missouri: Don’t know much about them, but we have a shot.
South Carolina: This one is probably a loss.
Arkansas: they’ll be in chaos. We have a shot.
There you go. At least 9 wins.

This season is different. The old blind optimism is gone. Gloom and doom prevail. I haven’t gotten my friend’s predictions, yet, but he probably only sees 6 wins. Most fans see 3 wins, 4 if we’re lucky. Last year, we went 5-7–a fairly typical record for UK football. In the past, such a record would be considered a launching pad for greatness. Not now. Why?

I guess I should tell you that I’ve never been one of the optimists. Generally, I’ve seen every season as holding the potential for 6 or so wins if things go well and 2 or 3 if we don’t get some breaks. I feel better about this season for some reason. My friend and fellow blogger, Meisterblogger, posted an excellent piece on this optimism. I agree with each of his points. If he and I are optimistic, things must be getting better.

Big Blue Nation disagrees. Season ticket sales are down–way down. The call-in shows (as our former coach Bill Curry once said, “The Fellowship of the Miserable”) are consistently predicting 3 or 4 wins. A coach change looms. With the addition of Texas A&M and Missouri to the SEC, years of cellar-dwelling are a virtual certainty. Our fan base has had a go to pieces.

Much like addicts, UK fans have hit bottom. The reality of their situation is inescapable. They have given up hope. Why?

THE COACHING CONUNDRUM

For the uninitiated, our coach is Joe “Joker” Phillips. Joker is a Kentucky native. He played at UK. He was an assistant coach at UK for many years. He’s charming. He’s the prototype of what we should want. In two seasons at UK, his record is 11 and 14, making him one of the most successful UK head men in recent memory. Nevertheless, after two seasons, he’s almost universally disliked. The most common description of Joker starts like this: “Joker is a nice guy and I really hope he does well, but…..” Then comes a scathing critique.

Joker Phillips, “a nice guy, but…..”

Miami University in Ohio trumpets itself as the Cradle of Coaches because of its history of producing football coaches. UK, on the other hand, can legitimately lay claim to being the Graveyard of Coaches. Here is what happened with our coaches in the last 40 years:

Fran Curci: Never coached again.
Jerry Claiborne: Ditto.
Bill Curry: Didn’t coach again for many years until a brief return to start the program at Georgia State.
Hal Mumme: He’s had a couple of head jobs but seems destined to slide back to obscurity.
Guy Morriss: He left UK for Baylor where he lasted 4 seasons.
Rich Brooks: Retired.

The last UK coaches to go on to great success were Bear Bryant and Blanton Collier, both of whom left UK over 50 years ago. The next two–Charlie Bradshaw and John Ray–also never had head coaching jobs again. UK isn’t the job you want if you have greater aspirations.

“CAN’T YOU PLAY BETTER?” UK fans have sunk lower than the Bill Curry Era.

We’ve tried everything with our coaches. John Ray was a hot-shot assistant at Notre Dame. Curci was an up and coming mid-major coach (yes, the University of Miami was a mid-major in the early 1970’s). Claiborne was an established, successful coach and UK grad. Curry was an A-list coach hired away from Alabama of all places. Mumme was a Division III superstar. Morriss was the emergency interim coach. Brooks was an old pro with decades of experience. Joker is the loyal assistant. Some were better than others, but no one could push us over the top.

For years, UK fans believed that the head coach was to blame. The right coach and everything will be great. Now, there seems to be a growing resignation that there is no right coach. UK isn’t a “destination” job–unless you can’t find a job or want your career to abruptly end. I can assure you that when Urban Meyer took his year off he wasn’t waiting to see if Joker got fired. A lot of folks want rid of Joker but very few have ideas about a replacement. Oh, we still have a small–very small–contingent who believe that almost anyone would take the UK job. Most now despair that no one can help us.

Coaching football is not that difficult. Recently, I heard ESPN commentator and long-time NFL offensive lineman Mark Schlereth say: “The words ‘football coach’ and ‘genius’ don’t belong in the same sentence. It’s 300 pound guys hitting each other.” I know I shouldn’t say that, but it’s true. It’s football, not gene-splicing. This is especially true in college football, where the talent gulf between the haves and have-nots is huge. My ten-year old son can recognize many different offensive and defensive formations on TV. How did he learn to decipher such complexities? Madden Football. It’s not that tough. We can find someone who’s bright enough to coach a football team.

But, if that’s true, what’s the problem? This leads to my next point…

THE JIMMYS AND JOES

Someone once said “It ain’t about the x’s and o’s. It’s the Jimmys and Joes.” I don’t know who said that (it sounds like something Darrell Royal would have said), but it’s true. College football at the highest level is all about the players. Preparation, game-planning and play-calling are all neutralized by overwhelmingly superior talent. UK fans have come to accept that our program is light-years away from an SEC Championship roster.

At UK, we might recruit 2 or 3 four-star players a year. Every now and then, we grab a five-star. The teams at the top of the heap are getting 15 of these guys every, single season. When we have an injured starter, we may have to bring in a young man who simply lacks the skill to play at the SEC level. When LSU has an injury, it looks down the bench for another NFL player. That’s big difference that you can’t coach around.

The best quarterbacks at UK in the last 40 years are Tim Couch, Jared Lorenzen and Andre Woodson. Among them, they hold every significant record in school history. The all went to high school in Kentucky. Players of that caliber are a rarity in Kentucky high school football. We certainly don’t get enough to fill out a roster.

Joker is blamed for the current state of the roster. He was the recruiting coordinator under Coach Brooks, after all. Maybe a new coach would do better. Maybe not. We’ve been down that road before. The only thing encouraging about this is that our fan base has finally accepted that we lack a lot more than magic coaching to compete with the big boys.

For many years, UK fans moaned about coaching decisions as though a play or two could have made the difference in the most recent 50 point loss. It seems we’ve come to realize that the talent gulf is so great we may not be able to bridge it. Compounding that realization is that UK also has a history of NCAA recruiting violations. Even when we’ve cheated, it hasn’t helped. If you’re going to cheat, at least win in the process.

For the first time, I hear a growing consensus that we just don’t have players. Fans seem to have given up on improvement. They want these players to play well but don’t really think they can do it.

This takes me to my last point…

ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER

This line was how Dante envisioned the entrance to Hell. A growing number of UK fans feel the same way about Commonwealth Stadium now. Hope no longer springs eternal.

We UK fans like to think we are great fans. The best. I’ll engage in a bit of blasphemy and say that’s not true. Yes, we have attended football games where we had no chance to win. A lot of fan bases do that. We like to tailgate. Who doesn’t? The football program makes tons of money. In the SEC, I don’t how you wouldn’t make a mint. I’ve attended UK games regularly since the early 1980’s. When the season goes south, we don’t fill the stadium. I’ve been in Commonwealth Stadium with crowds of well below 20,000, regardless of the announced attendance. At the end of Bill Curry’s tenure, you could have shot arrows into the upper deck with no chance of injuring anyone. Expect a repeat of that if this season goes as badly as predicted.

Simply put, the fans are no longer entertained. 5-7 and 7-5 seasons are better than 1-10 (which we’ve seen), but they don’t inspire. Seven wins doesn’t mean we’re turning the corner. It just means we beat Louisville and the three cupcakes on the schedule plus some fellow SEC bottom feeders. Ho hum.

I don’t have any solutions, just observations. The atmosphere is as negative as I’ve seen since the last days of Bill Curry. Maybe worse. Of course, we open the season with Louisville. If we win, the old optimism will return–just long enough to lure us back. Heart break awaits. Oh well. GO CATS!

5 Comments Leave a comment

My (Big) Blue Heaven

Since the end of our glorious University of Kentucky Basketball season, I’ve been jotting down my thoughts on the year from time to time. Many of you have reveled in the 2012 NCAA Championship, but may feel slightly unfulfilled. You’ve asked yourself: “I know I’m happy, but what does HE think?” Now, you can know.

In the span of one year, Anthony Davis was named a McDonald’s High School All-American; NCAA Freshman of the Year; NCAA Defensive POY; Consensus National POY; SEC POY; First Team NCAA All-American; and Final Four Most Outstanding Player. In addition, he won an NCAA championship; is the likely 1st pick in the NBA draft; and has a chance to play on the Olympic team. If this isn’t the best year a college player ever had, it’s got to be close.
I can’t overstate how impressed I am with the job John Calipari did this year. It’s tough enough to meld a team of stars and potential stars into a cohesive unit. When many of your players are straight from high school, it’s even tougher.
The post-championship statewide Trophy Tour was pure genius. Cal knows his audience. I also really liked including Joe Hall and Herky Rupp. Hall has become something of an elder statesman of UK basketball, but Coach Rupp has been largely pushed into the background. The Rupp family has spent far too much time defending his legacy. It was a nice move to include Coach Rupp’s son in the celebration. Well done.
Speaking of Davis, his high school team went 6-19 his senior year. I can only assume his teammates were less than skilled.
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is one of my favorite players ever at UK. He played hard on both ends of the court with the same demeanor at all times.
I’m the worst at evaluating NBA potential. I’m the guy who thought Rajon Rondo would be out of the league in 3 years and that Ron Mercer would be a perennial all-star. With that qualification–and as much as I like MKG–I really question his NBA skills. I just wonder if a player his size without a reliable jumper can be a star. I know he can play in the league, but will he justify being a top 5 pick? Probably (see my comment on Rondo above).
I have the same questions about Doron Lamb and Marquis Teague but for different reasons. There are players like them in every major basketball conference. What sets them apart? I’m not sure. I hope they have great success, but I will be surprised.
Don’t be surprised if Darius Miller plays in the NBA for a long time. He has the size and skills to do a lot of things well.
Eloy Vargas impresses me. Like a lot of folks, I had hoped he would be a big contributor on the court, but he wasn’t. Despite attending three colleges, he got his degree. Plus, by all accounts (including that of my 10 year old son), he’s a nice young man. A lot of players would have been frustrated with his situation. He embraced the experience at UK. I wish him well and hope he gets a chance to play for pay.
There has been all manner of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over the end of the UK-IU series. Name the most exciting moments from the last 20 UK-IU games. Ok, Mike Davis’s mental collapse is one. Watford’s jumper is another, and that just sucked. For whatever reason, the game wasn’t that important to either UK or IU. I suspect that it’s because neither school is all that fired up about a tough pre-conference game. Add to that the obvious close friendship between Cal and Tom Crean.
Speaking of schedules, I used to believe that a tough pre-conference schedule was a key to being tournament-ready. Take a look at other schools’ schedules. Duke rarely plays a good team on the road. All its tough games are at home or neutral sites. The same is true of many top teams. Teams loading their schedules with killer home and home series are a thing of the past. Seeding for the tournament is too important to get saddled with 3 or 4 non-conference losses.
I suppose it’s a function of age, but the Cats winning the title did not fill me with the unbridled joy of, say, the 1996 title. I know it had been 14 years between titles, but now 14 years just doesn’t seem that long ago. Plus, I guess I’ve reached the point where a bunch of children winning a tournament doesn’t REALLY make my life any better.
The NBA’s “One and Done” rule is here to stay. I heard a recent interview with NBA Commissioner David Stern, and he expressed his view that the rule works quite well. I agree. It gives the NBA a one year screening tool to weed out those high school players with holes in their games or, as in Anthony Davis’s case, to discover those who are far better than originally thought. I don’t see the NBA changing it any time soon.
A by-product of the One and Done Rule is that predicting college basketball’s powers year-to-year is now almost impossible. Right now, most assume that Louisville and Indiana are two favorites to win the title next year. We’ll see. Once you mix in all the incoming freshmen, the landscape may change dramatically.
People pay too much attention to the RPI during the season. It’s not a game-to-game measuring stick. It’s designed to place a value on a team’s entire season. That’s why looking at your school’s RPI in December is useless. Now, if your school LOSES to bunch of low RPI teams, you’ll see the difference come seeding time.
I guess the big recruiting “get” is Nerlens Noel and his flat top fade. He seems to be an engaging young man and willing to embrace Big Blue Nation and all its madness. Here’s hoping that BBN tempers its expectations of him. He’s not Anthony Davis. Davis was a once in a generation talent. Let’s cut this young man some slack and let him develop as a player.
I’ve heard a lot of debate about whether Davis and similar short time Cats should have their jerseys retired. Why not? If the honor is to recognize great basketball players, it shouldn’t matter if they played one year or four.
It doesn’t bother me at all if a student leaves college after a year to play pro basketball. For most, that is their career goal. I’ve never known anyone who was harmed by attending college, even for a year or two. They’re not being exploited. They are being given a golden opportunity to change their lives and the lives of future generations. Plus, the education is always available. Shaquille O’Neal just earned his doctorate.
Of course, the downside to winning the championship is that it feeds the beast. I fear that out-sized expectations have returned. Remember folks: Getting to the Final Four is hard. Winning the tournament is even harder. Enjoy the ride.
It’s hard now to imagine that Billy Gillispie coached at UK, but he did. He gave me the gift of seeing what it’s like for UK to be irrelevant.
I hope our YUM! envy passes soon. I realize that Louisville plays in a palace now, but I don’t care. Rupp Arena is the home of the Cats. Maybe it needs more upgrades and isn’t the prettiest venue, but I like it. The last thing we need is a white elephant that can’t ever be paid off.
Can we stop with the talk that UK spends too much money on sports? Here’s how it works: Right or wrong, college sports generate huge dollars. The argument seems to be that UK should take all that income and re-direct it to academics. Now, the football revenue–coming largely from the SEC–could be pilfered for quite a while. The basketball program would quickly dip into irrelevance without paying coaches top money and spending on top flight facilities. It doesn’t cost the university a dime. Get over it.
While we’re talking about academics, I’m certainly no intellectual nor I am an academic snob. I have two degrees from the University of Kentucky, and I’ve done quite well. It must not be nearly as awful a university as I hear others complain about.
Was the 2012 team the best ever at UK? I don’t have any idea. The ’96 team certainly had more depth and experienced talent. The ’78 team was the only one that I thought would win every game it played. My Dad would have said the 1948 team. You can only compare teams and players to the their competition. In its way, this team was every bit as dominant as UK team I’ve seen. That’s good enough for me.
Calipari is ahead of his colleagues on dealing with modern college basketball. The top shelf players want to attend college for a year, maybe two. Cal has created a system to allow them to do that if they have the skills. Yes, there is a revolving door, but that’s going to be the case with all the top talent. UK just has more of these players than other schools. That being the case, the Cats will be a top team more often than not. I expect this will even out some in the next few years, but for now let’s enjoy the ride.
There will be annual speculation about Cal leaving UK. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. One, he failed as an NBA coach and the media (especially ESPN) holds to the idea that the NBA is the pinnacle of success. The other is that UK, despite its success, is just not held in high regard. There is never speculation about Roy Williams or, rarely, Coach K. The implication is that a coach would be insane to leave either of those jobs, but equally crazy to stay at UK. It wouldn’t surprise if Cal did jump back to the NBA at some point, but I don’t see it being the yearly flirtation that it was with Rick Pitino.
There’s been uproar over Cal’s views on scheduling. He’s 102-14 with a title. I’ll defer to him on that. Like I said, he’s ahead of the curve. I’m willing to bet he’s right about this, too. I’ve heard comments like: “They can’t expect to keep asking for big money if they don’t deliver a great home schedule.” Really? If you have season tickets, turn them in. I’m pretty sure UK can unload them.
The best news since the title has been that a good friend of mine has purchased two seats behind the UK bench. Sweet. This fits well with my personal philosophy.

So, there you have it–the random thoughts which bounce around in my head from time to time. Now, what we will look like next year?

0 Comments Leave a comment

Music City Mayhem: One Night In The Box

It was 1999. These were halcyon days of University of Kentucky football. We had endured 8 years of the Bill Curry Era which resulted in one non-losing season. Even that season ended in disappointment with a disheartening Peach Bowl loss to Clemson. Curry was eventually fired. In 1997, UK hired an unknown and incredibly ill-prepared coach from a Division III school–Hal Mumme. Mumme brought one thing to the table: An insanely pass-happy offense. We loved it. Our Kentucky-bred hero Tim Couch played quarterback and broke every school passing record. At the end of the 1998 season, we actually went to New Years Day bowl game, losing a close game to Penn State in the Outback Bowl.

The 1999 season was also a success, albeit not quite what we had under Couch. Dusty Bonner was our quarterback, and UK had another winning season! For the first time in 15 years, we were going to bowl games in consecutive years. This time, it was the Homepoint.Com Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tennessee.

At the time, I worked at a law firm which had an office in Nashville. The Firm secured a luxury suite at Adelphia Stadium for the Music City Bowl. Normally, I would have been excluded from benefitting from this without a second thought; however, I had stumbled upon some good fortune which made it possible for me to at least request a couple of tickets for the BOX.

Like most large law firms, the Firm embraced a concept known as “origination credit.” Essentially, this was a system (I use that word loosely) which gave attorneys credit for bringing clients into the Firm. Once you got origination credit, all the money generated by that client went into a column called “Origination.” You wanted that column to swell. If it did, you not only could make more money, but you could also gain access to some of the perks reserved for the Firm’s high rollers. The Box was definitely one of those perks.

I had (and still have) a very close friend. I shall call him “Nick” for purposes of this tale. That is not exactly his real name. Nick, too, had worked at the Firm where we became fast and lifelong friends. Unfortunately, he parted ways with the Firm on bad terms. As fortune would have it, he became quite successful, much more so than I. Eventually, he became an officer in a large, publicly traded corporation. He, understanding origination, sent me some work. Not much, but some work. I had the origination. Nick’s company had myriad legal battles and eventually sent substantial business to the Firm for which I got all the origination. I was now a “rainmaker,” the most envied title in any law firm.

At this point, you may ask: How does this origination thing work? If there were rules, I never saw them. There weren’t in writing. Origination was a Byzantine morass of standards and exceptions to those standards. As its most basic, it worked like this: Imagine that you are a salesman. You sell a pencil to new Client X. You are now the “originator” of Client X. Next week, another salesman sells Client X a nuclear submarine. You’re still the originator. You get credit for both sales. Makes sense, huh? Just accept it. Don’t question the logic.

In any event, I saw my opportunity to get into the Box. I requested two tickets–one for me and one for Nick. The Firm may have been aware of the possibility of offending Nick because of its troubled past with him. Our Managing Partner quickly agreed and gave me two tickets to the Box. We were in!

Now, Nick and I had a long, storied past of attending UK sporting events. For example, the previous season, we took a road trip to Knoxville, Tennessee to witness a thorough thrashing of our beloved Wildcats. That weekend was a booze-soaked orgy of football and revelry. We were also well-known for our unique tailgating at home games where we carried beer in a plastic bag and roamed the parking lot looking for friends–old and new–who would provide us with more to drink. You get the picture. We weren’t exactly accustomed to life among the hoi polloi. When we drank we became loud, obnoxious and wholly unmanageable. Nick would frequently yell: ZOOM! ZOOM! ZOOM! for no reason. I would laugh uproariously. Good times.

We were indeed Bacchanals, but our drinking habits were vastly different. Nick was–and is to this day–a “party” drinker. He would go long stretches without drinking only to blow it out on occasion, at the risk drinking himself into a stupor. I, on the other, drank more as though I were taking an ill-conceived medicine of some kind. Imagine you are given a prescription for a drug. This drug is harmless in small quantities but deadly poison when consumed to excess. The instructions with the drug read: TAKE DAILY UNTIL THE DESIRED EFFECT IS ACHIEVED. THEN TAKE MORE. Despite our varying approaches, we could match each other drink for drink.

I drove to Nashville and arrived on game day at around 1:00 p.m. On the way, I purchased a 6 pack of beer to ensure I had something to start the party with while awaiting Nick’s arrival. Nick, experiencing largesse of which I had no understanding, flew to Nashville on his company’s jet. While waiting at the hotel, I received a call from a client of mine. His office was in Nashville. He thought I might be down there and wanted to know if I could attend a meeting at his office at 10:00 the next morning. After I explained that I would be adorned in UK clothing from head to toe, he assured me that it wouldn’t be a problem. One of his business partners was a UK grad and would be glad to see my school spirit. I began thinking that I should take it easy so I would be in tip-top shape for my meeting. So, I drank the six-pack and took a nap. Nick arrived soon after I awoke (or “came to” as some would say).

We immediately headed downtown. Neither of us were very familiar with Nashville, so we had the taxi drop us off when we saw a lot of people. We began our bar crawl which lasted a couple of hours. Time to head to the stadium.

Nick and I are both small town people. As a result, we are, to some extent, socially inept, but we both have an “every man” quality which allows us to move at will among all social strata. The problem–and it was a bad one–was that drinking often left us confused as to which stratum we were in at any given moment. I, in particular, had a disquieting habit of becoming verbally abusive to people who would be considered my superiors–both professionally and socially. It was a volatile cocktail that night, but I was ready to roll.

I must admit that I was impressed with the Box. Very nice. It was full of people sipping drinks and eating finger food, awaiting kick-off of UK and Syracuse. Nick and I were already in our cups, but I felt we were both in fine form for some serious schmoozing. We quickly made friends with the bartender and began to give him outrageous tips to bring us drinks. Nick kept yelling ZOOM! ZOOM! ZOOM! I kept saying: “You’re gettin’ a night in the box, boy!” (in my best Strother Martin from Cool Hand Luke). For no reason, we would periodically high-five each other. Our language was punctuated with all manner of obscenities spoken too loudly for polite company. It was like the caddy swimming party in Caddyshack, and we were the caddies.

After some time, I felt the tell tale signs of nausea and needed a rest, so I leaned up against the wall. The Box had theater seating to which you could walk down for a better view of the game. Nick was sitting on the steps down to the seats beside the Firm’s Managing Partner engaged in animated conversation. I observed him wildly gesticulating–it was unclear whether he was actually speaking or just flailing about while listening. Then, he began to make some point and leaned over toward the Managing Partner, tilting his nearly full beer sideways. A small ribbon of beer began to pour from the bottle–directly into the Managing Partner’s shoe. I began to watch as if detached from my body. It was oddly mesmerizing. It resembled nothing so much as a man with a grotesquely enlarged prostate slowly and deliberately relieving himself into someone’s shoe.

When the beer had drained nearly to the bottom, Nick turned the bottom up and downed the last swig with a satisfied gulp. The Managing Partner never reacted. Perhaps advancing age had dulled his senses. Perhaps Nick had brought so much money to the Firm that the Managing Partner was willing to remain passive while he was publicly degraded. Either possibility is equally plausible.

Oh, yeah. They played a football game. To the best of my recollection, here’s what happened:

Sometime in the first half, UK’s best player, James Whalen, dislocated his elbow doing something.
At some point, I leaned out the window of the Box (likely to yell obscenities). I spotted a guy from my hometown directly below the Box. I high-fived him and gloated about being in the Box.
At the end of the game, UK let Syracuse score so UK could get the ball back and try to tie the game. Apparently, the strategy failed, as I later learned that Syracuse won 20-13.

The rest of the game is forever lost to a black out. A black out just means that my memory was erased or never recorded. It’s not the same as “passing” out, but the effect is pretty much the same.

The game ended, but it was still early. We over-tipped our bartender one last time and headed out. Our post game bar crawl lasted several hours, most of which are obscured by a dense brain fog, but I do remember two things:

We happened into a small sports bar at some point. Nick somehow struck up a conversation with two women. (Understand that we were NOT philandering husbands. Nick just became extremely talkative as he consumed more alcohol). After chit-chatting for a moment, Nick announced: “I have to go to the bathroom.” I responded: “It’s over there. Go on.” Nick then said: “I REALLY have to go. I have diarrhea!” Needless to say, had we been philanderers, that would have ended our adventure. The ladies looked horrified. I, of course, burst out laughing. After he returned and assured us all that he did NOT, in fact, have any gastrointestinal distress, he and I went on our way.
I wanted to go to the famous Wild Horse Saloon. We stood in line for 20-30 minutes. We were both a little unsteady, but I had learned to simply be quiet in such situations. Nick, on the other hand, was ZOOM, ZOOM, ZOOMING and occasionally offering me an awkward high-five. This caused me to burst into inappropriate laughter. I cautioned him to be quiet when we got the door. Finally, we got there. I paid my $6 cover charge and stepped inside. Nick then loudly announced: “I AM SOOOOO F**KED UP!” Boom! He was denied entry. I stood staring at him and the long line, thinking about my $6. Through the door, I told him to get back in line and be quiet. 20 minutes later, all was well and he gained entry. Things happened after that, I’m sure, but I don’t remember.

That’s pretty much all I remember. You may ask: How did your meeting go? Surprisingly well. I was hung over and reeking of beer sweat, but I managed to be engaged. I was also fully decked out in my UK attire. I returned home after the meeting, while Nick jetted off to parts unknown.

A few weeks later, the Managing Partner told me that he didn’t like the “atmosphere” in the Box. I took this personally, of course, seeing as how Nick and I were the atmosphere that evening. Perhaps having a beer poured in one’s shoe is more uncomfortable than it looks. I’m sure I also berated him at some point.

Year have passed since then. I’ve been a teetotaler for several years now. Nick and I still attend UK sporting events. He has risen to such lofty heights that he now has seats in his own luxury suite, and I cling to him like a stubborn barnacle during football season. We still have a good time, and I remember all of it, which is not necessarily a positive given the fortunes of UK football. Occasionally, Nick gives me a ZOOM! ZOOM! ZOOM! or a high-five and I vaguely remember our rough and rowdy days. Things are much better now–and more fun–but I do think about our adventures. I’m just glad it’s all in the past tense.

2 Comments Leave a comment