Blue Mist

Being Family in Big Blue Nation

I will apologize in advance for a post that departs from the usual. But I promise this is not a permanent change. I would like to write about one of my passions that I have not mentioned on this platform.

I have shared my love of multiple forms of art. The various genres of music, film, television, and others as I connect those to faith. But I have been connected with another passion for as long as I can remember. That passion is University of Kentucky Basketball. The past few years have been frustrating as a Kentucky fan because of the results we saw on the court. I don’t think there is a simple reason or a single blame for how things have been, but we have a fresh start as fans, regardless. Before I get to that start, let me share my Kentucky story.

When people find out that I am a Kentucky fan, I’m asked if I’m from or lived in Kentucky. I answer that no, I’ve lived in Cincinnati, OH, Blacksburg, VA, Clarksville, Nashville, and Hendersonville, TN. So how or why did I become a Kentucky fan? I inherited the love of Kentucky basketball. Coach Adolph Rupp hired my father as the basketball athletic trainer at Kentucky. My father had sent resumes to several large schools for a fairly new position of athletic trainer as he completed a Master’s Degree. Kentucky called, Coach Rupp called. My father agreed to the interview even though he had signed a contract to teach high school.

As my father told the story, during the interview, Coach Rupp began asking questions about whether my mom worked (she was a teacher) and calls were made to ensure a teaching position would be available, housing was arranged, and Coach Rupp spoke the entire interview as if my father was going to be working at the University of Kentucky. In fact, to his dying day, my dad insisted that he never actually accepted the job at Kentucky, but simply started working because Coach Rupp assumed he accepted the job. So I grew up with Kentucky memorabilia, stories, and an inbuilt love of Kentucky basketball. I barely remember the 1978 championship as a distant memory - I have watched it since and loved the style that UK and Duke played and the way Jack “The Goose” Givens played an amazing game. I remember visiting in Louie Dampier’s home and hearing stories of the “Rupp’s Runts” team. But then, I reached an age where the fandom became my own.

They played the 1984 SEC Men’s Basketball Championship in Nashville, TN at Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gym. My dad got up and asked if we wanted to go to Nashville and meet some coaches and we said, of course. We went to the hotel where all the teams other than Kentucky stayed and I we were sitting in a room with Don Devoe of TN basketball, Pat Dye of Auburn football, Wimp Sanderson. and Benny Dees of Alabama Basketball hearing grand stories. The championship game later that day would feature Auburn and Kentucky, and someone offered us two coaches tickets to attend. My dad told my mom to take me and he would watch the game with my brother at the hotel with his friends. On our way to leave, we ran into the Auburn team and I got to meet a very young Charles Barkley whom I mentioned I was cheering against. he was genuinely nice.

When we arrived at Memorial, we ran into my friend Duncan Morrow and his father and we swapped tickets around so Duncan and I could sit in the first balcony as the coaches tickets were in that weird floor area that once graced the Memorial stands. That was an amazing game. Kenny Walker made clutch shots and Kentucky won by two points. Afterward, I got Sam Bowie’s autograph on a BOOOO poster. It was the moment my fandom became mine. From my first experience of what people have called the Blue Mist, or a sea of blue in which Kentucky fans dominated that gym, I was fully hooked.

My dad always lamented that we were more impressed by his brief time at Kentucky than his academic achievements, but I suspect he was half proud of the connection we made over sports. My dad was Chair of Health and PE at Virginia Tech (where he also published an adopted textbook) and at Austin Peay, where he taught for over two decades. But my favorite moments were calling him after a close game whether we won or lost and hearing what he thought. He missed the 2012 championship because he was actively dying from cancer the night of the Indiana win in that NCAA tournament. But he loved that team and the run they made.

My wife Christi joined me as a Kentucky fan and a few months before we were married, we celebrated the Rick Pitino coached 1996 Untouchables National Championship that made the agony of the 1992 Unforgettables' loss to Duke a distant memory. Two years later, we watched what felt like an improbable run to another championship under Tubby Smith. The Duke game that year definitely erased 1992 in my mind. That’s when Christi became a genuine fan of Big Blue, to the chagrin of her Tennessee fan family.

For deep fans of anything, we feel the pain and the elation. There were games that Christi left because she could not bear to watch such a poor game. We came to know about the players we saw on the court and we felt so much joy when watching games. We felt a connection to the team, even though we had a distance from them. We were and are members of Big Blue Nation. There are times we wanted to hang that fandom up, but we are in it for the long haul.

I’ll say this before I go into how the past few days have felt as a Kentucky fan. I love John Calipari. When he arrived in Lexington, it was the second lowest period in my memory as a fan. We had endured a bizarre few years under a coach who was not prepared to be a coach under the pressure and crucible that is Kentucky basketball and our rabid fanbase. We immediately saw success because of Cal’s recruiting of dominant players. Cal was excellent at finding ways to play that fit the amazing players who came to Kentucky. That worked for about a decade. But Christi has told me how hard it has been for her to be a fan. The lack of continuity during the one and done era bothered her. I was fine, because we kept winning, but in the last few years that has not been the case. The game has changed, and even though it is more complex to build college basketball rosters, there is also a look to the past and the advantage of experience. In fact, the rosters of the two teams who played for the NCAA men’s basketball championship showcased the change.

In addition, the connection between the team and the fans had begun to feel strained and distant. The early days of a coach bringing pizzas to fans camping out and engaging fans directly had faded. Instead, we started feeling that the fanbase was viewed with apathy. The fans also reciprocated that feeling. I felt I was done this year regardless of the deep roots I have. It was a painful thought, but I was really not sure I could endure another year of what the past few years were like. Press conferences felt pointless, as nothing was really being said. When Cal left, it felt like a weight was lifted. It hurts, because he did great things for Kentucky, but it also felt as if we needed something new.

Something new eventually became something with a connection to the past. When the rumors swirled that Kentucky was going to hire Mark Pope, I was hesitant. But I also started thinking about the 1996 UK team on which Pope was a captain. That team was amazing to watch. They were the pinnacle of Rick Pitino’s style. By the time I started seeing social media comments on Mark Pope’s first press conference, I got that old feeling of both nostalgia and hope for the future. It felt as if the fans were being welcomed back as participants in the team. After we arrived home from a family wedding, I started searching out videos of the press conference.

What a day. Kentucky fans filled Rupp Arena so full that people were turned away. From the level of spectacle and inclusion, the day felt like a family reunion. I can only describe the day as a liturgy rooted in the traditions of the past, relishing in the present, and a hope for the future. Go find the video, as it is hard to describe in words. As I watched the bus pull in and players from many eras of Kentucky basketball exit, I was feeling excited. Then the music started, and we started seeing players from the 1996 team exit followed by new coach Mark Pope holding up their National Championship plaque. I was hooked.

Will the 2024–2025 team have amazing success? I don’t know. But what I do know is that I feel that we are back as family in Big Blue Nation - past, present, and future. Why is that so important? Because Big Blue Nation united and seeing one another as family is a picture of what humanity should be about. In my vocation as a pastor, that’s what I envision for the Church. How can a sports team bring together so many people into a unified goal without worrying about social strata, politics, or cultural concerns and the Church fail? I have my ideas, but I wonder if we started thinking about one another as family, it might help. If we revere the past, live in the present, and think about the hope of the future, we can find that unity.

Kentucky fans are still going to disagree, but I don’t think that many are going to say that those who disagree will say that other fans are not fans. Maybe we can learn something from that form of unity.