Lane is not welcome at our house for Thanksgiving
It’s not a secret to anyone that knows me that perhaps the sole reason I am a Kentucky fan is because of my father. As a young boy, you idolize your dad, as well as blindly supporting all things he does, likes, or believes. Thank Jeebus that Dad was a Kentucky fan.
Dad has ventured onto this blog on occasion, or more apt, his commentary has. It’s refreshing to have some commentary that stretches back further than I’ve been alive as to the state of the program, the attitude of the fanbase, and the lack of truly celebratory moments for this program in recent memory.
For example, after the Mississippi State debacle, Dad put forth this nugget:
Now, this is why people say “let’s tip-off the round ball and forget football”. I’ve been watching this sorry shit for 50+ years and it’s always the same, Big game…..big loss. You’ll get there, you just haven’t been disgusted enough, but it will come. Bring on the basketball……….
While frustrating, I totally understand where he’s coming from. I can’t say I haven’t even felt that way about my alma mater of Ball State from time to time, including their magical season last year. Week in and week out, I simply kept waiting for the anvil to fall on our proverbial heads. Blame Lynch and the 24 losses I witnessed… who knows. And that’s a relatively new phenomenon for me. I cannot imagine decades, nearly a half century, of futility, defeats, and games that it would have been more productive to simply slam your head into a brick wall for three hours.
Over Thanksgiving, I had the opportunity to sit and chat a bit with Dad about the football Cats and their pending battle with Tennessee, and frankly, the mood and tone of that conversation was something truly odd. It was peppered with hope and littered with optimism. After becoming Bowl eligible, and a win over Georgia, Dad (as well as a plethora of other Kentucky fans) seemed more positive than ever before. Granted, while the attention over Thanksgiving was dominated by the basketball Cats and their Cancun Challenge, football wasn’t nearly as far away from the collective thoughts as they normally are in November.
We all know the outcome of Saturday’s game… another Tennessee loss, their 25th consecutive loss to the Volunteers. On Sunday morning I thought long and hard about what sort of tone to take regarding that game, my thoughts on it, and more importantly, the atmosphere of this site about Kentucky over the next few weeks. Celebrate a truly special season with another 7-win improbability coming to fruition, or be negative, vindictive, and borderline asshole-ish about the inability of this team to beat Tennessee? It was a tough challenging call that I could not make, and simply avoided. Until Dad showed me the light yesterday with his take on the Tennesse game:
Picture Charlie Brown with his forehead pressed against a tree…..”rats”.
That is how I feel, following the Cats game against the UT football team. However, it dawned on me that the downside is not nearly as weighty as the upside. So, what’s the upside? The fact that UK is 7-5 and going to some sort of a bowl game and I’m disappointed. Do you realize how many years of hopeful watching of the Cats with a prayer we’d have 6 wins (back when 11 games was the average season). To the point, a prayer for a winning season was almost more than could be expected. So, occasionally Jerry Claiborne or Fran Curci, or even further back, a coach would produce a winning season. That was enough to nurture hope for the future, even though you knew in your heart it would have to last for several years, but it was hope and it was enough. Now, we’ve had 4 consecutive seasons of 6 or more wins, with bowls, and I’m disappointed. This speaks well for the Cats and it has come to me that my absolute hatred for the Tennessee crooks, the Tennessee meat packing business of graduating illiterates to become the future liquor store robbers and the bozo coaches that wallow in the cheating with a sly grin is what really bugged me about this game. We had a great season and I’m proud of the team, every member of the team. I love Grandpa and the future looks to be competitive against the likes of the Tennessee’s in spite of them giving out the green handshake to their employees…oops, I mean their players.
GO CATS
Moral of the story? When in doubt about your own team’s ability, when in doubt about whether or not anything is worth lamenting or being disappointed, when in doubt about whether or not to lambast a coaching staff or point fingers of blame at those in the program, pass. Simply accuse your opponent of future armed robberies and bozo coaches who pay their players. Brav-freaking-o.
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Over The Pylon 