Good Day to be Wildcat...

As JBru so eloquently explained earlier, today was a great day for the Kentucky football program and first year coach, Joker Phillips. The new head man pulled all the right strings and made all the right calls, helping Kentucky pull in a very solid recruiting class on national signing day. No sense in rehashing what's already been said, but it's still worth repeating. Operation Win is off to a great start.

When you factor in the win last night over a good Ole Miss team, it is certainly a great day to be a Cat. Earlier today, while having a fun chat about UK Athletics recent fortunes, I overheard a man from somewhere other than Kentucky say that he didn't understand why everyone in Kentucky follows UK sports regardless if they went to school there or not. Another person quickly told him that if he didn't understand why, there was no point in trying to explain it to him, and while I agree, I'm going to try to make the argument real quick anyway.

My story is probably similar to most Kentucky fans. I was born and raised here in Kentucky, and my first memories of Kentucky Basketball is watching some of Joe B Hall's great teams play on Saturday afternoons and listening to Cawood call the play by play on the radio. In high school, Rick Pitino took over after Eddie Sutton's era, and lead the Cats back to greatness again. After I graduated, I took a scholarship to nearby Mid-Continent University and eventually graduated from there with a degree in business. At that time in the mid 90's, MCU didn't even have an athletics department, but that didn't matter to me or most of the other students... we bled Kentucky blue anyway. Since then, MCU has started slowly growing a competitive athletic department, and former UK player and coach Winston Bennett is our Men's Basketball Coach, something, as you might guess, the MCU students and alumni are very proud of.

You see, in rural Western Kentucky, very few people actually go to school at UK. Most either go to Murray State, MCU or one of the nearby community or technical colleges, while many just go straight from high school to the military or to work at their family's farm or small business. For us, its never been about school... its been about the Commonwealth's team. Funded by our tax dollars, the Kentucky Wildcats not only represent the University but the entire state. We don't have an NBA, MLB or NFL team, nor do we need one. We have the best college basketball program ever, and that more than makes up for anything we might not have on the professional level.

Kentucky basketball and football are something that every Kentuckian has in common. We love our Wildcats and the great state they represent. The rich, the poor, the educated and those not fortunate enough to be so, all come together at one time and one place to share a common goal... to will our team to victory on gameday. Thanks to the past hard work of coaches like Joe B. Hall and Rich Brooks, and now, John Calipari and Joker Phillips, we're excited these victories will continue to pile up on a regular basis... and you don't have to be a UK grad to respect that.

Yes today, and everyday, is a good day to be a Wildcat.