I was probably too young, looking back. Too young to stake my life on things like Kentucky basketball.
We all make mistakes, but that doesn’t mean your love wasn’t real.
I was eight years old when the 1995-96 college basketball season tipped off. No one told me anything. No one said “Hey you there! You will get far too emotionally invested in this team and it will shape your happiness for the next decade or so, even long after all the players you love have moved on to the NBA!” I had nothing to go on, no history to guide me. Far as I knew, Rick Pitino was on the straight and narrow and Kentucky basketball would be a rollicking good time every winter from that time until I eventually died several hundred years into the future1.
Like most things, this was the fault of my Uncle Mike, who you’ve met here before. But I can’t blame him entirely. Blame it on that particular season in life, when you really start to figure out sports if you’re a sports person and the whole thing looms much larger in your life than it should. For those of you in the congregation of a certain age and geographical bracket, remember Saturday mornings and afternoons with Jefferson Pilot Sports and Bob Kesling before he hit it big as John Ward’s replacement. For those of you who don’t know what the fuck I’m even talking about, count yourselves fortunate and never forget that we’re not too far removed from a time when watching a Saint Mary’s basketball game meant either you lived on the West Coast or they were playing Gonzaga.