Go Big Blue!

You know something big is going down in Lexington when you see hundreds (honest) of these flags being flow from car window across town and everywhere you look people have on UK t-shirts, sweatshirts and hats.

The big deal? First, to kick off the start of the 2007-2008 Kentucky basketball season, they held Big Blue Madness at Rupp Arena on Friday night and a sold out crowd of 23,500 people came to cheer their team on. Many of the sellout crowd had camped out near the arena for 2 - 3 days in order to buy tickets to the first practice. I wonder what Allen Iverson would say.

The event was televised and was a sight to see. It was basically equivalent to your typical high school pep rally full of some of the cheesiest skits and over the top hero worship known to man. We recorded it as it kept getting later and later, so Josh could watch the slam dunk contest this morning. I asked him if he was going to play college basketball. He said, "Yes. First I'll play for Stanford and then for Louisville." Great idea, but he had better not be sharing that U of L info here in the land of the Big Blue!

After the basketball party wound down, it was said hundreds of die hard fans headed straight west to the football parking lot to tailgate and wait for the even bigger event of the weekend. What could top the famed UK basketball program introducing its new coach? Oh yeah, the #17 rank football team was going to play #1 LSU the next afternoon!

Talk about a dream set up. The Wildcat fans had been going crazy over this one for weeks. Rich told me EVERY hotel room in Lexington and surrounding cities was sold out last night. It did help that Keeneland (horse racing) is going on too.

It was a long drawn out, 4 1/2 hour football game but in the end Kentucky defeated top-ranked LSU 43-37 in triple overtime. Wow! It was an exciting day to be in Kentucky. The even bigger surprise to me was that Rich was actually happy they won. He said it's because when the Cats win his life at the hospital is easier because everyone is happy, but I know he was truly excited for this victory today.

I guess everyone loves a winner. Rich had a teammate in college named Darren Allaway who was such an interesting guy. He was black and born and raised in England but spent his senior year of high school in western Kentucky. Anyway, Darren loved to joke about the fickle, short term memories of most sports fans. At the start of each road trip Darren would survey the mood of the media and fans and proclaim the figurative Stanford Bandwagon as either full or empty depending on recent results. I think it is safe to say that the Kentucky Bandwagon is full today.

Rich is on call next Saturday, the same day Kentucky plays Florida here in Lexington. Once again Keeneland will be in session and it will the the latest "biggest football game in Kentucky football history". Rich thinks every TV in the state will be tuned to the game next week and that should make for a nice quiet Saturday call day.

Go Cats?