In the midst of a Sunday full of CLE videos (tomorrow is the deadline my fellow attorneys), here are some notes and thoughts from the weekend:
1. Ton of Fun in Sparta
I like NASCAR…don’t love it but I like it. While I rarely plop down and watch an entire race, its role in the background of Sunday afternoon sound for me has been consistent over the past decade. But up until this point, I had avoided going to a race at Kentucky Speedway. While I have been to Charlotte, Richmond, Martinsville, etc, I had not found my way to Sparta, in large part due to the melee there four years ago (and the fact that the distraction of the nearby “Racers” could affect my group’s attendance). As radio listeners know, I hate traffic and thus the problems in 2011 at the Kentucky Speedway NASCAR race seemed like my own personal version of hell. But four years seemed long enough to forgive anyone and my friends and I made our way to Saturday night’s race (along with tens of thousands of others including Jack Givens and Joe B Hall as you can see above). It was excellent. We were fortunate enough to experience the track at all ends, from the driver’s meeting to pit road to the stands and at each place, the experience was amazing. It was likely the best race I have been to and everything about the trip (including the traffic, which was the best I have seen for an event that size) was tremendous. I will be going back next year and I hope everyone else does to…it is great for the state to have the race and Kentucky is now doing it right, making for a perfect summer night.
2. Big Time Saturday for UK Football
Saturday was one of the defining days of this coaching staff’s time at Kentucky. I firmly believe that. When Darius Fullwood and Jabari Greenwood both took to the national recruiting stage and picked Kentucky, it was further proof that this staff is recruiting in ways that were never before imaginable here. While getting Drew Barker, Matt Elam, Jason Hatcher, Ryan Timmons, Eli Brown, etc from Kentucky has been big and the takeover as Team #2 in Ohio has made a huge change in the outlook for the future, Assistant Coach Tommy Mainord just did something we haven’t seen here in some time. He pulled two BIG TIME players with offers from schools like Virginia Tech and South Carolina and got them to come to Kentucky from an area that is not traditionally a UK recruiting ground. Washington DC produces a ton of great athletes, but has very few big time football programs in its vicinity. The best of its players have usually found their way to Virginia Tech or Penn State, but what usually happens is that they scatter, with no obvious location to land. And now Kentucky has pulled three players from their area in two years and has established itself as a program to be reckoned with not just in Ohio, but now on the Mid-Atlantic seaboard as well. While we hope these players will be stars here (and Darius Fullwood in particular looks to be a beast) and their announcements were quite impressive and showed them to be from quality families, the significance for the future may be the most important. UK football has arrived in another area, one in which the SEC largely ignores. Keep it up Stoops, Vince, Tommy and company…this is getting good.
Was Busta Rhymes stung by bees?
3. Chieck Diallo makes his trip to Lexington
An individual that needs no help in recruiting is John Calipari. But he nevertheless had a big weekend over the last couple of days as Top 5 player Chieck Diallo was in town. In the class of 2015, Diallo is one of the top 5 talents and has a game that Calipari has shown he can showcase. He is part of the interesting recruiting scenario that developed with the addition of Slice Rohrrsen (Masiello has resume problems, Orlando gets the South Florida job and Slice comes here, potentially bringing Diallo with him). In a 2015 class in which Kentucky is one of the leaders for 7-8 top players, Diallo may be the only one where Kentucky is sitting pretty. His connection to Slice makes UK the favorite and from all indications, he had a tremendous visit. His talent is immense and if Kentucky can get him locked down and add a couple more pieces, it will (once again) have the #1 class in America and a talent haul unlike any other.
4. An Article to Check Out
I rarely recommend articles on KSR and almost never from competitors or local news outlets. But today will be an exception as I encourage you to read this column by Kentucky pastor Paul Prather. It is an interesting explanation of a phenomenon I find happening to myself as well as I get older…what once seemed certain becomes less so. Prather discusses the phenomenon of having strong opinions, only to have them changed by the murkiness of life, a situation that I see taking place with myself all the time. Rather than spending more energy explaining it, just read it for yourself. Kudos to Prather for articulating the beauty of uncertainty that I am a big believer in as well.
Picture of Jimi Hendrix playing in Fort Campbell while there in 1962
5. The UL Fan Crying Syndrome
I played in a charity golf tournament on Friday in Shelbyville as part of “Team Kentucky” (me, Drew, Buzz Baker and Mr Shelby County…we beat Team UL by four strokes which had Mike Rutherford, Evan Daniels, the UL Video Coordinator and a former UL player). The people were very nice but as I left the place, I ran into a UL fan who stopped me and said, “Matt Jones let me tell you something you need to talk about on that radio show…how much the Cards got screwed in that Sweet 16 game. We are better that y’all and you know it…you just had to cheat to win again.” I laughed at the comment, in part because I have not heard it at least 500 times since the game in Indianapolis. My question is, when did UL fans become so soft? Is it the fact that we ended the run of one of their most beloved Senior classes of all time, or is it just the inability to ever accept defeat at the hands of Big Brother? We beat Louisville twice, both times in situations that weren’t ideal for us (remember Randle was hurt the second half of the game in Lexington) and yet the collective whine coming from Card Nation has never been louder. Cries of push-offs, charges, traveling, etc are everywhere and I get it said to me at least once every couple of days. Has the whine ever been louder from the Ville? Folks, its late June…get over it. Bobby Petrino will have a new set of delinquents coming in to play for your football team and your basketball team added like 5 stiff 7 footers during the offseason. Move on and appreciate what you have coming up…entry into a new conference led by the Adulterous Kings of College Sports. You just added your fourth player to the NBA, one less than Calipari had in his first year at Kentucky. Celebrate your small victories.
6. Some Random Media Thoughts
I got bored tonight after a three hour CLE on Disability Hearings (brutal) and saw a message board post on Cats’ Illustrated (click there to read it) about whether “JMI would end KSR.” Threads like that always amuse me, especially the comments from those who get angry at the mention of our name. But I took the time to write a response and in it, gave some thoughts on how we do KSR now in the ever-changing media landscape. Rather than just leave it there, I thought I would bring it here as well:
What JMI’s effect on UK Athletics as a whole will be remains to be seen but I think it will largely be beneficial. They have big plans and with all of the information that is available out there, the more the better for UK fans. Just as UKAthletics.com, CoachCal.com, UK’s Twitter account, etc have all been beneficial for UK fans, I suspect that JMI’s contribution will only increase what is out there.
With that said, there seems to be some confusion by a couple of folks on here about what KSR is…we are an independent site/radio show that gives UK news from a fan’s perspective. We don’t compete with any UK-based site, primarily because we do what they can’t (and vice versa). We can be goofy, critical, risque, silly, talk recruiting, rumors, etc…all things an official site either can’t, or would have a hard time, doing. That is why there will always be sites/media outlets different than the one official with the school…people want that stuff and the official sites simply cant do that.
With that said, that doesnt mean there cant be relationships with these entities that are mutually beneficial. Whether we, or other outlets, have such a relationship remains to be seen. But I long ago learned, there is nothing good about being antagonistic with the school you cover. We had a good relationship with IMG (I was on there for games) and I hope that will happen with JMI as well. I don’t see why it cannot.
As a couple of people on here said, our radio show is owned by Clear Channel, which is a completely different entity. The IMG games were on Clear Channel and that has helped us, and my hope is that the JMI games will be as well. But that is beyond my control and I have no idea how that will play out.
As far as “whats killing KSR”, such comments always amuse me. They have been made (usually by the same people) for years since we started. Our traffic is at its highest level of all time, our ratings are not only higher than ever, they are historic for sports radio in this state and our imprint on social media is unmatched by any other outlet. Twitter has made us change what we do and has changed what some people use us for…BUT what many/most people don’t realize is just how proportionately few people are on Twitter and the insatiable appetite UK fans have for any/all information. When Twitter got going, I was concerned about what it would do to KSR…what it has done has changed our focus (breaking news) but has gotten us back to what the site used to be about (analysis/humor/rumors/etc). Twitter allows us to link our articles to (in my case) 105,000 people each time and has only increased our traffic. What I once thought might be a negative has been a net positive and has refocused us on what made the site popular to begin with.
None of that means we cant screw up, might go down in popularity or could not have some sort of agreement with JMI or any other media outlet. To try and guess what the future of media nowadays will be is silly because it literally changes every day. But for nine years, I have said the same thing….”wherever media is, I want KSR to be there.” We are on radio, the web, social media, television, the games and virtually everywhere people get UK information. My goal is to keep that happening in the most ridiculous manner possible.
The KSR TOUR COMES TO PAINTSVILLE TOMORROW, hitting Johnson County for one of the finest Arby’s known to man. There will be curly fries all around as Drew and I do the show from our 6th stop on the tour. Come see us and remember that if you are there (or are listening at home), you can become a finalist to win a trip to the Bahamas for the UK Tour and tickets to a UK game courtesy of GuyontheCornerTickets.com. There is no excuse not to listen. The rest of the tour stops are below and we will see you right here tomorrow morning.
Monday, June 30th: Paintsville- Arby’s
Tuesday, July 1st: Columbia- Anderson’s Pizzeria
Wednesday, July 2nd: Jamestown- Cove Steakhouse
Thursday, July 3rd: Whitley City- McCreary County Public Library
Monday, July 7th: Bowling Green- Wright Implement
Tuesday, July 8th: Leitchfield- Future Designs Building Materials
Wednesday, July 9th: Morgantown- Final Finish
Thursday, July 10th: Somerset- Gatti’s Pizza
Friday, July 11th: Glasgow- Glasgow Country Club
Monday, July 14th: Monticello- Conley Bottom Resort
Tuesday, July 15th: London- Lowe’s Sporting Goods
Monday, July 21st: Owensboro- Don Moore Automotive
Tuesday, July 22nd: Morganfield- Verlie’s
Wednesday, July 23rd: Madisonville- Hudson Automotive
Thursday, July 24th: Hopkinsville- Holiday Inn Hoptown
Friday, July 25th: Paducah- BW3′s sponsored by IMAC Regeneration
Monday, July 28th: Danville- Bluegrass Community Bank
Tuesday, July 29th: Fort Wright/Northern KY- Dickmann’s Cafe
Wednesday, July 30th: Maysville- Mann Chrysler
Thursday, July 31st: Lexington- TBD
Friday, August 1st: Louisville- TBD