Yes, they were happy to welcome new coach Mark Pope, but Big Blue Nation was on a beautiful mission Sunday – to reclaim their basketball program.
Hippies had Woodstock, Kentucky basketball gets ‘Popestock.’
Fans of a certain age will remember Woodstock, the iconic 1969 music festival.
Organizers were hoping 50,000 fans would make the trek to see such headliners as Credence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. Instead, 460,000 people engulfed the dairy farm in rural New York for “3 Days of Peace & Music.”
The event forever changed the direction of Rock ‘n Roll, but it was so much more than music as a generation used the platform to make its profound statement about counterculture and the Vietnam War.
Sunday in Lexington, Kentucky basketball fans were treated to ‘Popestock.’
Likewise, organizers hoped 8,000 to perhaps 10,000 fans would show up to see headliner Mark Pope, who was being introduced as UK’s new basketball coach. It was reasonable, if not optimistic, given that it was a simple press conference with only 48 hours advance notice and being held on an unseasonably warm, sunny day on Masters Sunday.
Instead, a crowd nearly triple that size swelled Rupp Arena to bursting while leaving thousands more stranded outside the gates. Though not hitchhiking or packed into a VW Beetle, they journeyed from all corners of the Commonwealth, the western wetlands to the eastern mountains and all the small towns and big cities in between.
A sizable number of those fans showed up to support Pope, a favorite son as captain of the 1996 UK NCAA champions. He arrived by a chartered bus that was filled with former players, including his teammates who had vehemently championed the hiring of the Brigham Young coach amid initial fan disappointment that a bigger name had not been offered. His rock star reception proved those fears had been quickly alleviated.
But like Woodstock, this day was about so much more than one coach. Big Blue Nation, you must understand, was on a mission to reclaim its basketball program. The reality that the groundswell was purely organic makes it all the more special, all the more louder and prouder.
It might be a tad dramatic, but there was a sense Kentucky basketball was being held captive by John Calipari, and the relationship between coach and fans had become toxic beyond repair.
No question Calipari brought instant and outrageous success to Kentucky with four Final Fours in the first six seasons, including the 2012 NCAA Tournament title. But there was always an uneasiness among fans over the coach being more concerned with his freshmen jumping to the NBA. The coach was unapologetically players first when many preferred program first.
NCAA champion Kyle Macy was the first to take a stand when Calipari boasted that five players from his first UK team being 2010 NBA first-round draft picks was “the biggest day in Kentucky basketball history.”
UK legend Dan Issel chimed in that it was “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
