Big Blue Loyalty: The chase is on

One UK fan's streak ends, but another emerges

By Mark Story / Herald-Leader Sports Columnist

If things went according to plan, Jim Brown, the University of Kentucky football super fan, planned to be in Commonwealth Stadium for Saturday night's game with Louisiana-Monroe.

Brown, 90, had seen 412 straight Wildcats home football games (every one since the start of the 1945 season) before he missed the Alabama game Oct. 3 because of a bad cold.

He is feeling better now. "I'm starting a new streak, see if I can break the old one," Brown joked on Thursday.

One person who has ultimate appreciation for Brown's fan-attendance mark is Dale Dodson.

A 60-year-old who splits his time working for a coal company between Lexington and Pikeville, Dodson says he has seen every UK home football game since the start of the 1976 season.

"I've just marveled at (Brown's) persistence in keeping his streak going as long as he did," Dodson said. "I know from my own experience how many weddings you have to work around, how many funerals, how many events involving your family. It's tough."

Now that Brown's streak has ended, Dodson wonders who has seen the most consecutive Kentucky home football games?

He did not know the raw number for his own streak. By my count, if he's attended every UK home game since the start of the 1976 campaign, Dodson had seen 213 straight contests in Commonwealth going into the Louisiana-Monroe matchup.

For many of the early years of his streak, Dodson says he made the seven-hour commute (both ways) from his then-home in Phelps in Pike County.

Dodson, a married father of one son, says he plays a little golf. "But Kentucky football has always pretty much been my outlet," he said.

As a UK football fan of long standing, Dodson has endured a litany of gut-wrenching losses.

He lists LSU's Bluegrass Miracle (2002), Chris Doering's last-second, game-winning touchdown catch for Florida (1993) and the last-gasp, decisive field goal by Georgia's Rex Robinson (1978) as his most painful.

"Well, those and all the close losses against Tennessee," he said.

Dodson's favorite UK moment came in 1997 when Tim Couch hit Craig Yeast for the overtime touchdown pass that gave Kentucky only its second win ever over Alabama.

If anyone has a consecutive UK home game streak longer than his, Dodson said he'd like to know it.

"It would be nice to know if mine is the longest," he said.

In the meantime, Dodson has another task he'd like to get done.

"I'd like to meet Jim Brown," he said. "I'd just like to shake his hand."

Grevey gets a ring

Twenty-four years after his pro basketball career ended, Kevin Grevey is adding another NBA championship ring.

In addition to operating a Northern Virginia sports bar and working as a color analyst on college basketball radio broadcasts, the sweet-shooting star of Kentucky's 1975 NCAA runner-up team also scouts for the Los Angeles Lakers.

The connection is Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak, who was a teammate of Grevey's on the 1978 NBA champion Washington Bullets.

As a Lakers scout, Grevey says he will get a 2009 NBA championship ring.

He won't be in Los Angeles for the team's ring ceremony Tuesday night before the season opener with the cross-town Clippers.

With a laugh, Grevey said, "Nah, they don't fly in the scouts for the ceremony."

Would the Cats camp out?

At UK's men's basketball media day, several Wildcats marveled at the zeal of fans who would camp out for days in chilly weather just to secure a ticket for Big Blue Madness — which, after all, is nothing more than a glorified practice.

I asked some of the Cats players what they would be willing to camp out in the cold for tickets to see.

Daniel Orton: "Nothing. There's nothing I'd sleep in a tent for."

Jon Hood: "Maybe something like the Olympics."

John Wall: "I'd camp out to see this team play, too."

'True Kentucky' returns?

Someone asked Patrick Patterson if he viewed the coming Kentucky basketball season as payback for what have been, by UK standards, hard times the past two years.

Said Patterson: "I wouldn't say it's payback. I just feel we haven't lived up to the type of expectations that Kentucky and the fans expect of us.

"This year, the type of people we have, all the personnel, we feel that we can be that true Kentucky team that the fans want and that we want to be."

Reach Mark Story at (859) 231-3230 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3230, or mstory@herald-leader.com. Your e-mail could appear on the blog Read Mark Story's E-mail at Kentucky.com.