Worlds collide: 'Not Jerry Tipton' and Jerry Tipton meet at last

There was nothing extraordinary about Saturday’s lunch: The regular order of chicken noodle soup and turkey-and-swiss sandwich at Jason’s Deli. My wife, Paula, ordered a salad.

Then a man walked up to our table, said my name and stuck out his hand. “I’m ‘Not Jerry Tipton,’” he said.

As my boss suggested later Saturday afternoon, it was like George Costanza freaking out on "Seinfeld" about worlds colliding. Only instead of Relationship George clashing with Independent George, this was “Not Jerry Tipton” meeting Jerry Tipton.

There was no clash. “Not Jerry Tipton” was friendly and outgoing (as opposed to Jerry Tipton, some rabid UK fans might say).

His real name is Lee H. Stewart. He is a lawyer in Birmingham, Ala.

He grew up in Mayfield and graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1992.

A game in John Calipari’s second season as UK coach inspired Stewart to take on the Not Jerry Tipton persona.

As Doron Lamb set a then freshman record for points, Stewart noted that Lamb did not have an assist.

“I was thinking, ‘If I was Jerry Tipton, I’d say he also set a freshman record for fewest assists in a game with zero,’” Stewart said during a follow-up call later Saturday. “It kind of went from there.”

After a while, Stewart expanded Not Jerry Tipton’s commentary to subjects other than Kentucky basketball.

Basketball or not, it was in the guise of Jerry Tipton. “I kind of shifted from Jerry Tipton-based stuff to just the overall general snark,” he said. “It’s just a matter of firing off a few snarky tweets. Next thing you know, you’ve got 76,000 people following you.”

Stewart met UK Coach John Calipari a few years ago. Calipari is a fan. “Cal knew about it and liked it,” he said of the @NotJerryTipton Twitter account. “He said he thought it was clever.”

Stewart was in Lexington on Saturday for a meeting of the UK Alumni Association Board of Directors meetings. A former president of the Birmingham Chapter of the UK Alumni Association, he is in the first year of a two-year term on the Board of Directors.

When happenstance brought us together, “Not Jerry Tipton” could not resist introducing himself to Jerry Tipton.

“I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t at least take the opportunity to shake hands with the man behind the man,” he said.

This story was originally published April 28, 2018 at 7:00 PM with the headline "Worlds collide: 'Not Jerry Tipton' and Jerry Tipton meet at last."