Humble beginnings, compelling drama: UK vs. Louisville has ‘exceeded expectations’

Joe B. Hall was one of the last holdouts opposing a Kentucky-Louisville basketball series. His was a lonely voice of opposition to the seemingly inevitable at a Board of Trustees meeting that had UK-U of L on the agenda.

So when the schools formally agreed 35 years ago to begin an annual series, Hall was not a happy UK coach. At such times when the walls of frustration seemed to be closing in, he would retreat to the great outdoors. He would either go fishing or hunting.

“We went rabbit hunting the next morning,” said Terry McBrayer, a Lexington lawyer and longtime friend of Hall.

This continued what had become a familiar pattern.

“We’d just take off and do something else,” McBrayer said, “and you’d forget the game or forget whatever.”

Hall was a good shot that day. The rabbits never had a chance as he took out his frustration.

“We shot ‘em, skinned ‘em and fried ‘em,” McBrayer said. “Poor bunnies.”

Basketball fans can say the rabbits died for a good cause. When Kentucky and Louisville renew their high wire act on Saturday, it’s a sure thing that the game will be flush with compelling drama.

Hall has long since grown to appreciate the chills and spills that come after the curtain rises on a basketball stage featuring Kentucky and Louisville.

“The fans love it, the players love it and I think the coaches enjoy it,” Hall said Thursday. “It’s stressful, but coaching is that way. Any game is stressful, but Louisville-and-Kentucky has become one of the premier games in the country. Much like Duke and North Carolina.”

Hall said he “inherited” his opposition to the series. Adolph Rupp, the founding father of Kentucky basketball, did not play in-state schools. So to his successor, UK playing U of L seemed unconstitutional.

“He thought the program was bigger than life,” McBrayer said of Hall, “and he was just an incidental player in it. And it was his job to protect the program. And that’s the reason he was doing that. He said it’ll weaken the program.”

In other words, Hall believed Kentucky had little to gain in playing Louisville. And Louisville had become a threat as a program with coast-to-coast name recognition. By then, Denny Crum had guided the Cards to Final Fours in 1972, 1975, 1980, 1982 and 1983.

“We didn’t need that game to make our program what it had become,” said Bill Olsen, then U of L’s director of athletics.

UK-U of L became inescapable after a momentous meeting in the 1983 Mideast Region finals in, of all places, Knoxville, Tenn.

It was the first time the teams had played since the 1959 NCAA Tournament. It was more than a game. It was a happening. Kentucky Gov. John Y. Brown famously wore a half blue-half red sport coat to the game. Depending on your rooting interest, Louisville’s thrilling or heartbreaking overtime victory whetted basketball appetites for more.

“At that time, the national feeling was we should be playing,” Olsen said. “So there was a lot of pressure not just from inside the state, but from television executives and networks to create the game.”

A not insignificant factor: Brown wanted the series.

Kentucky carried its reluctance to the signing of a contract. Then UK director of athletics Cliff Hagan suggested a neutral site hidden from the glare of media attention, Olsen said. “He didn’t want to go to Frankfort and let any of the politicians get involved.”

In a scene that could be likened to the humble manger, the spectacle of UK playing U of L each season began with both sides signing a contract in a Long John Silver’s restaurant in Shelbyville.

Hagan paid for a round of Pepsi.

The ensuing games have not disappointed. Eddie Sutton’s Big Brother-Little Brother declaration. Rex Chapman’s freshman star turn at Freedom Hall. Cedric Jenkins’ winning tip-in.

Kentucky has won 23 of the 35 regular-season meetings. Twenty of the 35 games have been decided by a single-digit margin.

Olsen conceded that playing each season can make it seem the UK-U of L series has lost something.

“It hasn’t in Kentucky and in Louisville,” he said. “It might not be as big a game nationally as it was at that time back in the ‘80s. But I think it’s just as big a game in the state. It still has that magic that it had from the beginning.”

Of the UK-U of L series, Lexington businessman and sports marketing pioneer Jim Host said, “It’s exceeded expectations. I think it’s been terrific for the state. I think the state benefits when you have two top programs playing each other.

“I don’t see any downside to it. I think it’s great and it obviously has to continue.”

Saturday

No. 16 Kentucky at Louisville

When: 2 p.m.

TV: ESPN2