Nostalgia trip: UK players share favorite TV memories from their youth

They’ll be on television every Saturday starting the last week of August, but that wasn’t always the case for the University of Kentucky’s football players.

Nah, there was a time when they were merely watching college football on the tube (or, as is increasingly the case, the screen in their pocket). What else did they tune in to as they grew up?

The Fresh Prince of Bel Air resonated with defensive end Xavier Peters, a redshirt freshman, particularly a tear-jerking episode involving the absentee father of Will Smith’s character. Peters has cited his infant son, Xavier Peters Jr., as the reason he transferred from Florida State this past offseason.

“My dad, being in and out of my life, he was a bad influence here and there,” Peters said. “Just having my brother and my dad that jumped in front of me, showed me that this is what I have to do and this is what I don’t have to do to succeed.”

Several Wildcats — freshman running back Travis Tisdale, junior tight end Justin Rigg, junior defensive tackle Kordell Looney and redshirt freshman Kenneth Horsey — said Tom and Jerry was their favorite cartoon growing up. They’re in their early 20s, or younger; the first Tom and Jerry short was released to theaters in February 1940.

“To this day, I still love Tom and Jerry,” Horsey said. “They were always just funny to watch. It was really cool to see because it wasn’t distracting with a bunch of words or bad language or anything like that. It’s just a cat and a mouse doing what cats and mice do, man.”

Martin, an early 90s sitcom starring Martin Lawrence, was a favorite of redshirt freshman Keaton Upshaw and true freshman Amani Gilmore.

“He keeps me entertained, man,” Gilmore said. “Martin’s a different character.”

Drake Jackson loved and still loves SpongeBob SquarePants. The Nickelodeon cartoon debuted in 1999 and is still producing new episodes.

What’s the best one?

“Oh, there’s a lot of good episodes,” Jackson said. “I think the most iconic episode I can name off the top of my head is probably, I forget the title, I think it was called ‘Suds,’ when SpongeBob gets sick. It was an early episode. I remember my mom bought a whole season on DVD or whatever, and I remember watching it after school on a desktop computer, so that’s how old I am. That’s one of my favorite episodes just because I used to watch it over and over and over again as a kid. But SpongeBob’s still a great TV show, no doubt.”

Eli Cox, a true freshman out of West Jessamine High School in Nicholasville, is more of a superhero guy.

“The Justice League cartoons on TV every Saturday morning on Cartoon Network, for sure,” Cox said. “I’d wear a cape and a skinny suit to show off all my masculinity and all my muscles. That’s what I would do.”

Offensive tackle Landon Young enjoyed spending his mornings with Bob Barker.

“When I was in elementary school, I still had a babysitter and when my parents used to go to work, I would get up every single morning and watch The Price is Right,” Young said. “I would always get up, I think it was 7 to 8 a.m. The Price is Right would come on, and then after The Price is Right would come on I would watch Saved by the Bell.”

“But besides that, me and my dad would watch a bunch of hunting videos.”