You’re not Kash Daniel’s biggest fan. He’s still learning lessons from the man who was.
If you’re reading this, you’re not Kash Daniel’s biggest fan. That was his grandfather, Tucker Daniel.
Tucker died on Nov. 2, the Saturday of the Kentucky’ football team’s second bye week. He was 80.
His passing came at a critical juncture of his grandson’s senior season, one that’s been distressed by injuries — including at least one concussion — and a self-inflicted controversy. Kash, a media darling since he overwhelmed opponents on both sides of the ball at Paintsville High School, had shied away from cameras and microphones since mid-September.
He broke that sabbatical Wednesday. Kash talked about Kentucky’s preparation for Vanderbilt, the job Brad White has done in his first year as UK’s defensive coordinator and this being his last game in the Southeastern Conference.
Then, for about four uninterrupted minutes, he talked about the man after whom he models himself.
“He was a great guy,” Kash said. “He was always looking to help people who were less fortunate because he grew up with nothing. He knew how hard it was to grow up with nothing. You could probably make a movie about my granddad.”
That film would start in a small house up Muddy Branch in Johnson County, a home where Tucker and about a half-dozen siblings lived with their grandmother (he didn’t know his birth father until he was 14, and his birth mother had to move to Ohio with Kash’s great uncle — “Pappy Short”). We would then watch him graduate from Meade Memorial High School, now shuttered, before becoming a laborer at the Kentucky West Virginia Gas Company, of which he would eventually become president.
That script would have a lot of meat to it if it stopped there. After retiring, Tucker in 1998 was elected as Johnson County’s judge-executive, a post he would hold until 2018.
“He’d never been in politics, just watched Fox News and CNN and all that stuff,” Kash said. “ ... He gave everything he had to a lot of people in Johnson County and eastern Kentucky.”
Paul Brown, a founder of Redd, Brown and Williams Real Estate Services, twice lost elections to Tucker. His grandson Jason Kinner, a former football coach at Paintsville High School, said the two “hated each other over politics” and were nasty to one another on the campaign trail.
Years later they found common ground on the football field.
“From a distance coaching during practice I watched Tucker walk up and take the high road to put his hand on my grandpa’s back despite their past,” Kinner said. “To me that spoke to Tucker’s character. ... My grandpa was a huge Kash fan. To see Tucker do the right thing despite their past said a lot about his character to me. I will never forget that moment.”
Tucker was Kash’s best friend through his youth. He never missed one of Kash’s sporting events, and would rib him about getting big-headed. He taught Kash how to be a leader; there are some lessons he’s still trying to perfect.
“He would always tell me to do right and never lie,” Kash said. He paused for a few reflective seconds. “I can’t say I’ve never done that, but I’ve tried my best.”
A lie was at the center of Kash’s most infamous moment in a UK uniform: the ankle twist against Florida quarterback Kyle Trask whose existence he denied and for which he ultimately served a one-quarter suspension. Kash didn’t want to directly talk about how that incident or the injuries that have affected his final year as a Wildcat — a “Yeah, we’re looking forward to Vandy” quickly ended that line of questioning — but he spoke more calmly than at any point this fall.
He has at least three games, and probably a bowl game, to let his play do the talking for NFL scouts and, more urgently, for Kentucky as it looks to finish this season on a high note. His personal sufferings this season run parallel with the Cats, who themselves have weathered several unforeseen blows, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel for both.
And there’s a man in heaven putting up posters of his grandson, ready to cheer regardless of where life next takes him.
“There’s a lot of people out there that say, ‘I’m your biggest fan.’” Kash said. “No. You might be in your own mind, but in the reality of it my granddad was my biggest fan. I’m gonna miss him a lot.”
Saturday
Kentucky at Vanderbilt
When: 3:30 p.m. EST
TV: SEC Network
Records: Kentucky 4-5 (2-5 SEC), Vanderbilt 2-7 (1-5)
This story was originally published November 14, 2019 at 9:16 AM.
