A Kentucky basketball fan met a Duke fan — and got a big surprise
Fast-break points from the Zoom meeting:
21. A Kentucky basketball fan’s nightmare. On a pre-pandemic vacation to Charleston, S.C., in the second week of March, UK Wildcats hoops fan Elaine Keith found herself chatting with a volunteer at the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens — who identified herself as a Duke backer.
20. March Madness banter. “We were going back and forth about Duke and Kentucky, the (NCAA) tournament coming up,” Keith recalls. “I said, ‘Yeah, we will have to relive ‘the Christian Laettner game.’ And she just started laughing.”
19. Long reach of Christian Laettner. The Duke fan introduced herself to Keith, a Lexington resident, as Christian Laettner’s aunt. “I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, and I’m Santa Claus,’” Keith says. “But, a few minutes later, I asked her, ‘You were kidding, right?’ And she said ‘No, I’m really Christian Laettner’s aunt. My name is Linda Laettner.’ And she started telling me things about (Laettner and his family), that I knew she was telling the truth.”
18. A picture with a UK fan. Keith had a photo taken with Linda Laettner. “She said I was not the first person she’s had her picture taken with from Kentucky,” Keith says.
17. “Crying in front of the TV.” When Christian Laettner hit the famous buzzer-beating jumper that gave Duke a 104-103 overtime win over Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight, Keith, now 67, says she was “crying in front of my TV, like everybody else. I was in shock.”
16. A perpetual irritant. Ever since that moment, Keith says anytime she hears Christian Laettner’s name “it grates on me.”
15. She likes Laettner’s aunt. Whatever she thinks of the former Duke player, Keith says Linda Laettner “was just the nicest lady. (Meeting her) kind of made my day.”
14. Don Shula. The winningest coach in NFL history (347-173-6) — who died May 4 at age 90 — spent a season (1959) coaching defensive backs at the University of Kentucky.
13. A continuing affection for the Bluegrass. That one year coaching under Blanton Collier at UK seemed to make a lasting impression on Shula.
12. Mark Higgs. When the ex-Kentucky running back played for Shula’s Miami Dolphins (1990-1994), Higgs says the coach would often ask him about things he remembered in Lexington. “And I would be like, ‘No, Coach, sorry, that’s not there anymore,’” Higgs says, laughing.
11. Tom Hammond. When the UK alumnus and Lexington-based, longtime NBC Sports play-by-play announcer would broadcast NFL games in which Shula was coaching, “he would often tell me how much he enjoyed his time in Lexington,” Hammond says.
10. Shared history. When Shula passed George Halas (324 career wins) as the NFL’s all-time wins leader by beating Philadelphia 19-14 on Nov. 14, 1993, Hammond broadcast the game. “He autographed my spotting sheet,” Hammond says, “something I still have and cherish.”
9. Kentucky wide receivers. One of the stories of UK’s 8-5, Belk Bowl-winning football season in 2019 was the willingness of the UK wideouts to sacrifice for the greater good.
8. Started year passing. In Kentucky’s first five games last season, before quarterbacks Terry Wilson and Sawyer Smith were both sidelined by injuries, UK threw the ball an average of 34.6 times a contest for 212.8 passing yards a game.
7. Aerial game grounded. After UK moved flanker Lynn Bowden to quarterback and transitioned into a read-option attack over the season’s final eight games, Kentucky threw the ball an average of 10.5 times a contest for 51.8 yards a game.
6. Josh Ali. Recently, I asked the Kentucky senior-to-be wide receiver about the sacrifice the UK wideouts made in 2019. “The whole receiving corps was mad (about the run-heavy offense) every day until Friday before the game,” Ali said. “On Fridays, we knew it’s not time to be selfish, we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do to win.”
5. What the sacrifice brought. In the pass-happy part of the season, Kentucky went 2-3. During the ground-hugging segment, UK was 6-2.
4. Trevon Faulkner. The former Mercer County High School star, Kentucky’s 2018 Mr. Basketball, was asked to play a defense-first role in his freshman season at Northern Kentucky in 2018-19. He averaged 4.7 points and 2.5 rebounds.
3. Darrin Horn. Before this past season was cut short by the coronavirus, the 6-foot-3, 195-pound Faulkner blossomed offensively under first-year Norse head coach Horn. Faulkner averaged 11.9 points and 4.1 rebounds.
2. Jalen Tate. With NKU standout Tate (13.9 points, 5.4 rebounds) using the graduate transfer rule to move to Arkansas, Faulkner should have a chance to become Northern’s top gun in 2020-21.
1. A guy “to build around.” Faulkner “is a tough, high character winner,” Horn says. “I would take 15 dudes like him every year. He is a guy, moving forward, we are going to build around.”
