Monday, March 21, 2011: Leann Farmer, Customer Service
March is my favorite month of the year. The weather in Kentucky takes a turn for the better and I enjoy long weekends full of great basketball. Sunshiny days usually take the sting out of my NCAA Tournament Bracket predictably going down in flames. See, bracketology is not my forte’. The sheer weight of my own biases drag down any sort of rational selection process. Unlike Dick Vitale or Jay Bilas, I cannot look at the field of 64 and weigh the teams equally based upon their stats and strength of schedule.
Allow me to explain. I was born a Kentucky basketball fan. I grew up listening to Cawood Ledford’s play-by-play of Kentucky basketball games as my bedtime story. Every year I have Kentucky going all the way to the Final Four and winning the National Championship. Anything else is inconceivable. It would be treasonous to choose any other team regardless of the logic employed. Kentucky must win. We must cut nets and hang another banner. It is demanded. It is expected. It’s what we do.
Last year I bought tickets to the NCAA Final Four in Indianapolis. A vast majority of sportscasters and basketball experts picked Kentucky to advance to the Final Four, so I felt justified in spending the cash for a chance to see the Wildcats on the biggest stage in college basketball.
Yours Truly meeting Dick Vitale at the 2010 NCAA Final Four. It was awesome, babyyyyy!
We had major talent in 2010. John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Patrick Patterson, Daniel Orton, Eric Bledsoe… all taken in the 1st round of the 2010 NBA draft. This was our year. We would hang another championship banner in the rafters of Rupp Arena, I just knew it. I had my Final Four tickets in hand when March rolled around, and was horror-stricken as we were bested in the Elite Eight by West Virginia. I should have just taken that ticket money and paid someone to punch me in the gut.
Even though Kentucky didn’t reach the Final Four, Big Blue Nation was definitely in attendance. I packed my travel bags full of Kentucky t-shirts and wore them proudly everyday in Indy. The bellhop at the check-in to our hotel pointed at my shirt and commiserated over Kentucky’s tough loss to the Mountaineers. Folks in the elevator noticed as well, and told me they had family in Ashland, Kentucky. A kid at the breakfast buffet tapped me on the arm and asked, “Do you know John Wall?”
In this sea of Duke and West Virginia supporters, we scanned the crowds and recognized the familiar UK2K t-shirts (commemorating Kentucky’s acheivement of being the 1st school to reach 2000 wins). We pumped our fists at other Kentucky fans in the distance. We were strangers in a strange land, but Big Blue Nation recognized one another via t-shirt and reached out to shout down the injustice of a Final Four proceeding with our favorite boys in blue. There were loud shouts across the mall “Go CATS!” and smiles and waves and honks from Kentucky fans everywhere I went. In a cruel twist of fate, I had actually paid money to watch Duke win a National Championship. If you are a Kentucky fan, you can taste the irony here.
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Neon is back? Believe it! What is old is new again. Fashion trends from 25 years ago are creeping their way back into the mainstream. This Spring we will be sprinkling our wardrobes with neon green or neon yellow tees. Our Anvil 3979 Neon shirts will take your boring wardrobe to the ‘party zone.’ We have seen this before. Ray Ban Aviator sunglasses are cool and hip again. So too are Sperry Top-Siders. I see people wearing Top-Siders who wouldn’t know where to find the bow of a boat. This is nothing new. Trends move thru cycles and neon is just one of them. I just hope we don’t see neon jeans or worse yet… MC Hammer pants. ICKY!
