Well, wouldn't you know it - of those 7 local teams, 3 made it to Final Four. And! 2 are from here in Kentucky - so congratulations to the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville basketball teams!
And as soon as the UK/Baylor game ended on Sunday afternoon, the Facebook posts were about nothing but the impending game between the University and Kentucky and the University of Louisville - on Saturday at 6:00pm!
The first, most proud, and most unifying of these posts was:
But it wasn't long before all of these started (these are two of my favorites):
So, it appears as if most of my Facebook friends are a bit biased.
The annual regular season game between these two teams is aptly named "The Battle of the Bluegrass" and it dates back to their first meeting in 1913. It wasn't until the 1980's that they started playing one another each year, though. (I don't understand the divisions and conferences and stuff like that so I'm not going to pretend I do.) Of 43 games, UK has won 29 of them leaving only 14 for the poor Cards. Of all of these games, only 4 of them have been NCAA tournament games (and they each have 2 W's in that category). Saturday will be the very first time these two teams have ever met in the Final Four! I think this counts as Kentucky history, don't you?
So, although it might be silly for a girl that has gone to nearly every school BUT either of these, I'm ridiculously excited to watch it all go down. And, again, I'd sure like UK to win. I think it has something to do with their name...
Up here in Northern Kentucky, we cannot escape the March Madness excitement. After all, 7 or the Sweet 16 NCAA basketball teams are from right around here. (Ohio: OSU, OU, UC, and Xavier. Kentucky: UK and UL. Indiana: IU.) Eventually they’ll all eliminate one another but, for the time being, people all over the area are having conflicting feelings. And, unfortunately, I’m one of them – over one game in particular.
On Friday night at 9:45 in Atlanta, GA, the #4 seed Indiana University (27-8) takes on the #1 seed University of Kentucky (34-2).
Now, I’m not a basketball maniac, but I have many fond childhood memories of watching UK basketball in the 1990’s when they were led by Rick Pitino. Our teachers would even let us watch the UK tournament games during class time if we promised to be quiet and do our work at the same time. While they’ve made it to the tournament for all but one year since 1992, they haven’t won since 1998.
And Indiana University… Well, that’s my school. I am an officially enrolled graduate student at Indiana University, although I’m living in Kentucky. Growing up in KY, I always hated IU out of principle and laughed at jokes about how stupid those Hoosiers are. I couldn’t predict that a life in Rabbit Hash would one day lead me to pursue a PhD in Folklore and that the only place in the US to do that is IU.
Up until becoming a student there, I have no recollection of how well the basketball team performed. All I remember is that they had an angry coach named Bobby Knight who was eventually fired. And didn’t he throw chairs?
Yep!
I also remember that during my first year at IU, the basketball coach was fired because of recruitment violations. It was quite a shame since they were doing pretty well that year. They have struggled since so I lost interest while I was living up there (unless I happened to find myself standing next to one of the players on the campus busses, admiring both his height and his fancy noise cancelling headphones). Anyway, it appears that they’ve picked up the pace and are making their first Sweet 16 appearance since 2002.
IU basketball really piqued my interest, however, on December 10 when, thanks to my new smartphone, I was obsessively checking Facebook while out to dinner with Becky and her sister. On that night, I noticed a disturbance: my Kentucky friends were sad and my Indiana friends were happy, but all of them appeared to be rioting.
And here's why:
Incidentally, this was the same night that my Ohio friends were discussing the knock-down, drag-out Crosstown Shootout between two other Sweet 16 teams, UC and Xavier:
Anyway, while fans all over Kentucky were reacting like this:
I love this meme.
The Hoosiers were creating "rap" videos:
This game was UK's only loss all season (until that small matter of the SEC tournament game that they lost on March 11) and, because of that, Kentucky has been a pretty happy, blue-colored place to live.
So, here I am on my porch in Kentucky looking across the Ohio River at Indiana...
(with my dogs) in my camouflage UK hat and IU hoodie questioning my allegiance to both.
And after much pondering, it is now painfully aware to me that wherever I go and whatever school I attend or end up teaching for, I will always be a Kentucky girl - and with that comes the inevitable blue blood that happens to pulse through my veins every March.
So, sorry future alma mater and Go Big Blue! (Will this affect my grade...?)
When I’m not obsessing over my teaching job or pondering what blog post I’m going to compose next, I’m *supposed to be* writing my dissertation so I can finally be not-a-student.
My dissertation topic is one that usually requires quite a bit of explanation as to why it matters so I’m not going to go into it right now. Just trust me that it is worth studying.
I’m writing my dissertation on off-road trucks! and that topic took me to South Dakota this past July.
Trucks!
Why a girl from Kentucky would have to travel all the way to South Dakota to find some boys riding around the woods in trucks may not be perfectly clear. I mean Kentucky is full of fellas that put big ole' tires on otherwise ordinary trucks and drive through mud or wooded areas all the time. But the idea of actually making this into a research subject was inspired by a trip I took to the Black Hills Cruiser Classic in South Dakota in 2005 and the very serious trucks (really pieces of folk art) that I saw while there. It seemed only right that I go back to where I started and pester those same folks for help with my dissertation. They were all more than willing to oblige and I also made several new friends in the process.
Some of these new friends were three brave souls from that strange and foreign land, Canada, who pulled into the campground late one night and asked about the campsites next to us. We warned them that it got a little rowdy whenever this particular Kentucky crowd met up with our Minnesota buddies but they were more than welcome to join us. And join us they did putting us to shame each and every night with their ability to talk trucks and drink American beer well into the darker morning hours.
How a Kentuckian uses a cold South Dakota stream on a hot summer day.
The event ended with a great dinner and the drawing for raffle prizes. Our Canadian neighbors had put together a prize package that highlighted the more exotic aspects of Canadian life – cold weather, not everyone carrying handguns (come on!), Canadian beer, and hockey – and one of them gave a very informative ambassador-like presentation of the prizes.
I’d like to think that these fellas found it as interesting that I was from a place like “Kentucky” as I was of them being from “Canada.” After all, I have never been made so aware of the fact that I use the term “big ole’” as an adjective for almost everything as I was when around my new “eh” saying friends.
So… when it was mentioned to me that they have a truck event in Canada in February (they’re nuts!) called the River Shiver and would love a Kentucky prize package, I was very excited to give it a try.
I thought it would be really fun to distill my lovely state down to a small box of what I thought gave off a unique Kentucky essence. So, here is a portion of the explanatory letter I sent along with artifacts:
I thought explaining Kentucky with a few objects would be really easy, but then I found out I couldn’t mail any alcohol to Canada. So I had to take a new approach.
Instead I ended up focusing on my hometown: Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. I included a map of my county, Boone County, so you wouldn’t think I was lying when I told you the name of the place. If you open the map, you’ll find other interesting towns in the area such as Sugar Tit, Big Bone Lick, and, yes, even Beaver Lick. I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that there is even a Beaver Lick Baptist Church. How lovely!
I also threw in quite a bit of Rabbit Hash swag:
First off is a t-shirt representing the Rabbit Hash IronWorkers and their many duties:
To make the perfect and most stylish Rabbit Hash ensemble, I also included a hat which features Herb the Hillbilly, the town spokesman. He perpetuates the old stereotype of crazy hill people totin’ guns and drinkin’ shine. Not all of us look like this anymore.
But some of us do.
And that’s why I put in the Rabbit Hash movie, "Rabbit Hash: The Center of the Universe." This is a documentary about our “politics.” In it, you’ll meet some of the more colorful folks from the town. The film talks about our first “election” when a dog became mayor. We’re now on our third dog-mayor. People have stopped even trying to win; no one wants that.
And, the corn cob pipe. I felt really silly and somehow guilty writing “corn cob pipe” on the customs form I had to fill out, as if this is the one thing that would keep the package from arriving safely. While this says “Rabbit Hash” on it, I feel as if it is more representative of the entire state. After all, Kentucky’s number one cash-crop is marijuana and its number one LEGAL cash-crop is tobacco. Since I couldn’t send either of those, I sent this. So, if you got it, put it in the pipe and smoke it.
Now that the Super Bowl is over, America has turned all of its attention to NCAA men’s basketball. And guess what: The University of Kentucky is Number 1. That means that everyone is rushing to their nearest Wal-Mart stores to purchase college apparel in support of their team. This is the time of the year that people can be really proud to be from Kentucky because we’re not all over the news because of something bad, but because we are dominating in sports! And that’s all that really matters… So I sent some corny UK magnets and a hat. I hear its cold up there.
And finally, because you are all truck people and are bound to run into a tree or rock or who knows what else every once in awhile, I sent you a tool that will get rid of any blemish. I sent you a roll of Kentucky chrome, aka. duct tape. It not only fixes anything that breaks but sure gives a nice classy shine to any automobile! And I hear it is a good idea to keep some in your first aid kit for medical emergencies.
So, there you have it. My representation of Kentucky became reduced to my hometown, stereotypes, illicit activities, sports, and more stereotypes. It was intended to be funny and to entertain those Canucks (is that a slur...) the way they had entertained me – by poking fun of what is often associated with our respective homes. Of course, I feel there is much more that Kentucky has to offer but I didn’t think that an event based on driving trucks through the Canadian wilderness in February was necessarily the best place to wax poetic about how the people in Kentucky are amazing, about how beautiful the rolling hills are, or even to provide some of the interesting history. But I hope my act was seen an act of friendship and of a round-about-pride in the best of the 50 United States.
