One Shining Medicare Moment

I knew this was a bad idea.

When Mark Pope announced Media Madness, the invitation sounded innocent enough. Come to the Joe Craft Center, put on a uniform, play a little basketball, and interact with the Kentucky players.

What could go wrong, I asked.

Well, plenty.

I haven’t touched a basketball in three decades. Even when I did, I wasn’t particularly good. My competitive career ended somewhere around eighth-grade intramurals, although “career” may be stretching things. I couldn’t really jump or shoot. My handle was weak. I was small and I was slow.

Other than that, I had all the tools.

Still, somewhere inside every lifelong Kentucky basketball fan is the belief that he was one growth spurt, one lucky recruiting break, and perhaps two completely different parents away from playing for the Wildcats.

My growth spurt never came. Neither did the recruiting call.

Medicare did.

But on Thursday afternoon, more than half a century after I first dreamed about wearing Kentucky blue, I finally got my chance. I’m pretty sure I was one of only a couple of participants with a Medicare eligibility date on his scouting report.

To be fair, I’m in better physical condition than many people 30 years younger. Unfortunately, none of my daily workouts involves dribbling a basketball while another human being tries to steal it. I was fit, but my basketball skills remained in hospice care.

About 70 media members showed up in all sizes, shapes, and stages of athletic denial. There were young guys who looked as if they had been secretly training for weeks in hopes that Pope might discover an overlooked 30-something wing lurking in the Lexington media market. Others appeared to have prepared the same way I did—with compression socks, multiple knee braces, and an emergency contact.

We arrived early and were rewarded with a peek at Kentucky’s practice. That lasted until Pope became somewhat unhinged and kicked all of us out of the gym because we were too loud.

Imagine that. Seventy media members invited into a Kentucky basketball practice and somehow we couldn’t keep quiet. It was our first blown assignment of the afternoon.

Once Media Madness officially began, we were divided into teams and put through passing, dribbling, and shooting drills run by Kentucky coaches and players. Zoom Diallo drew the short straw and became coach of the green team.

Zoom did the best he could with what he had.

Unfortunately, what he had was us.

Coach Pope likes players who communicate, so I tried to do my part.

“Screen left!”

“Ball!”

“Anybody have some ibuprofen?”

My goals were modest. First, avoid injury. Second, scarf down any free refreshments like a true member of the working press. If time permitted, I planned to contribute to winning basketball.

That third goal became increasingly negotiable.

There is a sobering moment in every aging man’s life when his brain tells his body to make a move and his body asks whether the move is absolutely necessary. I saw openings. I recognized opportunities. I simply chose not to pursue them.

Basketball is also much faster at floor level than it looks from press row. From press row, I have excellent court vision. I routinely spot missed rotations, poor shot selection, and passing lanes that Division I athletes somehow fail to see.

On the court, I discovered that the passing lane I saw was actually Malachi Moreno’s leg.

My scouting report was brutally simple: Excellent cardiovascular fitness for his age. Questionable handle at any age. Undersized without the compensating quickness generally associated with being undersized. High basketball IQ that becomes considerably less useful when holding an actual basketball.

There were flashes, though. At least I remember flashes. Then again, those may have been my developing cataracts.

Once the competition started, the green team never had a chance. I would like to blame poor officiating, questionable seeding, or an institutional conspiracy against elderly Asian point guards. The truth was much simpler.

The other teams had players.

There was genuine physicality in the paint. Bodies collided. Rebounds were contested. A few media members competed as if Pope had a spare scholarship hidden beneath his quarter-zip.

Meanwhile, I tried to find open space and avoid becoming part of an orthopedic case study.

At one point I found myself standing on the same court where Kentucky practices, listening to Pope shout instructions, and trying to remember everything I had learned from decades of watching the game. Keep your head up. Move without the ball. Square your shoulders. Follow through.

Bend your knees.

That last one I could actually do. The YMCA deserves some credit.

For a few glorious moments, however, I was no longer a retired orthodontist with a media credential and an AARP card. I was a Kentucky basketball player. Granted, one who would have been immediately encouraged to enter the transfer portal, but a Kentucky basketball player nonetheless.

When the bodies were cleared and the competition ended, the last two teams standing were appropriately KSR and JMI. Even at Media Madness, the major media conglomerates apparently hoard all the talent.

KSR ultimately prevailed. Congratulations to the champions. Youth won the day.

Enjoy it while you can.

Come back in 30 years and let’s see how you do then.

The event also gave the real Wildcats a chance to interview us afterward. This seemed only fair. We’ve spent years asking players how they felt, what they saw on a particular play, and whether they thought the team “wanted it more.”

Now they could ask me what happened out there.

I had the standard answers ready.

I just tried to stay aggressive.

My teammates did a great job finding me.

We have to watch the film, get in the gym, and get better.

At this level, everybody can play.

Except, apparently, me.

Media Madness was humbling. It was exhilarating. It was proof that being in shape and being in basketball shape are two entirely different things—and neither one guarantees you can make an uncontested eight-footer.

But it was also a childhood dream arriving about 55 years late, after the recruiting services had stopped returning my calls and just before the early-bird dinner specials kicked in.

Thank you, Mark Pope. I finally made it onto the court with Kentucky basketball.

My eligibility is intact.

My dignity, however, is officially listed as day-to-day.

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. Currently serving as a columnist for Nolan Group Media, he invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. Explore his latest, Whining for Posterity, and all his books at Amazon.

There Is Another 9/11 Coming

WOW! Twenty-five years.

That hardly seems possible.

September 11, 2001, has joined that small collection of dates where people of a certain age don’t need a history book to tell them what happened.

We remember precisely where we were and what we were doing.

For earlier generations, it was Pearl Harbor and the JFK assassination. For mine, the moon landing, the Challenger explosion…and then 9/11.

I was treating patients on that gorgeous Tuesday morning. Then, shortly after 9 a.m., the world changed. Straightening teeth didn’t seem particularly important anymore.

The clinic stopped. Patients stopped. Staff stopped. We gathered around a television and watched something none of us could quite comprehend.

A plane had hit the World Trade Center. Then another one did. And suddenly we understood.

My daughter was in fifth grade. She came home and said something that struck me as surprisingly perceptive for a child.

“This is a day that will always be remembered.”

Katie was right. Twenty-five years later, we still say the same two words.

Never forget.

We haven’t forgotten, but what exactly is it that we are supposed to remember?

The nearly 3,000 people who went to work, boarded airplanes, reported for duty, or simply showed up for another ordinary Tuesday and never came home?

Of course.

The firefighters and police officers running toward buildings while everyone else was running away?

Absolutely. Our hearts break every time we hear the stories. But there’s something else about 9/11 that still bothers me in a way few other tragedies do. We see ourselves as part of the story.

Most of us know what it feels like to fly.

We’ve buckled that seat belt. We’ve heard the flight attendant’s safety demonstration. We’ve looked out that little window as the ground disappeared beneath us.

That’s what makes imagining those final moments so gut-wrenching. What would I have done? What would you have done? What goes through a person’s mind when the unthinkable realization arrives that these may be the final minutes of your life?

Who do you call? What do you say? Do you cry? Pray? Fight? Tell somebody you love them?

Pearl Harbor had to be horrifying. The Challenger was horrifying. History is filled with horrors beyond anything most of us can imagine. But 9/11 invaded something painfully familiar to most of us—an office, an airplane, a normal morning.

That’s part of what terrorism tries to destroy. Not simply buildings or lives, but our assumption that ordinary life is safe enough to live without constantly thinking about dying.

For a while, it worked. Evil celebrated an apparent victory.

Then something remarkable happened. We adapted, rebuilt, flew again, and went back to work. We had children, watched ballgames, celebrated birthdays, complained about traffic, argued about politics, stood in ridiculously long airport security lines, and grumbled while taking off our belts and shoes.

The TSA line was certainly annoying, but it also served as a monument of sorts to human adaptation. Something terrible happened. We changed the rules. Then we incorporated those rules into everyday life and kept going.

As human beings, that’s what we do. Which raises a much harder question 25 years later.

Are we better because of 9/11?

I’m not sure. We’re certainly different. We became more vigilant. Maybe more suspicious. In some ways more united, at least briefly. In other ways, perhaps more divided. Twenty-five years of history won’t fit neatly into some inspirational conclusion about how tragedy made all of us better people. It didn’t, and that’s discouraging. But it did remind us of something we spend most of our lives trying not to think about.

There is another 9/11 coming.

I don’t necessarily mean another terrorist attack. I pray there never is one. I mean another day when the world changes without asking our permission. Another war. Another pandemic. Another disaster. Another diagnosis. Another telephone call in the middle of the night. Another moment when somebody somewhere looks at the life they knew yesterday and realizes it isn’t coming back.

That’s the uncomfortable bargain of being alive. There’s no crystal ball. We don’t get to know what’s coming.

And maybe that’s where faith enters the story.

I’ve sometimes treated faith as if it were a guarantee that everything will turn out all right. If you believe enough, pray enough, and drop an occasional twenty in the Salvation Army kettle, surely God will keep the truly terrible things away.

But that’s not what faith is. God never promised us a worry-free life. He never promised that airplanes wouldn’t crash, buildings wouldn’t fall, people we love wouldn’t get sick, or that ordinary Tuesday mornings couldn’t suddenly become something else.

If anything, faith asks us to live without those guarantees.

That’s especially hard for someone like me. I want certainty in my life. I suspect most of us do. We all want to know that our children will be safe, assurance that tomorrow will arrive as scheduled, and that the people we love will still be sitting beside us when it does.

September 11 shattered that illusion on a national scale.

But remember this—uncertainty was there on September 10, too.

We just couldn’t see it.

And if you’re struggling today—with fear, uncertainty, grief, loneliness, or simply something in your life that isn’t turning out the way you hoped—I understand more than you might think. I struggle, too.

I wish I could tell you that everything will be OK. I can’t. That’s a promise none of us gets to make. But 25 years after watching those towers fall, I can tell you this: human beings have an extraordinary capacity to endure things they once thought they couldn’t. Sometimes faith isn’t feeling fearless. Sometimes it’s simply getting up tomorrow morning and trying again.

Maybe faith isn’t believing that God will prevent the next terrible thing. Maybe it’s trusting that whatever comes, fear doesn’t get to decide how we live today.

On September 12, 2001, Americans woke up in a world that looked very different from the one they had awakened to 24 hours earlier. And somehow, they began again. The horror hadn’t disappeared. The grief hadn’t ended. God hadn’t suddenly promised that nothing terrible would ever happen again. They simply got up and kept going.

That’s resilience. And perhaps that’s faith, too.

Twenty-five years later, we still don’t know what tomorrow holds. We never did.

All we can do is live today.

Never forget.

But never stop living, either.

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. He currently serves as a columnist for Nolan Group Media and invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. His latest book is Whining for Posterity, available on Amazon.

Will Stein Wants You to Lose Your Mind

Will Stein has a simple request for Kentucky fans Saturday.

Lose your minds.

Scream. Yell. Get to Kroger Field early. Forget the tailgate. Be in your seat for warmups. Make so much noise that Alabama quarterback Keelon Russell has to communicate using hand signals, smoke signals or perhaps divine intervention.

Stein wants 65,000 people watching his team warm up. He wants the loudest game in Kentucky football history.

“I want people’s voices hoarse when they leave here,” Stein said Tuesday. “They got to take off work on Monday because they can’t talk.”

Finally, a doctor’s excuse I can enthusiastically endorse.

There’s just one catch.

While Stein wants the rest of us behaving like complete lunatics, he wants his football team to remain approximately as emotional as a Bill Belichick press conference.

I’m not sure Kentucky fans can fathom that. After all, SEC Nation is coming to town. Alabama is paying a visit. Kentucky hasn’t beaten the Crimson Tide since 1997. The game is on national television. Surely there must be some benefit to harnessing all that emotion.

Nope.

“Emotions get you beat,” Stein said. “We want our fans to be emotional. We don’t want us, as players or coaches, to be emotional.”

I’m not sure I buy it. Not completely, anyway.

There is a difference between being emotional and being controlled by emotion. And if ever there were a Saturday when Kentucky could use a little extra juice, I’m guessing the one with Alabama standing on the opposite sideline might qualify.

Emotion can make you reckless. It can also make you run through somebody.

It can make you jump offsides. It can also make you chase a ball carrier another five yards.

It can make you try to be a hero. It can also convince you that the five-star guy lined up across from you isn’t nearly as intimidating as everybody spent all week telling you he was.

Surely Stein knows that. In fact, I suspect he knows it better than he’s letting on. Maybe “emotions get you beat” is exactly what a head coach should tell us on Tuesday. Maybe what gets said inside the Kentucky locker room at 3:20 Saturday afternoon sounds just a little different.

Wink, wink.

Because Stein himself is creating an emotional powder keg. He wants 65,000 people inside Kroger Field for warmups. He wants the place louder than it has ever been. He wants Kentucky fans screaming until they need sick leave. That’s an awful lot of gasoline to pour around the building if you don’t intend for your football team to feel any of the heat.

Stein has been preaching his thermostat-versus-thermometer analogy since he arrived. Thermometers react to their surroundings. Thermostats set the temperature.

Saturday may provide the ultimate laboratory experiment. Because the temperature inside Kroger Field figures to be 487 degrees.

Kentucky is 2–39–1 all-time against Alabama. The Wildcats haven’t beaten the Crimson Tide since 1997.

Stein was there.

He was seven or eight years old and remembers the tailgates and K House more than the actual football game.

Someone asked whether he planned to show his players highlights of that historic victory. Stein acknowledged that he probably should. Then he remembered something horrifying. None of his players were alive.

“I was asking a kid today,” Stein said. “I was like, ‘When were you born?’ In like 2004? I’m like, ‘Oh, shit.’”

There it was again.

For those keeping score at home, that’s two consecutive Stein press conferences with a mild profanity outbreak. After beating Youngstown State, he nearly dropped an F-bomb while explaining his plans to celebrate with a cold beer. This time, discovering that you’re old enough to coach people born in 2004 apparently did the trick.

Wait until somebody tells him they don’t remember Tim Tebow.

Stein insists Saturday isn’t a defining game.

“They’re all big,” he said. “Youngstown State last week was the biggest game of our season because that was the first game. Now we play Alabama.”

Come on, Coach. This one is bigger. SEC Nation isn’t setting up shop in Lexington because Kentucky is playing Youngstown State. ABC isn’t putting it on national television because it’s just another game. And 65,000 people aren’t being ordered into Kroger Field early because Stein desperately wants them to see stretching.

This is Alabama. Stein knows it. His players know it. Big Blue Nation certainly knows it.

The trick isn’t pretending Saturday is just another football game. It’s recognizing that it isn’t—and then playing like it is.

That’s where I think Stein is exactly right. Use the emotion. Don’t let the emotion use you.

So perhaps Saturday afternoon, somewhere behind those closed locker-room doors, the thermostat gets turned up just a notch. Maybe Stein reminds his players what opportunity is standing on the other side of that door. Maybe his voice gets a little louder. Maybe there’s even an adjective we aren’t allowed to print.

Then the doors open.

The players run out.

And everybody settles down.

Except us.

We’re supposed to lose our minds.

Cancel the Season

DISCLAIMER: This column is satire. Anyone taking it literally should immediately cancel the season.

(LEXINGTON, KY.) – For those of us who love the Wildcats, it was fun while it lasted.

For eight glorious days, Kentucky basketball had everything. There was plenty of momentum, optimism, talent, and depth. Mark Pope had assembled a loaded roster, complete with Final Four expectations and perhaps even another national championship banner dangling somewhere off in the distance.

Then Mark Mitchell ruined everything.

He went back to Missouri.

Missouri.

I haven’t felt this betrayed since Rick Pitino put on a Louisville tie. Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration—just a little embellishment on my part.

Just over a week ago, Mitchell was coming to Kentucky, and suddenly everything surrounding Mark Pope’s third season seemed to fall perfectly into place. Malachi Moreno was back. Milan Momcilovic was here. The roster was loaded. Pope was cooking. J. Batt was fighting the SEC. Greg Sankey was getting dragged into courtrooms.

Big Blue Nation had rediscovered its swagger.

And Mark Mitchell—the two-time All-SEC forward who averaged 18.3 points last season—was going to be the final piece.

Not merely a piece.

The piece.

At least that’s what we convinced ourselves because that’s what Kentucky fans do better than anybody.

Give us one five-star recruit, one transfer portal commitment, or one grainy summer practice video showing somebody hitting three consecutive jump shots, and we’ll have the championship parade route mapped out before dinner.

Mitchell was considerably more substantial than that. He gave Kentucky another proven scorer at the four position, another experienced body, and another legitimate SEC star. His commitment didn’t merely improve Kentucky’s roster. It changed the way we looked at the season.

Kentucky wasn’t merely going to be good anymore. Kentucky was going to be scary. Maybe even national championship scary.

Then Monday arrived, and we all heard the news. “Mark Mitchell is returning to Missouri.”

Excuse me?

I thought we had a deal. I thought the paperwork was signed. I thought the courts had spoken. I thought Greg Sankey had been defeated. I thought J. Batt had stormed Birmingham, planted a UK flag in the SEC offices, and returned to Lexington carrying Mitchell over his shoulder.

Apparently not.

Instead, Mitchell is returning to the same school he was supposedly leaving, and Kentucky is once again holding an empty roster spot and wondering what the heck just happened.

This is unacceptable. Someone must be blamed.

Mitchell? Sankey? The SEC presidents? The NCAA? The transfer portal? The judicial system? Mark Pope? Pope Leo? Missouri?

YES! Let’s blame Missouri.

It’s easier.

Missouri joined the SEC in 2012 and I’ve never completely understood why. They’re somewhere out there west of St. Louis, occasionally beating Kentucky in something and otherwise minding their own business.

Now they’ve stolen OUR power forward.

I move we revoke their conference membership—effective immediately.

And please don’t bother responding with any rational explanations. I know Mitchell’s situation became tangled in an absurd web of NCAA eligibility rules, court rulings, and SEC transfer restrictions. Returning to Missouri apparently provides him a cleaner path toward actually playing basketball this season.

That’s fine, but I don’t want rationality right now.

I WANT OUTRAGE!

Because eight days ago, Kentucky basketball had momentum. Real momentum.

Now?

Season over.

Don’t even play it. Cancel Big Blue Madness. Board up Rupp Arena. Tell the pep band to stay home. Return all season tickets. Turn the Craft Center into pickleball courts.

Aargh, Kentucky basketball has lost Mark Mitchell.

How can we possibly go on?

Of course, we will.

That’s the funniest part of this entire ridiculous episode. Kentucky had a really good basketball team before Mark Mitchell committed. Kentucky had a really good basketball team while Mark Mitchell was committed. And Kentucky still has a really good basketball team now that Mark Mitchell apparently has decided he’d rather spend another winter in Columbia, Missouri.

The Wildcats still have Moreno, Momcilovic, Zoom Diallo, Alex Wilkins, and Kam Williams. They still have plenty of talent. They still have legitimate reasons to believe this season could become something special.

But that’s tomorrow’s perspective.

Today, we mourn.

Eight unforgettable days.

August 22, 2026 — August 31, 2026.

Mark Mitchell’s Kentucky career.

Zero games.

Zero points.

Zero rebounds.

Zero turnovers.

And somehow, one of the most exhausting Wildcats I’ve ever covered.

Rest in peace.

We barely knew ya.

A Face Full of Cake

Craig Skinner and Trinity Ward square off in an epic cake battle celebrating Skinner’s 500th career victory (Photo Credit UK Athletics/Kentucky Volleyball).

(LEXINGTON, Ky.) — Craig Skinner won his 500th volleyball match Saturday night, which apparently earned him the traditional reward reserved for legendary coaches everywhere.

A face full of cake.

Kentucky swept South Florida at Historic Memorial Coliseum, setting off a postgame celebration that included video tributes, family congratulations, and Trinity Ward being entrusted with the cake.

Bad idea.

“I was like, ‘Do I get to throw it in his face?’” Ward said.

She did.

Skinner retaliated, Ward claimed she was “tapping out,” and everyone eventually survived long enough to discuss a considerably more impressive accomplishment.

Five hundred wins.

“The 500 thing is not on my radar,” Skinner said.

Maybe it should be. Five hundred victories don’t happen accidentally, particularly at a place where Skinner wasn’t exactly inheriting a volleyball dynasty when he arrived 22 years ago.

He left Nebraska as a career assistant coach without really knowing whether he could successfully run his own program. He and his wife, Megan, came to Kentucky figuring he would see what he could build and perhaps move along after three to five years.

“They’re at the bottom,” Skinner recalled thinking. “Let’s see what we can do.”

So much for the five-year plan.

Skinner stayed, and somewhere along the way Kentucky volleyball went from trying to become relevant to becoming one of the programs everybody else recognizes.

The Wildcats now compete for SEC and national championships, draw large crowds to Historic Memorial Coliseum and receive invitations to the kinds of events that would have sounded preposterous when Skinner arrived. They’ll play UCLA on Wednesday and then face Penn State next weekend at Wrigley Field.

Those aren’t the opportunities Skinner inherited.

They’re the opportunities he helped create.

The interesting part, however, is listening to him explain how.

After Kentucky swept Utah State on Friday night, Skinner talked about the difficult week of practice that followed an earlier loss to Pittsburgh. He thought his team had gotten a little too comfortable.

“Comfort is the enemy of great,” he said.

So practice became decidedly less comfortable.

Skinner doesn’t necessarily believe the old coaching cliché that you play exactly like you practice. Players make mistakes. Execution isn’t always perfect. Some practices are ugly.

What matters to him is the effort behind them.

“I think you play to the effort you give,” he said.

A night later, after victory No. 500 and another sweep—this time over South Florida—Skinner offered an additional glimpse into a philosophy that has served him pretty well for more than two decades.

“Coaches are teachers,” he said. “As soon as coaches lose sight of that, that’s typically when they go off the rails.”

His players seem to understand that part of him better than anybody.

When asked what makes Skinner effective as a teacher, they didn’t talk about sophisticated volleyball strategy or championship-level motivational speeches. They talked about patience. They talked about his willingness to explain something differently when a player doesn’t understand it the first time. They talked about his consistency and how he shows up for them the same way every day regardless of what might be happening in his own life.

They also revealed that he makes a mean risotto and can apparently perform a backflip off a diving board.

I didn’t see either of those accomplishments listed in his official UK bio.

But the number 500 wasn’t what made Skinner emotional Saturday night. Watching the video tributes from former players did.

He remembered what those players were like when they first arrived in Lexington and, more importantly, the people they had become by the time they left.

“That motivates me more than wins,” he said.

Don’t misunderstand him. Skinner likes winning just fine.

“Wins are great, and championships are great, and we all are striving to do that,” he said. “Don’t let people kid you when they say they’re not.”

He’s simply learned that the best way to accumulate victories isn’t necessarily to obsess over accumulating victories.

Teach players. Develop them. Demand effort. Get an entire group of people, as Skinner put it, “looking down the same tracks at the same time.”

Do that long enough and apparently the wins start piling up.

Five hundred of them, to be exact.

Saturday night was supposed to celebrate everything Craig Skinner has accomplished during his 22 years at Kentucky. Instead, it may have provided a pretty good explanation for how he accomplished it.

And when somebody tells you to take off your glasses for a team picture while Trinity Ward is standing nearby holding a cake, don’t fall for it.

Welcome to the SEC, J. Batt. Greg Sankey Would Like a Word.

Greg Sankey, pictured at the SEC media day in July. Photo Credit: Jordan Godfree / Imagn Images

J. Batt has had a pretty good honeymoon.

Since arriving at Kentucky, the new athletics director has talked about listening to fans, improving their experience, and positioning the Wildcats to compete at the highest level. He has opened doors. Now we may find out whether he’s willing to kick one down.

Because Mark Mitchell’s eligibility has suddenly become about something much bigger than whether Kentucky adds another talented basketball player. It’s about power. And Greg Sankey and the SEC have plenty of it.

According to CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander, SEC presidents have reaffirmed conference rules that could prevent Mitchell from playing for Kentucky this season. Mitchell played at Missouri last year but didn’t enter the transfer portal during the spring window.

There’s a pretty good reason for that. He wasn’t eligible. Mitchell had exhausted his eligibility after four seasons of college basketball. There was no reason to enter the portal because, as far as everyone knew, there wasn’t another college season to play.

Then everything changed.

Mitchell and other players challenged the NCAA’s eligibility rules in court. A Jefferson County judge granted a temporary restraining order allowing Mitchell to pursue a fifth season. He entered the portal, committed to Kentucky, and suddenly Mark Pope had another experienced piece for a roster with championship aspirations.

Enter the SEC. According to Norlander, Mitchell is believed to fall under the SEC’s prohibition on intraconference transfers because he didn’t enter the portal during the designated window.

Rules are rules. Except when complying with them requires a time machine. How exactly was Mitchell supposed to enter the portal in April for a fifth season that didn’t exist? Unless Doc Brown and a DeLorean are somewhere in Kentucky’s NIL budget, I’m not sure how that was supposed to work.

That’s the question Kentucky should be asking forcefully.

The timing couldn’t be more interesting.

The SEC also just adopted severe penalties in a separate but related eligibility battle for schools that roster athletes who previously signed professional contracts or declared for professional drafts without properly withdrawing. Those penalties reportedly can include a half-season suspension for the head coach, massive financial penalties, and even the loss of conference voting privileges.

That’s not a slap on the wrist. That’s Sankey walking into the room carrying a sledgehammer.

There’s a reason for it.

The NCAA has spent years getting pummeled in court. Every time college sports’ governing bodies draw another line around amateurism, somebody seems to find a judge willing to erase it.

So the SEC is trying something different. Instead of punishing the player, punish the school. Make the consequences painful enough and nobody will dare test the rule.

That’s clever. Whether it survives a legal challenge is another matter. More immediately, we’ll see whether Kentucky is willing to push back.

This is where Batt comes in.

Batt’s early months have included plenty of popular decisions. Better concessions. More fan engagement. Open practices. Even an invitation for aging media members to risk orthopedic surgery playing basketball.

I’ve applauded all of it.

This, on the other hand, is different.

Kentucky isn’t fighting the NCAA from some distant outpost. It’s potentially challenging its own conference and arguably the most powerful commissioner in college athletics.

And Kentucky isn’t merely a victim of SEC governance, either. It’s a member. Its president sits at the same table as everybody else’s. The conference’s rules are ultimately the product of its own institutions.

That makes this situation complicated. It also makes it fascinating.

I’m not suggesting Kentucky should recklessly throw Mitchell onto the floor and dare Sankey to suspend Mark Pope.

There’s a difference between courage and stupidity.

But Kentucky should fight every reasonable fight for him.

Ask for the waiver. Challenge the interpretation. Support Mitchell’s legal efforts where appropriate. Make the SEC explain why a player should be punished for missing a deadline he had no conceivable reason to meet.

And if those avenues fail?

Then Batt has a decision to make.

Because there will be other Mark Mitchells. College athletics is changing too rapidly for there not to be. Courts will rule. Players will sue. Conferences will respond. Rules written six months earlier will collide with circumstances nobody anticipated.

Somebody eventually will discover exactly where the SEC’s authority ends. Kentucky doesn’t necessarily need to volunteer to be the guinea pig. LSU appears perfectly willing to handle that assignment. But Kentucky shouldn’t run from the laboratory, either.

Batt has spent his first few months telling Big Blue Nation that Kentucky intends to think bigger.

Good.

Here’s his chance.

Welcome to the SEC, J. Batt. Greg Sankey would like a word. Something tells me this meeting won’t be about concession prices.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I used to hate birthdays.

Mine, anyway.

Every August 25 felt less like a celebration and more like an annual notification that my shot clock was running out. Another year older. Another year closer to six feet under.

People would inevitably tell me, “It’s better than the alternative.” I hated that saying, too, mostly because they were right. Funny how getting older changes your perspective about getting older.

Today, I’m celebrating another birthday, and instead of lamenting the number, I’m trying to appreciate the fact that I get to have one. Because not everybody does.

I’ve been thinking about Tina Cox today.

Tina was a media colleague and one of those people who always seemed so alive. Vibrant is probably the best word. She had an energy about her that made it difficult to imagine a UK sporting event without her in it.

I remember distinctly that the last time I spoke with Tina, she asked me about Bingo.

She always asked me about my dog.

She could have asked about my writing, Kentucky basketball, my family, or any of the supposedly important things going on in my life. Instead, sooner or later, I’d get, “How’s Bingo?”

I loved that about her.

I’m not sure why that particular memory has stuck with me so strongly since she passed. Maybe because it was such a small thing, and I’m learning that small things aren’t always small.

Neither are birthdays. Tina doesn’t get another one. I do.

That realization will sober you up pretty quickly when you’re tempted to complain about getting old.

So I’m trying to savor today, and many of you have made that easy. I’ve heard from people I see all the time, people I haven’t seen in years, and people I’ve never met in person. I’ve gotten texts, calls, Facebook posts, and messages from people whose names brought back memories from completely different chapters of my life.

Some of you wrote a sentence. Some wrote several paragraphs. Some apparently decided a Facebook-generated “Happy Birthday!” was sufficient effort for another year.

I’ll take it.

Every single one meant something to me. Dan Mackey even bought me lunch. Thank you.

But here’s the strange thing about birthdays. You can hear from a hundred people and still notice the one person you didn’t hear from.

Kanisa didn’t wish me a happy birthday today.

There. I said it.

And it hurts more than I care to admit.

I’m not angry with her. I understand why things are the way they are, probably better than most people could. But I’ve also learned that understanding something intellectually doesn’t make it hurt any less emotionally.

I would trade a whole bunch of Facebook greetings for one “Happy birthday” from my wife.

Maybe that sounds ungrateful. It’s not. It’s just true.

So if there’s anything this birthday has taught me, it’s something I never would have considered years ago when birthdays were mostly about cake, presents and complaining about getting older:

Don’t ever take for granted hearing a “Happy birthday” from the person you love.

Don’t take for granted the card on the kitchen counter, the kiss in the morning, the dinner you didn’t particularly want to go to, or the lousy present they bought even though they should know you better by now.

And don’t dismiss those two simple words just because you’ve heard them every year for the last 30 or 40 years.

There may come a birthday when you’d give almost anything to hear them again.

I’m incredibly grateful for everyone who remembered me today. I’m saddened by the one person who didn’t.

But I’m also here.

Another August 25.

Another birthday I once might have dreaded.

This time, I’ll take it (along with any gift cards, free lunches, or book purchases).

Barry, You Ghosted Lexington!

I promised my concert-going days were over after seeing Boy George and Culture Club at the Hollywood Bowl.

I meant it.

I had retired.

No more Ticketmaster.

No more service fees, convenience fees, processing fees, breathing fees, and “because we can” fees.

Then Kanisa mentioned Barry Manilow.

My wife always loved Barry.

So there I was, sheepishly logging back into Ticketmaster one last time, thinking, What’s the worst that could happen?

Never…ever…ask that question.

I wasn’t there because I’m a Fanilow.

Truth be told, I packed a book. Nothing says, “I’m here under protest,” quite like bringing reading material to a concert.

But the biggest disappointment wasn’t mine.

It was Kanisa’s.

Because of her mental health struggles, simply getting out into the world isn’t easy anymore. Concerts, ballgames, restaurants, and other special outings have become few and far between. Those moments of normalcy—the ones most of us take for granted—have become precious.

That’s why this night mattered.

I wasn’t nearly as excited about hearing Barry Manilow as I was about watching Kanisa. I couldn’t wait to see that smile on her face when the lights dimmed and the music started. For a couple of hours, I wanted her to forget the burdens she carries every day and simply enjoy being part of the crowd.

Instead, before the first note was ever played, that moment disappeared.

With less than an hour before showtime…

Boom.

Concert canceled.

The explanation?

“Due to unforeseen circumstances.”

That’s it.

Four words.

I’ve gotten longer explanations from disgruntled coaches after devastating losses.

At first, I wasn’t upset. I was worried. After all, Barry Manilow is 83 years old.

Eighty-three!

I’m thrilled when I can get through Costco without looking for the Advil. Barry has been flying around the country performing multiple 90-minute concerts before thousands of fans.

That’s incredible.

So naturally, my mind immediately went to the worst-case scenario.

Please don’t let this be another Elvis.

Nobody wanted to hear those words. If Barry had suffered a medical emergency, this column wouldn’t exist. We’d all simply be thankful he was okay.

Then came the plot twist.

Barry showed up the very next night in Cincinnati.

And apparently put on a terrific show.

Wait…

What?

Now you’ve got me confused.

Lexington gets four mysterious words.

Cincinnati gets “Copacabana.”

How exactly does that work?

And before someone says, “Well, unforeseen circumstances happen,” you’re absolutely right.

They do.

But this also wasn’t Barry’s first Lexington cancellation. His appearance in March had been rescheduled as well.

At some point, “unforeseen circumstances” starts sounding like the entertainment version of, “Your call is important to us.”

Meanwhile, thousands of fans had already spent enough money to finance a small used car. The tickets, hotels, parking, dinner gas, time…and, of course, those lovely Ticketmaster fees that somehow survive every cancellation known to mankind.

People weren’t just buying a concert. They were buying an experience. Instead, they’ll get an email.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I probably was the least disappointed person there…for myself.

Remember, I brought a book.

Had they announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Barry Manilow has canceled. In his place will be a three-hour lecture on Kentucky tax law,” I probably would’ve found a comfortable seat to finally finish my book.

But I was deeply disappointed for Kanisa. And for the thousands of people around us. Some had waited years. Some had driven hours. One lady proudly told us she had seen Barry more than a dozen times. She wasn’t angry. She looked crushed.

It was the disappointment—not the inconvenience—that stayed with me. It was the sadness of watching people walk away from Rupp Arena carrying the excitement they’d brought with them.

Here’s what’s frustrating.

I’m actually thrilled Barry appears to be healthy.

Seriously.

At 83, I hope he’s performing for as long as he wants.

If I’m still traveling anywhere at 83 besides my primary care physician’s office, somebody should throw me a parade.

But if you’re healthy enough to entertain Cincinnati a day later, surely Lexington deserves more than four words.

Throw us a bone.

Tell us the bus broke down.

Tell us the stage lights exploded.

Tell us Barry ate some bad lettuce.

Anything.

Just don’t leave thousands of paying customers filling in the blanks themselves. Because human nature almost always fills those blanks with something worse than the truth.

As for refunds?

Absolutely.

That’s the easy part.

But refunds don’t replace the hotel bill, the parking fees, or the dinner at Jeff Ruby’s. They don’t give people back a night they had been anticipating for months.

I’m not requesting compensation for pain and suffering. These things happen in the world of live entertainment. But common courtesy doesn’t cost anything. An honest explanation is free.

Barry Manilow has spent decades singing, “I Write the Songs.”

Lexington isn’t asking him to write another one.

We’re just asking him to finish the sentence.

Because of Me?

When Will Stein was asked at SEC Media Days why Kentucky football will succeed now after years of inconsistency, his answer wasn’t long.

“Because of me.”

That’s certainly one way to grab a headline.

My first reaction? I actually laughed.

My second reaction? I’m still not sure what to think.

On one hand, I appreciate confidence. You don’t become an SEC head coach by doubting yourself. If you don’t believe you’re the right person for the job, why should anyone else? Fans have spent years begging for coaches with swagger, vision, and the ability to convince recruits that Kentucky can compete with anyone.

Will Stein clearly believes all of that.

In today’s college football landscape, maybe he almost has to.

Coaches aren’t just coaches anymore. They’re CEOs, fundraisers, recruiters, salesmen, and motivational speakers rolled into one. Every microphone is another recruiting pitch. Every quote is designed for social media. Every appearance is another chance to create momentum.

Perhaps “Because of me” wasn’t really directed at reporters.

Perhaps it was directed at every high school recruit listening.

Still…

There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance.

Stein has already made comments suggesting that everyone wants to play for Will Stein. Now comes, “Because of me.”

At some point, the words begin to pile up.

And eventually, they demand results.

The Bible offers a timeless warning: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Those words weren’t written for football coaches, but they apply remarkably well. The higher you build yourself up publicly, the farther you have to fall if things don’t work out.

That’s what gives me pause.

Kentucky football doesn’t have the luxury of making bold proclamations without consequences. This isn’t Alabama. It isn’t Georgia. It isn’t Ohio State.

National audiences are already skeptical of Kentucky football. Many expect the Wildcats to finish somewhere in the middle or bottom of the SEC. Every confident sound bite becomes another receipt waiting to be pulled out if the season starts 2-3 or 3-4.

The internet never forgets. Neither do opposing fan bases. If Kentucky wins, Stein will look like a genius. If Kentucky struggles, those same quotes will be replayed endlessly. The memes practically write themselves.

That’s the risk.

Personally, I’ve always preferred coaches who let their teams do the talking.

Nick Saban rarely made games about himself. Mark Stoops built Kentucky largely by embracing an underdog mentality. Even Mark Pope, as energetic as he is, usually redirects praise toward his players, the program, or Big Blue Nation. Most coaches instinctively redirect the credit away from themselves.

Stein’s approach feels different.

More personal.

More confrontational.

More “watch me.”

Maybe that’s exactly what Kentucky needs.

Maybe the program has spent too many years trying to prove it belongs instead of acting like it already does. Confidence can be contagious. Players often reflect the personality of their coach. If Stein genuinely believes Kentucky is about to become something special, perhaps that belief spreads throughout the locker room.

I’d love nothing more than to look back in December and say his confidence was completely justified.

In fact, Kentucky fans should hope that’s exactly what happens.

Because if Stein backs up every word with victories, nobody will care how bold his quotes sounded in July.

Winning has a remarkable way of turning arrogance into leadership.

But until then, I’m reserving judgment.

Confidence is essential.

Cockiness is entertaining.

Results are everything.

One thing is certain: Will Stein has ensured that people are paying attention.

Now comes the hard part.

Living up to “Because of me.”

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. Currently serving as a columnist for Nolan Group Media, he invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. Explore his latest, Whining for Posterity, and all his books at Amazon.

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