Because of Me?

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.

Why Kentucky Didn’t Want Another Mitch Barnhart

Why Kentucky Didn’t Want Another Mitch Barnhart

The easiest way to understand Kentucky’s hiring of J Batt is to stop thinking about Mitch Barnhart. In fact, the farther away you get from Mitch Barnhart, the closer you get to understanding why Kentucky made this hire.

That’s not criticism. It’s reality.

For twenty-three years, Mitch Barnhart was exactly what Kentucky needed. He was steady, measured, patient, and dependable—all necessary traits for the head honcho in charge.

If Mitch Barnhart were a vehicle, he would have been a Toyota Camry. He wasn’t flashy. He wasn’t loud. He wasn’t constantly reminding you how innovative he was. He simply started every morning and got you where you needed to go.

For more than two decades, that was a tremendous asset. The problem, however, isn’t that Barnhart changed. The problem is that college athletics did.

The world Mitch Barnhart mastered no longer exists.

When Barnhart arrived in Lexington, players couldn’t transfer freely. NIL wasn’t a thing. Revenue sharing wasn’t a thing. Athletic departments weren’t competing against professional franchises for attention. Nobody was discussing private equity investments in college sports. Most fans had never heard the words “collective” or “portal.”

Back then, an athletics director hired coaches, built facilities, balanced budgets, and tried not to make national headlines. Today? Today an athletics director needs to be part CEO, part fundraiser, part lawyer, part economist, part politician, and part crisis manager. Somewhere along the way, college athletics stopped being a department and became an industry.

That’s why Kentucky’s hiring of J Batt feels so significant.

Kentucky wasn’t looking for the next Mitch Barnhart.

Kentucky was looking for Mitch Barnhart’s opposite.

Again, that’s not an insult. It’s a recognition that the job description has fundamentally changed.

Barnhart represented stability. Mitch Barnhart ran Kentucky athletics the way your favorite small-town banker used to run a bank. He knew people. He remembered names. He understood that relationships mattered. You got the sense he could walk through a student-athlete dining hall and recognize half the room.

J Batt inherits a world where the athletics director is less small-town banker and more hedge fund manager. The challenge isn’t remembering everyone’s name. The challenge is making sure the balance sheet survives long enough for there to be a team wearing the jersey.

Barnhart spent years carefully building Kentucky athletics.

J Batt arrives at a time when the entire structure of college sports seems to change on a monthly basis.

One man was built for certainty.

The other was hired for chaos.

And make no mistake—chaos is exactly what college athletics has become. Schools are paying players. Players are changing schools. Conferences are expanding. Conferences are disappearing. Lawsuits are flying. Revenue-sharing models are being rewritten. Television contracts are driving decisions that would have seemed absurd a decade ago.

The sport isn’t evolving. It’s mutating. Which is why I find Kentucky’s hire so fascinating. The university didn’t simply replace an athletics director. It acknowledged reality.

For years, Kentucky’s greatest advantages were tradition, facilities, fan support, and resources. Those things still matter. But they no longer guarantee anything. Today, success depends on navigating a constantly shifting landscape where the rules seem to change faster than the scoreboards.

The modern athletics director isn’t simply protecting an institution. He’s repositioning it. That’s a different skill set. It’s also a different personality.

Mitch Barnhart always felt like a caretaker.

J Batt feels more like a venture capitalist.

One was entrusted with preserving what Kentucky had built.

The other is being asked to figure out what Kentucky must become.

Those are very different assignments. And that’s why this hire feels bigger than many fans realize.

Most people will judge J Batt by wins and losses. That’s understandable. Fans should care about wins and losses. But his biggest challenge may have nothing to do with scoreboards. His challenge is ensuring Kentucky remains Kentucky while college athletics transforms into something none of us fully recognize.

That’s not easy. In some ways, it’s impossible. Because the truth is that the college sports many of us grew up loving are already gone.

The amateur model is gone.

The old recruiting model is gone.

The old roster-building model is gone.

The old business model is gone.

What’s replacing them remains a work in progress.

Which brings us back to J Batt. Kentucky didn’t hire him because Mitch Barnhart failed. Kentucky hired him because the world Mitch Barnhart mastered disappeared.

The next decade won’t be about protecting the past. It will be about surviving the future.

And that may be the most important hire Kentucky has made in years.

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.

Seven Million Dollars? Have We Completely Lost Our Minds?

Seven Million Dollars? Have We Completely Lost Our Minds?

Milan Momcilovic/ photo courtesy Jacob Rice/ Iowa State Daily

I have a confession to make. When I first heard the reported figure Kentucky allegedly paid Milan Momcilovic to come to Lexington, I assumed somebody had misplaced a decimal point.

Seven million dollars? Are you kidding me?

I immediately began searching for clarification. Surely they meant seven hundred thousand. Maybe 1.7 million. Perhaps even 2.7 million. After all, NIL has changed everything. But seven million dollars for one college basketball player? That number sounds less like a recruiting budget and more like something you would pay to acquire a small Caribbean island.

Before anyone accuses me of criticizing Momcilovic, let me make something perfectly clear. This isn’t about him.

I wanted more than anything for Kentucky to land him.

I think he’s exactly the kind of player Mark Pope needed. Kentucky lacked consistent perimeter shooting last season. Momcilovic is one of the best shooters in college basketball and immediately makes the Wildcats better in so many different ways. Not only will he score, but he’ll automatically spread the floor, allow his teammates to create, and open up the lanes for a bunch of easy baskets. If Coach Mark Pope wanted him, I wanted him. That’s not the issue.

The issue is the number.

Maybe I’m showing my age, but I grew up in an era when Kentucky fans debated whether a coach was worth a million-dollar contract. I can still remember when coaching salaries themselves seemed outrageous. Today, we’re discussing the possibility of paying a college basketball player seven times that amount.

Think about the names that have passed through Lexington.

Dan Issel.

Jack Givens.

Kyle Macy.

Jamal Mashburn.

Anthony Davis.

John Wall.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

None of them made anything remotely approaching seven million dollars while wearing Kentucky blue. Heck, Coach Adolph Rupp most likely didn’t make seven million dollars in his entire forty-year career.

Yet here we are.

What fascinates me isn’t necessarily the amount itself. What fascinates me is how quickly we’ve become numb to numbers that would have seemed absurd only a few years ago. If somebody had predicted ten years ago that Kentucky fans would be casually discussing whether a player was worth seven million dollars, we would have laughed them out of the room. That’s a lot of twenty-dollar handshakes.

Today the reaction is often, “Well, that’s just what it costs.”

Maybe that’s true.

In fact, that’s the uncomfortable part of this conversation. If Kentucky wants to compete for championships, perhaps this really is what it costs. Perhaps the market has spoken. Perhaps this is simply the new reality of major college athletics.

If that’s the case, then we should at least be honest about what we’ve become.

For years the argument was that players deserved compensation. I didn’t always agree. I felt the free tuition and associated amenities were more than a fair tradeoff.

But I’ve since relented a bit. Universities, television networks, apparel companies, and coaches were making fortunes while the players generated much of the product. I’ll admit the old system wasn’t fair.

But somewhere along the way, college athletics stopped evolving and started mutating.

Today we have free agency, bidding wars, contract negotiations, agents, revenue sharing, NIL collectives, and transfer portals. The jerseys still say Kentucky across the front, but increasingly the sport resembles professional basketball with pep bands and mascots.

I don’t blame the players.

In fact, if someone offered me seven million dollars when I was nineteen years old, I would have sprinted toward the nearest signature line before they could change their minds.

The players didn’t create this marketplace. The adults did. The schools did. The boosters did. The television networks did. And yes, the fans did.

For years, fans demanded that their schools spare no expense. We demanded elite recruits. We demanded Final Fours. We demanded championships. We demanded that our programs do whatever it took to stay ahead of the competition.

Well, apparently somebody listened.

Now we’re seeing what “whatever it takes” actually looks like.

Of course, all of this leads to the obvious question.

Is any college basketball player worth seven million dollars?

My answer is simple.

No.

Nobody is worth seven million dollars. Not John Wall. Not Anthony Davis. Not Cooper Flagg. Not anybody.

Unless…they win Number Nine.

That’s the standard at Kentucky.

At seven million dollars, we’re no longer talking about potential. We’re no longer discussing upside, projections, or recruiting rankings. We’re discussing results only. We’re discussing banners. We’re discussing championships.

Fair or unfair, a number that large creates expectations that are equally large.

If Kentucky wins a national championship, nobody will care what Momcilovic cost. Fans will call it a bargain. They’ll call it money well spent. They’ll celebrate the investment the same way businesses celebrate a successful acquisition.

But if Kentucky falls short, that number won’t disappear. It will hover over every loss, every missed shot, every disappointing March exit. That’s simply the reality of attaching professional-level money to college-level expectations.

Perhaps that’s what bothers me most.

The old connection between fans and players was built largely around shared identity. Players came to Kentucky because they wanted to be Wildcats. Fans embraced them because they represented Kentucky. Today, many players come because Kentucky assembled the most competitive financial package.

Again, I don’t blame them. Most of us would do exactly the same thing. But let’s not pretend the relationship hasn’t changed.

Maybe that’s progress. Maybe it’s inevitable. Maybe it’s even fair. I honestly don’t know.

But every once in a while, I hear a number like seven million dollars and find myself wondering whether we’ve mistaken evolution for absurdity.

And then I remind myself of one final truth.

If Banner Number Nine is hanging in Rupp Arena next April, nobody will remember the price.

Until then, however, I reserve the right to stare at that reported number and wonder whether college basketball has finally lost its mind.

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.

Taiwan, Democracy, and the Ghosts of My Father’s Generation

Taiwan, Democracy, and the Ghosts of My Father’s Generation

There are certain geopolitical conflicts you can debate casually from the comfort of your recliner while angrily wolfing down popcorn. China versus Taiwan is not one of them. At least not for me.

My late father was born in China in 1927. He lived through war, revolution, displacement, uncertainty, and eventually escaped to Taiwan before Communist rule took over mainland China. Years later, he immigrated alone to America with little more than faith, grit, and enough courage to make the rest of us look soft by comparison. So when politicians casually toss around phrases like “strategic ambiguity,” “reunification,” or “regional tensions,” I don’t hear abstract foreign policy jargon. I hear family history. I hear the echoes of people who lost homes, identities, and connections with loved ones overnight.

That’s why President Donald Trump’s visit to China matters. And depending on what is said — or not said — about Taiwan, it could matter enormously.

Before everybody on social media loses their collective minds, let me say this clearly: I understand the “One China” position emotionally. My father probably believed some version of it himself. Many older Chinese who fled to Taiwan never stopped viewing themselves as culturally Chinese. I refer to myself as Chinese—not Taiwanese. Taiwan was not originally envisioned as a separate civilization to those like my dad who fled. It was refuge. Survival. A temporary sanctuary during a civil war that never technically ended. That nuance gets lost today.

The truth is that history is complicated. Identity is complicated. Family loyalty is complicated. And yet, despite understanding all of that emotionally, I still arrive at a different conclusion politically. Democracy must be defended. Especially when Chinese people freely choose it.

Taiwan today is not merely a historical leftover from the Chinese Civil War. It has evolved into a thriving democracy with free elections, free speech, economic innovation, religious liberty, and the right to criticize its own leaders without fearing a knock on the door in the middle of the night. Those freedoms matter. America — regardless of whether the president is named Trump, Biden, Obama, or Reagan — should not casually negotiate away the future of 23 million people simply because a superpower demands it loudly enough.

At the same time, this is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable. Democracy is worth defending, but how exactly do you defend it without stumbling into catastrophic war? That’s the question nobody seems willing to wrestle with honestly anymore. On one side are those who sound eager for confrontation despite never experiencing conflict themselves. On the other are those who believe peace can always be purchased through accommodation and appeasement. History suggests both extremes are dangerous.

My father’s generation understood something we often forget: war is not a movie script. It destroys families, scatters generations, and leaves emotional wreckage that lasts for decades. The answer cannot be reckless provocation or chest-thumping social media bravado. But neither can the answer be quietly pressuring Taiwan into surrender under the banner of “stability.” Real leadership requires strength without arrogance, and diplomacy that doesn’t abandon core principles. That balancing act is extraordinarily difficult for any leader navigating a conflict with stakes this high.

President Trump should know that many immigrants who escaped authoritarian systems often appreciate freedom more deeply than Americans born into it. My father certainly did. He loved America fiercely — not because it was perfect, but because it gave him opportunity, dignity, and the ability to build a future his children never could have imagined. That perspective shaped me more than I realized growing up.

Even now, however, I still wrestle with the tension. Part of me understands the ancient pull of Chinese unity and heritage. After all, I cheered proudly for Yao Ming, Jeremy Lin, and Michael Chang. But another part of me looks at Taiwan and sees something profoundly worth protecting: freedom, self-determination, democracy, and the right of people to determine their own future without coercion. I suspect many older immigrants who publicly embraced “One China” quietly admired Taiwan’s freedoms more than they ever admitted out loud.

President Trump’s visit to China will generate endless hot takes from cable news warriors who couldn’t find Taiwan on a map if you circled it with a Sharpie. But beneath the politics lies something deeply human: families divided by history, people carrying multiple identities at once, and descendants like me trying to reconcile respect for our parents’ worldview with the realities of the modern world.

My father taught me many things — work hard, stay humble, keep your word, value faith and family. But perhaps the greatest lesson came indirectly through his journey itself: never take freedom for granted once you’ve seen what life looks like without it.

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.

NIL, APR, and Other Fairy Tales

NIL, APR, and Other Fairy Tales

The University of Kentucky Athletic Department proudly announced this week that UK student-athletes achieved a combined 3.471 GPA this spring, marking the 28th straight semester above a 3.0.

Twenty-eight straight semesters. That’s a mark of unparalleled consistency.

The release was filled with impressive numbers. Four hundred fifty-nine athletes above a 3.0. One hundred thirty-six with perfect 4.0 GPAs. Volleyball leading the way with a staggering 3.865 GPA. Men’s basketball posting a sparkling 3.59. Football climbing above a 3.0. Eight teams earning perfect APR scores.

And honestly, those accomplishments deserve recognition. A lot of these athletes work incredibly hard balancing travel, practices, media obligations, workouts, NIL appearances, social media branding, and actual coursework. The academic support staffs deserve medals for somehow keeping all the trains running on time in an environment that increasingly resembles free agency with mascots.

Still, forgive me if I chuckled while reading the release.

Because while UK is celebrating APR scores and graduation rates, the rest of college athletics now operates like a bizarre hybrid of the NFL, Wall Street, and reality television. Revenue sharing has arrived with a vengeance. NIL collectives function like salary-cap departments. Boosters debate roster construction with the intensity of Fortune 500 executives discussing quarterly earnings. Coaches talk openly about roster retention costs while fans stalk transfer portal announcements like day traders watching stock tickers.

Yet every spring, universities still release these glowing academic reports with the warm sincerity of a church bulletin.

“At Kentucky, the educational mission remains central,” Mitch Barnhart said in the release.

And I actually believe he believes that. I do.

But the contrast is impossible to ignore.

One minute, fans are screaming online about the desperate need for a seven-foot rim protector who can defend ball screens and shoot 38 percent from three. The next minute, the university puts out an APR graphic like educational outcomes are all that matter.

That’s what makes modern college athletics such magnificent theater.

We’ve created a world where a freshman quarterback can earn more money before his sophomore year than several university professors combined, yet schools still expect us to become emotionally moved over cumulative GPA announcements.

Again, this isn’t anti-education. Quite the opposite. I still genuinely love universities. My family funds scholarships. I spent decades in healthcare and education-related environments. I’m one of the few media people who asks academically related questions and questions APR outcomes. I believe academics matter deeply.

Which is precisely why this whole charade fascinates me so much.

The NCAA still unveils APR scores every year with all the drama of sacred scripture being lowered from the mountaintop. The Academic Progress Rate remains one of those phrases that sounds incredibly important while simultaneously causing most fans’ eyes to glaze over instantly.

We all understand that the average fan is far more concerned about whether Kentucky has enough NIL money to keep a backup guard from transferring to Arkansas next Tuesday.

At this point, “student-athlete” feels less like a meaningful description and more like a nostalgic phrase from another era. Like “video rental store” or “collect call.”

I especially enjoyed seeing men’s basketball post a 3.59 GPA. A 3.59 at Kentucky, no less. That’s genuinely impressive considering half the fan base spent the offseason demanding more “dudes” and another year of eligibility for Otega Oweh.

The real heroes in all this may honestly be the academic counselors. Somewhere inside the Joe Craft Center, an exhausted advisor is probably trying to have a serious discussion about long-term educational development with a teenager whose NIL valuation already exceeds the salary of multiple associate professors combined. The fact those conversations happen with straight faces is one of the true miracles of modern college athletics.

And maybe that’s why these academic numbers feel so strange now. Not fake. Not meaningless. Just disconnected from what college sports has become.

A 3.471 GPA in the NIL and revenue-sharing era simply does not carry the same context it once did. Not with online coursework, massive institutional support systems, and billions of dollars floating around the enterprise. College athletics has evolved into a professional entertainment business carefully wrapped inside educational branding, and everybody involved knows it.

The schools know it.

The coaches know it.

The players know it.

The fans absolutely know it.

We just keep pretending otherwise because “student-athlete” sounds far more wholesome than “young entertainment employee with a Maserati and a meal plan.”

So yes, congratulations to UK Athletics. The accomplishments are real, and the work behind them deserves praise.

But every time I read one of these glowing academic press releases, I still can’t help but picture some wealthy booster proudly nodding at the 3.471 GPA announcement while simultaneously texting a collective representative:

“Wonderful. Now how much for that five-star offensive tackle?”

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.

The Best Will Stein Interview Yet?

The Best Will Stein Interview Yet?

There was a time, years ago, when I somehow found myself as editor of the Just The Cats website. When the radio show took a temporary hiatus, the website went totally defunct—but man—I sure do miss those days.

I also miss working with Michael Bennett.

Even back then, Michael had a gift. Not necessarily for subtlety—but for making every conversation somehow come alive by circling back to Michael Bennett. If there were a tornado warning in Louisville, Michael would somehow mention he once interviewed a meteorologist at a charity golf scramble while standing near a buffet line at Valhalla.

So hearing Michael interview new Kentucky football coach Will Stein this morning on “Just the Cats” felt strangely comforting. It was football talk mixed with a humble brag TED Talk. Part sports radio interview. Part “This Is Your Life: Michael Bennett Edition.”

In other words, it was “radio gold.”

Within the first two minutes, Michael had already managed to mention:

  • Churchill Downs Turf Club access
  • meeting Stein outside a men’s restroom
  • horse ownership
  • heading to the Preakness
  • Mark Stoops being his friend
  • Vince Marrow being one of his closest friends
  • his lifelong sales background
  • volunteering his phone number for NIL fundraising duty

Honestly, it was magnificent.

To Stein’s credit, he handled it beautifully.

The poor guy probably thought he was doing a simple radio appearance and instead wandered into a verbal obstacle course where every answer eventually led back to Michael either:
A) knowing somebody important,
B) owning something expensive,
or
C) losing 50 pounds.

Still, beneath the accidental comedy, Stein said several things Kentucky fans should pay attention to.

Leave it to Michael Bennett to conduct the perfect Will Stein interview.

First, the recruiting momentum is real.

Stein downplayed the recent run of four-star commitments as merely “old school recruiting,” but the details mattered. He emphasized repeated contact, multiple campus visits, relationship building, and consistent communication with not just players, but parents, trainers, coaches, and agents.

That sounds simple. It isn’t. Just ask Mark Pope.

Kentucky football has often recruited like a program trying to convince players not to leave. Stein is recruiting like a program expecting elite talent to arrive. There’s a difference in tone there. Fans can feel it already.

And yes, part of that energy comes directly from Stein himself. The man sounds like a first-time head coach fueled by energy drinks and Navy SEAL motivational videos.

At one point, discussing preseason predictions that Kentucky could finish near the bottom of the SEC, Stein casually unveiled his team motto:

“F everybody but us.”

That’ll play in Lexington—especially after the last couple seasons where Kentucky football often felt emotionally exhausted before kickoff even started.

Stein’s confidence may ultimately prove justified or delusional. Nobody knows yet. But what’s undeniable is that the temperature around the program has changed dramatically in just a few months.

And unlike some coaches who manufacture swagger like a corporate branding exercise, Stein’s personality feels natural. Maybe borderline unhinged at times—but authentic.

That authenticity came through repeatedly thanks to Michael’s prompting.

When Michael asked how he approaches recruits, Stein didn’t launch into analytics jargon or culture buzzwords. He talked about relationships. About genuinely caring about players before selling them on football.

“It’s not slimy, weird, or scammy,” Stein said.

Considering modern recruiting often resembles international hostage negotiations conducted through collectives and Instagram graphics, that line probably resonated with fans.

Stein also revealed something else Kentucky desperately needed: obsession.

Not fake coach-speak obsession. Actual obsession.

When asked which game he’s most excited about, he didn’t bite on Tennessee, Alabama, Louisville, or revenge narratives.

“Youngstown State, September 5th.”

That answer sounds boring until you realize he means it.

Stein approaches football like a man who still wakes up angry about a missed block in eighth-grade Pop Warner. Kentucky fans have spent years begging for someone to inject life back into the program. Well, careful what you wish for. They may have hired a caffeinated football lunatic.

The most revealing moment, though, came when Stein discussed mindset.

“There’s never been a game I’ve gone into thinking we’re gonna get our asses beat,” he said. “If that’s your mentality, you’re a loser.”

Again—not polished. Not PR-approved. Probably not ideal for SEC Media Days.

But Kentucky fans are starving for somebody who sounds like they actually expect to matter nationally.

For years, Kentucky football’s identity was built around toughness and overachievement. Somewhere along the way, that edge dulled. The program started feeling like it was constantly explaining why it couldn’t compete instead of plotting how it could.

Stein doesn’t sound interested in explanations.

Now, does that guarantee wins? Of course not.

This is still the SEC. The schedule is brutal. And eventually the honeymoon phase ends. Stein himself even called it “the honeymoon buffet,” which may have been the perfect phrase considering Michael Bennett spent half the interview discussing food, cakes, Turf Club seating, and rich people.

But right now, Kentucky football feels alive again.

And honestly, maybe that’s enough for May.

And finally, Michael Bennett deserves some sort of broadcasting lifetime achievement award for successfully turning a Will Stein interview into:

  • a Derby recap,
  • a weight-loss testimony,
  • a horse ownership update,
  • a family therapy session,
  • and an NIL fundraiser.

All while reminding us he once met the Kentucky football coach outside a bathroom.

Honestly, elite broadcasting range.

Just like the good ol’ days.

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.

Please , Sir, I Want Some More!

Please , Sir, I Want Some More!

If 68 teams are good, then more must be better, right?

That seems to be the guiding philosophy behind the latest push to expand the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. Because when something works beautifully, the natural instinct—apparently—is to stretch it and squeeze it. We’re like Oliver Twist, always pleading for more porridge.

Why stop at 68? Let’s go full buffet line. Ninety-six. One hundred twenty-eight. Let’s invite your neighbor’s rec league champion and the entire KSR bowling team while we’re at it.

Sadly, this is where we are.

The inevitable expansion isn’t really about competitive balance—despite what analysts like Seth Greenberg will tell you between commercial breaks. It makes for a great soundbite. It just doesn’t happen to be true.

Honestly, the choice isn’t about inclusion. It’s not even about giving that plucky mid-major a better shot at glory. This is about money—cold, hard, TV-contract, inventory-filling money.

And yes, before someone sends me a strongly worded email with 17 bullet points and a KenPom chart, I understand the arguments. More access, more Cinderella stories, more games, more reason to retain coaches, more content for media.

More.

That word should make you nervous. Because in college athletics, “more” rarely means better. It usually means diluted, bloated, and harder to care about.

Sixty-eight teams already felt like we were pushing the limits. We’ve got First Four games that feel like play-in games to the play-in games. We’re asking fans to invest emotionally in teams that, in many cases, barely proved they belonged in the field to begin with.

And now the solution is to… add more?

At some point, you don’t have a tournament. You have participation trophies with a TV schedule.

The beauty of Selection Sunday has always been its tension—the idea that you earned your shot through the grind of a long season. Expand the field, and you cheapen that accomplishment. Why even play the regular season?

And let’s not pretend this is being driven by some noble mission to “grow the game.” The game is doing just fine. The arenas are packed. The ratings are strong. The brackets—those glorious, chaotic brackets—are already a national obsession.

This is about squeezing more out of something that’s already near perfect.

It’s the classic mistake: taking a great product and over-engineering it in the name of revenue. Like adding extra endings to a movie that didn’t need one. Or turning a tight 90-minute thriller into a bloated three-hour director’s cut because you can.

The NCAA sees inventory. Networks see programming. Advertisers see eyeballs.

Fans? We get a longer, messier tournament that asks for more of our time while giving us less of what made it special.

And here’s the irony: expanding the field doesn’t really help the teams it claims to help.

Those fringe teams? They’re still long shots. They’re still walking into a buzzsaw against better, deeper, more talented programs. The difference now is we’re pretending their inclusion is meaningful when it’s mostly symbolic.

Congratulations. You made it. Here’s your one shining moment.

Now please exit quietly after your 20-point loss. You shouldn’t have been here anyway.

Meanwhile, the top seeds get an even easier path. More mismatches. More tune-up games disguised as tournament contests. The rich get richer, and the rest get a slightly nicer seat at the table before being asked to leave.

That’s not equity. That’s optics.

And let’s talk about the fan experience for a second. The bracket—arguably the greatest interactive element in all of sports—is already a delicate, maddening puzzle. It’s what pulls in casual fans, office pools, and that one friend who hasn’t watched a game all year but suddenly becomes a bracketologist.

Now we’re going to complicate it further?

More teams means more variables, more confusion, and frankly, less fun. There’s a tipping point where complexity stops being engaging and starts being exhausting.

We’re flirting with that line.

Look, I’m not naïve. College sports has been on this trajectory for years. Conference realignment, NIL deals, transfer portal chaos—it’s all part of the same ecosystem. The business side has been winning for a long time.

But this one feels different because it messes with something that didn’t need fixing.

March Madness wasn’t broken.

It was one of the few things in sports that felt universally loved, reliably unpredictable, and beautifully simple at its core: win or go home.

Now it’s starting to feel like: win… or maybe you still get in.

And maybe that’s not just a tournament problem.

But hey, what do I know?

I’ve never won a bracket.

Now it’ll be even harder.

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.

BLUEprint for Winning?

BLUEprint for Winning?

When I first saw Kentucky’s announcement about this new “BLUEprint” system, my initial reaction was the same as a lot of yours.

What is this BS?

Another buzzword. Another corporate-sounding initiative. Another step away from anything that once felt familiar.

But the more I sat with it, the more uncomfortable the realization became.

This isn’t BS. It’s reality. And maybe—whether I like it or not—it’s progress.

Because what Kentucky rolled out this week isn’t just some fancy database. BLUEprint is a centralized, analytics-driven platform designed to evaluate players across football, basketball, volleyball—every revenue sport—not just by how they perform, but by what they’re worth. It pulls together performance data, financial considerations, and roster projections into one system that helps decision-makers build teams with precision.

In plain terms, Kentucky has built itself a professional front office, the kind you’d expect in the National Football League, not on a college campus. And for the first time, Kentucky isn’t even trying to pretend otherwise.

And that’s where I really struggle.

Because I’ve spent a lot of time—probably too much time—writing about what Kentucky used to be. The tradition, the standard, the idea that this place meant something beyond wins and losses. That players came here not just because of opportunity, but because of identity.

But let’s be real—this pie-in-the-sky idealism didn’t die this week. It’s been fading for years. All BLUEprint does is put structure and a name to what has already replaced it.

And if the only thing that matters—if the bottom line—is winning, then I can’t sit here and tell you this is the wrong move. In fact, it might be the smartest thing Kentucky has done in years. Because the game has changed, and not adjusting isn’t noble—it’s negligent. You can’t compete in a marketplace driven by NIL dollars, transfer portal movement, and constant roster churn with gut instinct and nostalgia. You need structure. You need discipline. You need something that tells you not just who a player is, but what he’s actually worth to your program.

That’s what this is. It’s not about building a team anymore. It’s about managing a portfolio.

And frankly, that’s what Kentucky has been missing.

The last few seasons haven’t fallen short because of effort or pride. They’ve fallen short because the pieces didn’t fit—because the roster construction didn’t match the expectations, and because we were still operating like it was 2015 while everyone else had already moved on.

BLUEprint is an acknowledgment of that—a quiet admission that guessing isn’t good enough anymore.

But here’s the part I can’t shake—and I don’t think you should either.

There’s a cost to this. There always is.

Because once you start assigning value to players in a system like this, it inevitably changes how you see them. Not all at once, not in some dramatic, heartless way—but gradually, subtly. Development becomes projection. Loyalty becomes leverage. And that kid, like Dominique Hawkins or Derek Willis, who might have taken three years to grow into something special becomes harder to justify—and eventually, impossible to keep—when the numbers say someone else offers a better return right now.

That’s not evil.

It’s just efficient.

And efficiency doesn’t care about sentiment, pedigree, or passion—it just cares about return.

So when we talk about “Kentucky guys,” about culture, about the things that once separated the program with the greatest tradition in the history of college basketball from everyone else, we have to be honest about what we’re risking. Those things don’t disappear overnight—but they do get squeezed, marginalized, and replaced, piece by piece, by a system that rewards production over patience.

And maybe that’s what it takes now.

Maybe this is the price of competing at the highest level again.

I don’t like it. But I also don’t like watching Kentucky struggle to keep up in a world that has clearly moved on.

So here we are—not clinging to the past, not fully comfortable with the future, but standing somewhere in between, trying to convince ourselves this is still the same program we fell in love with—and cried over.

It’s not.

And maybe the most honest thing Kentucky did this week wasn’t launching BLUEprint. It was admitting—without actually saying it—that winning now requires becoming something different.

The question isn’t whether this works. It probably will. The real question is whether we’re willing to accept what Kentucky has to become for it to work.

Kentucky didn’t sell its soul. It just realized—too late—that it already had. And now, with BLUEprint, it’s trying to buy it back.

Not with tradition.

Not with loyalty.

But with numbers…and, hopefully, more wins.

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.

What Woke Me Up

What Woke Me Up

There was a time—long before NIL deals, bracketology debates, and press row seating charts—when the most important thing happening in the world involved three men, a rocket, and a destination that seemed impossibly far away: the moon.

In 1969, my parents woke me up in the middle of the night to watch the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. They didn’t do that lightly. Sleep was sacred in our household. But they knew something I didn’t fully grasp at the time—that this was history in real time, the kind you don’t read about later. The kind you witness. I remember being groggy, confused, maybe even a little annoyed… until I wasn’t. Until I saw it. And something shifted.

And just like that, I was hooked.

Like every other 10-year-old boy growing up in Lexington, I had two career options: astronaut… or Dan Issel. One involved exploring the vast unknown reaches of space. The other involved dominating the paint at Memorial Coliseum. Both seemed equally plausible at the time. Spoiler alert—I became neither. I became an orthodontist, instead. With no regrets. Well… maybe a few.

Because here we are in 2026, and Artemis II is preparing to take humans back around the moon for the first time in over 50 years. Not landing—yet—but orbiting, testing, and pushing forward. The next step in a journey we once thought we had already finished. Turns out, we were just getting started.

If Apollo proved we could go, Artemis is about learning how to go back—and stay. That’s a whole different level of ambition.

As a young adult, my ambitions were out of this world. I wore out my VHS copy of The Right Stuff. Those astronauts weren’t just pilots—they were mythological figures in flight suits: fearless, stoic, a little too reckless for their own good. They climbed into rockets that were, by today’s standards, glorified firecrackers strapped to lawn chairs, and blasted into the unknown.

Likewise, the Apollo 13 mission did nothing to stem my enthusiasm. That was the mission that went wrong and somehow became even more right. “Houston, we have a problem.” Three men staring into the abyss and deciding, collectively, that they weren’t done yet. That’s when space exploration stopped being just about science for me. It became about perseverance.

Fast forward to today, and Artemis II carries that same DNA. Different technology and different crew, but that same human instinct—to push beyond what’s comfortable and familiar. The difference now, however, is staggering. The computers guiding Artemis II make Apollo-era systems look like abacuses. The safety protocols, the engineering precision, the global collaboration—it’s all light years ahead. And yet, the core question hasn’t changed.

Why go?

Because for all the talk about propulsion systems and lunar trajectories, the most powerful images from space have never been of the moon. They’ve been of Earth—small, fragile, floating in the darkness. Astronauts have talked about it for decades, that moment when they look back and see everything they’ve ever known reduced to a blue marble suspended in a sea of black. Borders disappear. Conflicts seem trivial. Perspective hits like a freight train. And almost to a person, many of them come back changed—not politically, not scientifically, but spiritually.

There’s something about seeing the Earth from that vantage point that makes randomness feel unlikely. You don’t have to be a theologian to sense it. You just have to be honest. The precision, the balance, the sheer improbability of it all—it doesn’t feel accidental.

I got a small taste of that years ago at Space Camp with my daughter. We weren’t orbiting the Earth or slingshotting around the moon, but for a brief moment—floating in simulated weightlessness, staring up at a ceiling painted like the cosmos—you could feel it. That sense of scale. That quiet realization that you are very small, and yet somehow part of something very large.

Of course, we also won the rocket-building competition. We’re Chinese, after all. But later, when the noise died down and the competition faded, the question still lingered—who made all this?

And while we’re seeking answers, let’s clear something up. The idea that the Apollo 11 Moon Landing was faked isn’t just wrong—it’s almost insulting. Not just to the science, but to the thousands of people who gave their lives’ work to make it happen. At some point, skepticism stops being thoughtful and starts becoming lazy. Call it heresy against wonder.

Artemis II won’t plant a flag. It won’t give us another “one small step for man” moment. But it might give us something just as important—a reminder. That we’re still explorers. That curiosity didn’t die with Apollo. That even now, there are people willing to climb into a rocket, strap themselves to controlled explosions, and aim for the heavens.

And maybe—just maybe—that same longing lives in all of us. Even in a retired orthodontist from Lexington who once dreamed of walking on the moon.

Turns out, I didn’t need to go to space to understand it.

I just needed to be woken up.

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.