Wearing Kentucky Colors at the University of Louisville Might Get You "Unwanted Attention"

and in their fanaticism, many fans go to far. What happened at Toomers Corners is one example of a true fanatic who has lost sight of what is right and acceptable behavior. What happened with the profane taunting of UK fans at Indiana is another example of fans losing their perspective on what is appropriate behavior, although certainly at a much lower level.
what took place at the Xavier-Cincinati could be seen as another, where the vision of an athletic contest was lost, and the game became a “war”, a metaphor that is used all too often in describing hard fought games.
Too many fans lose their perspective on the “contest” in seeking the win, and fail to respect the competition, without which there is no measuring stick of your skill, no accomplishment for your work. If we want to root for a team that never loses we should become fans of the “Globetrotters”, but then they don’t need fan support do they. Or perhaps we could follow the sports teams of the Xavier Institute for Gifted Children, I am fairly sure they have a winning record in all sports.

Now I understand “history” and it is hard for me to imagine a situation in which I would be a neutral observer watching a game involving Duke. I would easily root for the Cardinals to defeat Duke in any conceivable future. But I would not extend my ill will to attacking a Duke fan or doing harm to the campus. Now I might find some humor in putting a UK logo somewhere totally unexpected and hard to remove on the campus, but that is within the accepted sort of rivalry hijinx. Like kidnapping the West Point mule mascot or the Navy’s goat, but not barbequing the animals for a tailgate.
Let us hope that neither the UK or UL fan base so loses their perspective as to cross the line as has happened elsewhere.

I moved to Maysville not long before Chris Lofton announced he was going to play for UT. This brought about a split in this town akin I’m sure to what happened during the Civil War. And of course you had the “Tubby didn’t recruit Lofton” folks jumping the UK ship. Suddenly former UK fans…including family and friends of mine….began wearing UT orange. Even the local Walmart began to sell UT merchadise along side UK items. All of a sudden wearing anything UK sometimes brought unwelcomed stares and even comments. In a town of less than 10,000 this was a huge deal. Now because I didn’t grow up here…I grew up 20 miles away….it didn’t matter to me if Lofton went to UK or not. I saw him play several times and honestly didn’t think he was UK-worthy. Great shooter but little D and kind of slow. Of course I was proved wrong as was many others. Those years were hard for UK fans in a town 50 miles from Lexington. Lofton was great,UT was good and UK struggled. Of course that all began to change when D. Miller chose UK and little by little UT orange all but disappeared. Fans will be fans and of course emotions can cause folks to do strange things. Sorry for the length of this post. Just thought I would share some experiences in my little corner of the world.