Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Losing Legends Edition

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Big Blue Nation, and welcome to the Tuesday Morning Quickies.

Today’s lead story is a sad one, one that many of us have or will come to lament — the age old story of the old outliving the young.

Mark Story has a piece today on the call that former UK coach Joe B. Hall has come to dread — yet another one of his players, in the most recent iteration Bret Bearup — has passed away. In all, five of Coach Hall’s former players have died since 2010, and not one of them completed six decades on this planet.

”It’s shocking, first,” Hall, 89, says of how he has processed so many recent deaths from among his former UK players. “Then you start thinking about all those days you spent together, how (the deceased player) fit in with the group, the memories of recruiting them, meeting their families You get emotional.”

How could you not? I remember these guys well, all of them. Heck, I knew Charles Hurt when he was a gangly freshman at Shelbyville High School (yes, for those of you too young to remember, Shelbyville had a city and a county school before 1976). Many of us have personally met or even known some of these men, but none as well as Coach Hall, who’s longevity is now providing plenty of sadness in the form of deceased former charges.

I am reminded of this scene from Lord of the Rings:

Tweet of the Morning

Ah, memories...

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• UK extends an offer to Ballard High School’s Jared Casey.
• Former UK QB Patrick Towles has found a new calling as a missionary.
• Could the next NBA star rookie be a UK product? Certainly Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Kevin Knox are capable.
• Coach Cal comments on the addition of Kenny Payne’s son Zan as a walk-on.

Kentucky basketball

• SI says that PJ Washington’s stock is rising after the NBA Combine.
• Alabama product Kira Lewis, currently a 4-star in 247Sports composite, has played his way onto Kentucky’s radar.
• The Sacramento Kings work out Wenyen Gabriel. He has also worked out for the Thunder, Jazz, Bucks and Nets.

Other Kentucky sports

• Could Mitch Barnhart be a candidate for the Kansas AD job? I hope not.
• Bat Cats face Auburn today as the #10 seed in the SEC baseball tournament at Hoover, Alabama.
• Kentucky’s Luke Heyer named Golden Spikes award semifinalist. Congrats!
• Hittin’ Kittens to face #1 seed Oregon. The game has been “flexed” to a Thursday/Friday/Saturday series.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Former USC player Reggie Bush finally lost his battle with the NCAA, 12 years after the last time he took the field for the Trojans.
• Georgia Tech’s Josh Okogie has decided to stay in the NBA draft.
• Larry Culpepper is a thing of the past. Finally.
• Tennessee lands #1 ranked JUCO linebacker.

College basketball

• The woman arguably most responsible for Rick Pitino’s demise, Katina Powell, has been arrested for cashing stolen and forged checks.

Other sports news

• Life in the G-League: Archie Goodwin, former UK player, is living it.

Other news

• Could one of our asteroids be an immigrant from another solar system?
• NASA is launching a box of lasers to make the coldest spot in the universe.
• ”Girls don’t do physics because it’s boring.” Well, leave it to boys, then.