K Week kicks off semester and hypes new season

Monday morning lines of crammed minivans and tied-down pickups lined the blocks of residence halls all over campus to welcome over 3,000 freshmen to the University of Kentucky and several thousand more sophomores, juniors, seniors, and grad students returning for another fall in the Bluegrass.

A school just isn’t a school without the students, and neither are the football, basketball, baseball, volleyball, soccer, etc. Wildcats—fans, players, and support staff that form the central core of Big Blue Nation and carry on the tradition as alumni for decades longer.

Kroger Field was packed with 400+ student organizations Thursday night for Campus Ruckus—the four-hour free games-and-goodies bonanza with intramural sports teams, Greek life, campus ministries, engineering teams, clubs, and many more groups of passionate students helping students and especially freshmen get involved at UK.

The highlight of the night was a drone show just outside the stadium with a flying outline of the state and the UK logo.

Friday night saw the welcoming of a record enrollment of freshmen to UK at Big Blue U where 3000+ new Wildcats formed the state of Kentucky on the Kroger Field turf and learned all the important game-day chants, hype songs, cheers, and how to do “C-A-T-S Cats! Cats! Cats!”

The student body is more ready for football season than possibly ever before. Student season passes had to be sold by lottery as the demand came close to rivaling the basketball pass—an annual immediate sellout.

Thanks to Mark Stoops’s scheduling fans will get to pack the stadium for eight home games this season as the Cats try to maximize the full might of BBN for as many wins as possible. Special 7-game student season passes had to even be created to deal with anticipated demand for the Georgia game, which the entire city of Lexington will have circled on their calendar.

And who wouldn’t be excited for basketball with Oscar Tshiebwe, Sahvir Wheeler, and the rest of a star-studded team ready to face off against Gonzaga in Spokane, Kansas and Louisville in Rupp, and a full slate of hungry SEC teams. It’s a great year to be a Wildcat and great to see all the Wildcats back on campus.

Go Cats!