Is there a more lunatic fan base than Kentucky's?

I'm trying to find some old Chuck Culpepper columns from when he was in Lexington writing about Hazel, but I'm striking out.

Here's Gwen Knapp's outsider take from 1998.

http://imgs.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/e/a/1998/03/28/SPORTS5484.dtl&hw=fanning&sn=321&sc=288

 

Yup. If he doesn't win the national title this year, there might be rioting.

These are the people who have sold their souls for another national championship. They are ENTITLED to it, you see! I love how they accuse Shaughnessy of being elitist when they're the one who think that other teams should just give them the championship because they're KENTUCKY.

 

I covered Kentucky for four seasons and have covered the SEC for 26 years. Kentucky basketball and Alabama football fans are tied for first.

 

With all due respect -- the first column was neither original nor did it break any new ground and frankly was just another tired "the little guys do it right while the big guys all cheat and employ thugs....." potshot and yes, while I don't think Dan Shanaughwhateverthefuckthespellingis is racist, this column certainly has a racist overtone.

I think my opinions of how Kentucky treated Tubby have been well documented and those fans are delusional - but I don't think they are that far out of line for objecting to a guy who refers to their program using terms like "bags of cash..."

 

Good point, Zag. He should have said "large envelopes of cash."

 

Sent via Emery Air Freight.

 

It's also not a coincidence that the two schools everyone keeps mentioning have the highest paid football coach and the highest paid hoops coach.

 

For football, I would argue it goes something like this...

1. Alabama
2. Florida
3. Notre Dame
4. Texas
5. Oklahoma
6. Ohio State
7. Michigan
8. LSU
9. Auburn
10. Nebraska

For hoops, I would say...

1. Kentucky
2. Indiana
3. Duke
4. Louisville
5. North Carolina
6. Kansas
7. UCLA
8. Illinois
9. Syracuse
10. UNLV

 

Notre Dame football's bandwagon has waned over the past 20 years. And no, they were not delusional. They wanted to root for a winner, IMHO.

 

Nope.

 

Notre Dame fans who believed Charlie would turn it around once he got rid of Ty's players -- and there were a hell of a lot of them as recently as one year ago when they were talking BCS bid -- were as delusional as they come.

And as the thread starter, I am embarrassed that I failed to include Alabama. So it's Kentucky hoops, Alabama football and cyclists of any stripe.

 

UK fans are nuts for their team, no question, but they're big-hearted sonsofguns, too. Check what they did for Haiti, and hell, just today, one UK fan came to my Twitter account and vowed to donate his proceeds from work on Friday (he's a dentist), win or lose, and will up it by $250 if UK wins by 15 or more. And then other UK fans saw it and now THEY'RE donating money, all to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Anyway, thought it was germane info here. I could be wrong.