Where I Come From: My Journey as a Louisville Cardinals fan

A few classmates and I created our own underground newspaper in 6th grade. I covered sports which consisted of copying local basketball scores from the C-J and deifying DeJuan Wheat. The operation fell apart when our classmates started getting all their news via AOL chat rooms.

Definitely opened up my own reminiscing. Cameron Murray walking off the court after beating Kentucky holding up his index finger to form a #1 is one of my earliest Louisville memories. I do remember watching the Samaki fallout on TV.

Oh, and Eric Johnson dunking against UK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcCuy-XT1Vs
Thanks jerb.

my dad is from Louisville migrated to eastern kentucky for a teaching job, and raised me up eating, drinking, and sleeping anything Louisville. Now I’m doing the samething with my son and I enjoy the hell out of rubbing it in these blue bloods faces. The golf course I’m a member of is owned by 2 ex-Wildcats, one being a un-forgetable, and when i pull up and get that big red Louisville bag out it brings a smile to my face everytime. Mike how about getting a golf scramble together for a 5 year anniversary? sure would like to play that Cardinal Club.

My journey into Louisville fandom has strange beginnings. Grew up in neighboring county to Fayette with family roots in Eastern Kentucky. So I had no choice early on (kind of like religion, values and communist fear-they are just thrust upon you). But during grade school I became enamored with UofL basketball (my grade school career spanned the 80s so you can imagine what impression those Crum teams had on me). I never hated UK (still don’t), but their fans make it difficult to be a compassionate, rational, logical human being, but that’s just way it is. Fell in love with Schnellenberger’s football teams then too. I have to say not only was it hard to find friends in my county with the same viewpoint (though they do exist) it was even harder growing up with no real coverage on local news (Alan Culter, Dave Baker et al, ugh, though Kenny Rice rocked) or the Herald-‘Leader’ back then so I was a bit sheltered with the details of things. I can’t imagine how nice it would have been to have ‘The Internets’ back then, but it serves a great purpose for me now living very far away.

I must say the most intriguing part of your testimonial is this:

As far as fandom is concerned, he was never a strong blue or red lean until he followed the 1983-1984 Kentucky basketball team for a Season on the Brink- esque book about the Wildcats that was backed by the Courier-Journal. I was born the same year the book was published and my “which ones are the good guys” questions were never met with a hint of hesitation by the old man.

I mean I gotta know the details of that. Guess I could buy the book for support only if I knew ebay kicked back royalties on used books to the original authors. Do tell.

Growing up I learned everything I knew about sports from my dad. We are from Louisville but moved to Indiana when I was 5 or 6. He is a Blue supporter first, but one of the only men I have ever known to actually say " Teams from the same state, I only wish bad on Louisville when they play Kentucky". He routed for UofL any other day of the year. As I got older I watched both and kept much the same mentality as daddy did though I chose the opposite vision of him. RED CAME FIRST. It’s hard to be a Louisville fan here. You have your misplaced Kentucky fans. Your die-hard Hoosier fans (especially the BOBBY KNIGHT supporters), then it’s either Purdue or Notre Dame. Until recently I stood very much alone as a Cardinal here. But my passion for the Cards has sparked some interest from a few people in the area and I couldn’t be more proud of that accomplishment. I still don’t hate on those UK fans with my dad’s point of view……BUT… The rest of the blue nation could rot in hell and I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

I hope every loyal read of CC gets a free copy of EA Sports ’11 for this.