...And That’s When I Knew I Hated Kentucky

After Georgia’s disastrous performance against South Carolina on Saturday, and the long stream of profanity laden e-mail’s I received from Gamecock fans that evening, you might think I’d be ready to throttle back on this series, my personal hate history of all those on Georgia’s schedule. Well, you would be wrong. If anything, I find myself more emboldened than ever. The e-mails from USCjr fans only deepened my assurance that South Carolina fans are worthy of hate. Judging by the grammar and punctuation in the correspondence I received they are also extremely dumb people. As they say, life imitates art. On to Kentucky...

Kentucky has beaten Georgia exactly four times in my life. 1990, 1996, 2006 and 2009. A U.S. Senator comes up for election more times in 30 years than Kentucky beats Georgia. Nonetheless, every Fall Kentucky football fans believe they are going to be good. They show up for games despite years of endless disappointments, and talk trash to opposing fans on the internet before the season’s events remind them that they are Kentucky and they suck at football. This pattern came to a head last year when UGA and UK faced off for the SEC East Championship in Lexington. Then the giant thud happened. Georgia spanked the Cats, and I didn’t hear anything out of Kentucky fans on twitter until basketball season.

Then they did what they always do. Kentucky Basketball fans believe it is their birthright to win the SEC every season. For the most part they’re right, they win a lot. When they aren’t right, they claim that the refs screwed them and everyone who beat them is cheating. This side of Alabama Football, their fans are the biggest snowflakes in SEC Athletics. They complain that every other basketball program is cheating, but 5-Star after 5-Star shows up every year to play for noted NCAA rule violator, John Calipari.

I went to a Georgia Basketball game once when Dennis Felton was the coach. I know that sounds crazy, but it was a Saturday in the Winter and there was nothing else to do in Athens that day. The opponent was the Wildcats of Kentucky. As we walked into Stegeman Coliseum, a bunch of middle-aged Kentucky fans passed us in the hallways. Not unexpected. What was unexpected was that 65% of the adult fans in the stands that day were wearing warmup sweat pants and basketball jerseys. The other 35% were wearing long cargo shorts in various shades of denim. 100% of the Kentucky Fans wore basketball shoes. Which I guess made sense because hey, you never know when Coach Cal is going to need Wayne from Floyd County to come out of the stands and give the squad four hard fouls down the stretch. That was the moment I realized the people of Kentucky are nowhere near as well-dressed as those who attend the derby bearing their state’s name.

Imagine an Ohio State game but with more adult men wearing jerseys, a higher ratio of male pattern baldness and everyone going for the general aesthetic that Bubba Sparxxx nailed on the cover of the ‘Deliverance’ album in 2003. That’s what I wandered into that day. Surprisingly, and hilariously, Georgia found themselves ahead with about 10 minutes to go that day. This being Georgia Basketball in the Dennis Felton era, I would describe the home crowd as pleasantly amused. Real SEC fans don’t care about basketball in a way where it can truly disappoint us, but Kentucky fans sure do. The roid rage in some of our aforementioned visitors started to kick in, and at one point I literally had to tell a guy a few rows up that he was “scaring the children.”

Eventually Kentucky took the lead and went on to the win. I remember lots of dudes chest bumping one another while trying to yell, but actually growling and spraying spittle instead. It was weird. It’s basketball. Chill out, y’all, nobody here cares. That was the day I realized I hated Kentucky. There football team had never really given me a reason to, but after seeing UK fans in their natural habitat I understood. They are an awful hybrid of Ohio State and Alabama fans- whiny entitlement coupled with horrible Midwest fashion sense.

I also hate them for pretending to be in the SEC. Having never won an Eastern Division title, or anything else significant in football, they are quite possibly the largest piggybackers of the SEC reputation. And don’t pretend last year was a program changer, Kentucky fans. You’ve been the turd in the SEC Football punch bowl since you forced Bear Bryant out of town when you gave him a cigarette lighter and Adolph Rupp a new car when they both won SEC championships in 1950.

Also, Kash Daniel did something so dirty on a football field that I immediately sympathized with the Florida Gators. That’s low.

More than anything, I hate Kentucky for sucking so bad at football that I had to write this column around a story about basketball in the middle of October.