One of the pleasant advantages of going back to college is that I get the perks of being a student. I can swim in the Olympic-sized pool at the University of Louisville for free (well, "free" after the ungodly amount of tuition I've paid). I can work out in the university gym. And I can get certain University of Louisville athletic tickets for about $15.
I'm taking advantage of all these perks while I have them, which includes going to this weekend's home game against the University of Kentucky. Having graduated from the University of North Carolina some years ago, I'm familiar with intense in-state rivalries. There's a school eight miles from Chapel Hill that I will refer to as the University of New Jersey at Durham, which is a well-known anti-christ to my alma mater.
I've always been of the opinion that Duke-Carolina is the most intense rivalry in college sports, but I must admit, I can already tell this Louisville-Kentucky thing is pretty damned nasty.
It's different than Carolina-Duke in some respects. I see students walking on the Louisville campus wearing UK T-shirts. I don't recall ever seeing a UNC student wearing a Duke shirt. It's a violation so unthinkable that a public stoning would not be uncalled for. That might confirm my original contention about Duke-UNC. But having talked to a few people here, I'm not ready to declare the champion just yet.
I met a guy who told me he grew up in Louisville, and that once I'd lived here for a while, I would understand that UK fans are complete rednecks and that Louisville fans are much more sophisticated. His own family members, he said, are UK fans, despite all "#(#*$!!" logic. Clearly, during football or basketball games, he has a hard time being in the same room with them.
Sounds very familiar.
Even in my classes, certain professors will not utter the name of the school an hour away in Lexington. THAT OTHER school, they say.
Boy, does that ring a bell.
I'm trying to reserve judgment. Obviously, since I'm a student at U of L, I should side with the Cardinals. But in a congruent equation, UK would most likely equal UNC and Louisville would most likely equal Duke. So there's a bit of a conundrum. Besides, Louisville's basketball coach is Rick Patino, a slick-haired equivalent to Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, in my mind.
I've already had one friend (a Duke grad, no less) tell me he'd be disappointed if I pulled for Louisville in any respect.
The Louisville guy told me that there's even some racial undertones to the rivalry, in that Louisville is the most "urban" university in Kentucky and that UK took a extraordinarily long time to accept minorities. Woah, man. I'm not sure I want to get involved in that debate.
Kentucky has no professional sports teams, so I'm guessing that makes the rivalry even more important in the minds of the people here. The Cincinnati Bengals or the Reds, the Indianapolis Colts or the Pacers are the teams of choice since they're not too far away, but they aren't in Kentucky, so it all falls to UK and Louisville to satisfy the state's (I mean, commonwealth's) pride.
Saturday, I will pull for the Cardinals and see how I feel afterward. I'll probably be sitting with a bunch of 20-year-olds, so I'm sure that will bring back memories of Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, where as a freshman I recall a game against Louisville in which I slid down a hill of mud, drunk from Beam and Coke.
I better get a flask, just in case.
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