I thought you should know that when I went to church this morning, it was interesting to see that our minister decided to wear a Kentucky Wildcats t-shirt as he gave his sermon. I went to Kroger afterwards, and the cashier asked as I left "Did you see the game last night?" Another employee stopped me as I started out the exit, "Some game last night, eh?"
Yeah, I guess you heard... Kentucky beat the #1 team in the nation last night. I personally ordinarily root against UK, but somehow the underdog mentality took hold, and I thought it would be kind of cool to see them actually pull it out.
But my reason for writing this, Coach, is that I thought it worth noting to you that Rich Brooks has a lot in common with you today as I write this.
"How so?" you might ask...
Because in Rich Brooks 3rd year, the chorus of UK fans demanding Brooks' head on a platter was deafening... one couldn't live in these parts and listen to any one of the three local evening sports talk shows without multiple callers complaining about Brooks' incompetence... a washed-up coach that the AD had hired out of desperation (a contention that I had also shared, actually), and who the happy talkers in the media regularly tried to excuse for the probation problems that dogged the program, and the number of underclassmen on the roster, and the incredible rash of injuries his team, especially that 3rd year team, suffered
I hadn't even thought about the comparison until just last night when another HerdFans.com poster made me think about it...
Trust me, Coach Snyder, at least you have Tri-State and Marshall roots going for you... you could not have it worse now than what Rich Brooks had it then. To pass him on the street, an outsider like me couldn't help but feel pity, and that did actually happen once...
But Coach Brooks obviously kept his chin up... he knew what he knew about his team and about the program he was revitalizing.
Keep your chin up, Coach Snyder. Some people are just impatient, and some are full of themselves, and some are both. That's sad, but it happens at every school at some point, even one that has a Faithful as faithful as ours.
There are those of us anti-cynics who stand by you--and very likely many more of us standing by you than were standing for Brooks two years ago when a Music City Bowl victory would have been a cruel joke of someone's imagination, and when a regular season victory over the #1 team in the nation would have made Rich Brooks himself even smirk with incredulity.
Keep your chin up. Your team will get older. The injuries will heal. This, too, will pass, and you will enjoy the pride of knowing you did things the right way and the rewards eventually came.