Faith/ Faith is an island in the setting sun/ But proof, yes/ Proof is the bottom line for everyone
After U of L’s telling double digit loss to Chattanooga last night, it has taken me awhile. to pull out an 8.5×11 sheet of 20 pound 92 bright typing bond and roll it into the typewriter.
When I got home last night, I had to kick back, comforting myself with some chocolate almond yogurt, while I clicked through college hoops, college football and the NBA.
Then I called a fellow Card fan, and we did our usual post mortem. It was more coronerial than usual.
Then I got a call from a pal in Georgia, who had already read Rick Bozich’s piece on the game, in which he talked about fans hurling barbs at a sportswriter.
My pal was checking after me, worried I may have been the object of the invective.
Might have been. I did not hear it, even though I was sitting next to Rick during the game.
I finally slept. Much later than usual.
Note if you are wondering whether I’m going to talk about the game, or just my reaction, it’s way more of the latter. See the title to the piece. No mention of the foe. But, if you stick around, there shall be some very minimal discussion of what happened at the Yum!.
This morning, before sitting at my desk to type these words you are reading, I went through my usual Saturday morning routine.
Which includes a half hour on the elliptical, and a couple other exercises. While listening to tuneage on my old school boom box.
There was but one musical choice for me this time around, the album that has calmed, more than any other, dozens of times since its release in 1990.
Paul Simon’s “The Rhythm of the Saints.” It was his second using mostly African musicians. Vincent Nguini’s lilting guitar stylings are a blessing. Yes, those are Simon’s lyrics at the top.
Then I ate my usual breakfast.
Here I sit now, wondering just what path this essay will take.
* * * * *
At some point late in the second, before the Cardinals mini-run that made the final score less disrespectful than the game really was, but after I’d jotted “KP Era Over” in my notes and closed my notepad, U of L was lining up at the south end out of timeout.
As I sat at that endline not ten feet away, the Cardinals in the game had hollow eyes, staring off into the middle distance over my head.
The faces of the crowd, which was ready to shout Louisville to victory at the slightest indication, were either forlorn or angry.
The red-clad ten year old youngster sitting next to me, daughter of a Louisville staffer, had stopped cheering, was playing a game on a phone.
* * * * *
There really doesn’t seem any reason to discuss stats, Xs and Os, strategy, whatever.
I am again, after an off season with some hope that there would be a turn for the better, very sad.
Kenny Payne is an eminently decent human being.
But there is no evidence so far that he’s up to the task in a manner that will satisfy a disturbed Cardinal Nation.
Sigh.
— c d kaplan
Great column, your chocolate velvet yogurt sounds a lot better than the bitter taste of Cardinal stew.
We have four coaches who played on national championship teams but there’s obviously something wrong with this team and I couldn’t agree with you more that Kenny Payne, as great a person as he is, is apparently not up to the level of coaching required at Louisville.
I’m not sure if they can win five games this year
oh well I football school now.!!
I wonder. Do we even have enough pride to be embarrassed anymore? And why don’t we ever play zone defense? We obviously can’t play man-to-man very well, and we’ve given up 75 points in 3s the first two games.
I’ve said this elsewhere but it bears repeating. I’ve always been a KP supporter. However, I’ve now started to feel about his coaching Louisville the same way I feel about President Jimmy Carter: A great human being that just isn’t up to all the serious needs of his position. Perhaps too nice…
The Cardinal brand CANNOT withstand any more erosion.
Another season of a few crumbs won’t satiate a starving fan base.
I beseech each and every men’s basketball fan to see a women’s basketball game. That’s how it is done and that is how coaching is done.