In the early 1900’s, one of the mostprominent figures in all of sports was the great Babe Ruth, thehall-of-fame outfielder for the New York Yankees. He was adored andworshiped by baseball fans everywhere. This was also known as thegolden age of baseball and was arguably the greatest period ofbaseball ever. But there would be another prominent “Babe”, whowould be one of the greatest and most adored figures in Kentuckyfootball history, while also being an integral part of the golden ageof UK football. That man was Vito “Babe” Parilli.
Parilli found his way on to the campusof the University of Kentucky in 1948, ironically, the same year BabeRuth passed away. He was recruited out of Rochester, Pennsylvania to play for UK byhall-of-fame coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. In his three years as thestarting QB, UK posted records of 9-3, 11-1 and 8-4. He averaged ninewins per season, an amount UK hasn’t won in a single season in almost30 years. respectively.. He became an All-American quarterback forKentucky under Bryant, Babe Parilli led his team to UK’s onlynational championship in the Sugar Bowl, defeating top-rankedOklahoma and ending the Sooners’ 31-game winning streak. Parilliled the Cats back to the postseason the next year in a victoryagainst TCU in the Cotton Bowl. Here is a video of UK and Parilli inthe Cotton Bowl that starts at the 1:20 mark:
This highlight of Parilli and UKbeating OU begins at the 2:20 mark:
Tim Tebow only wishes he could throwthe jump-pass that good. He later won the MVP award in the collegeAll-Star Game.
Its worth noting that his first careerstart as a Cat was against SEC foe LSU, a situation similar to whatcurrent UK QB Max Smith faced yesterday against Ole Miss. Perhaps theole Babe gave Max a good pregame speech, because the true freshmansure didn’t look like a rookie against Ole Miss.
His career total at UK were 331completions on 592 attempts for 4351 yards with 50 touchdowns and 37interceptions over a three-year span. In an era where many teams ranthe ball the way teams like Army and Navy do in today’s game, thosewere very impressive stats, which made Parilli an All-American.Parilli’s 50 touchdowns remain fourth all-time at UK.
The Babe played 6 years in the NFL, andthen went to the American Football League, where he was one of only20 players to play the entire 10 years the AFL existed. Parilli gothis Super Bowl ring with the 1969 New York Jets, where he was thebackup to hall-of-famer Joe Namath. Parilli was named to the CollegeFootball Hall of Fame in 1982, and the UK Alumni Hall of Fame in 2002
The Babe has recently been on a book tour speaking about his life and new book, “Kentucky Babe”. Its a great read and you can get it here. I had the honor of meeting Parilli, and he is a genuine human being. He was at the game yesterday signing his book, and I have to believe he brought some of his old magic to the game with him, because that looked like a completely different UK team than we’ve seen all year.
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