Kentucky Wildcat Football: Fun Facts from Media Day

I just experienced my first media day of any kind. Since I’m a football person, I was glad it got to be football and especially glad it was this season with all the excitement surrounding the program every day. There were lots of great take-aways from media day; from coaches to players there were great interviews and attitudes all around.  This post isn’t necessarily about what was said at media day however. I posted earlier for that as well as links to 10 videos (check them out!). Something I noticed was how fun this team is going to be to watch, both on and off the field.

I am not a morning person. When I got to Commonwealth at 9 AM and picked up my media guide I started reading to wake myself up. Something I noticed was in the player section, under their game stats was an “about me” section…some were pretty interesting.

Here’s my favorites:

• Blaylock twins both say their hidden talent is snowboarding
• Steven Borden happens to be wearing an American flag bow tie in his media guide photo… ‘Merica.
• Kyle Budde’s hidden talent is bowling
• Thomas Chapman’s favorite TV show is Friday Night Lights (which is mine as well)
• Josh Clemons said his game-day superstition is no trash talking (I do enough for us both) and his hidden talent is trick dunking though I’m assuming not at this moment.
• Mister Cobble said that his nickname is Sizzle, when he played little league he pretended he was the hulk and his hidden talent is sewing- I’ll be sure and call him up next time I need a button sewed on.
• Christian Coleman loves the Sandlot (who doesn’t?!)
• Daryl Collins loves science
• Mason Colton said he would like to trade places with John Conner and he was on high school dance team and chorus…
• Rodney Cox gets a haircut before every game and is a black belt also
• Tre’ Dunn can apparently play guitar, ukulele and skateboard
• Bud Dupree says he can draw
• Glen Faulkner: “My favorite part of game day is…winning” “I wear number 18 because…someone had 10 and it was Randall Cobb’s number”
• Davidson Fong also says he can play guitar and draw.
• Jonathan George says his nickname is Jon Jon, he can play drums and his superstition is praying on the sideline before every game
• Max Godby would like to Skype the apostle Paul, his hidden talent  is cooking and his biggest pet peeve about Twitter is…” too many hash tags for one event #ihateit #annoying #stopit #petpeeve”
• Farrington Huguenin’s favorite thing about Stoops? He has swag.
• Anthony Kendrick and Raymond Sanders are both twins
• AJ Legree says he can walk on his hands and he wants to be a professional wrestler
• Cody Lewis’ favorite part about Kentucky? Horses.
• Shaquille Love loves Dancing With The Stars
• Joe Mansour says his favorite college class so far is calculus (???) and he can do Scooby Doo impressions
• Jerry McCray played in jazz band and can write poetry, play instruments and rap
• Malcom McDuffen says he wants to model his game after Wesley Woodyard and his dad played in the NBA
• Cantrell McKinley calls his mom every game day
• Langston Newton says his hidden talent is “balancing things” (not sure if that’s figuratively or literally) and he is an avid gardener
• Travaughn Paschal is apparently a handy man
• Reese Phillips wants to be a Sports Center anchor. Me too man, lets tag team that.
• Cody Quinn says a little known fact about him is he was born with six fingers…?
• Donte Rumph is nicknamed “Uncle Rumph”
• Ronnie Shields can juggle
• Eric Simmons’ favorite movie is Anchorman (great choice)
• Erico Smith writes poetry and plays violin and sax
• If Za’Darius Smith could trade places with any athlete it would be a quarterback…I can see it now.
• Max Strong wants to own a car dealership
• If Fred Tiller could trade places with any athlete it would be Demarco Robinson. He also likes Duck Dynasty and winning.
• Jalen Whitlow can apparently talk like Darth Vader (that would make for awesome audibles)

A surprising number of guys said they would like to Skype Bill Cosby, own and NFL team and can cook. We also have several artists and fisherman and lots of guys who would like to go into the music industry or anything involved with sports/fitness…so there’s that.

Another source of entertainment at media day was watching these guys poke fun at each other- running into interviews, interviewing each other…they could hardly sit still long enough to take the team photo. Jojo Kemp was interviewed by Jeff Badet and UK Athletics got a great video of the players interacting on the field as well (which I’m in by the way).

Needless to say this group had me cracking up most of the day. Between side comments (Max Smith said that to decide who walked off the bus first- Z Smith or Dupree, they picked who was biggest and went with Za’Darius because he has a big head…) and Jaleel Hytchye saying he only plays with himself on NCAA, and guys running in and out of each other’s interviews it was an entertaining day. The team chemistry definitely seems to be in place, which is a great sign. They seem like a fun group and I can’t wait to see them in both on and off the field action at Fan Day on Friday.