Mark Pope is on a mission to instill a "beautiful competitive nature" in his second year guiding the Kentucky team, and he's using every tool at his disposal, including the laundry room.
The "painstaking work"
Pope explained that building good habits, especially around communication and body language, is "painstaking work" led by assistant Alvin Brooks, who grades the team daily on their interactions. But another key component is finding ways to put something on the line, even in practice.
The laundry bet
Pope shared a recent story where he did just that. "We're always looking for things to put on the line to even make it more competitive," he said. During a drill, he created a new penalty for the losing team.
“The penalty for the losing team, either blue or white, was going to be that they, not the managers, had to do the laundry after practice, which is an ordeal. That's a three-hour process.”
The stakes were set, and the scout team ended up pulling off an upset victory, leading to pandemonium from the managers.
“The gym went crazy,” Pope described. He said he had coaches, "running around in circles like Jim Valvano looking for someone to hug. And I had managers jumping up and down and crying and laughing and and celebrating. And all of that comes back to the beautiful competitive nature of this team.”
The heart of this team: "To go compete"
The story didn't end there. The losing White Team was "bailed out" by the managers after a player stayed late to shoot, so Pope had to enforce the punishment later. But the incident perfectly captured the spirit he's fostering.
“This team has a competitive nature. We have to foster it. We got to grow it. We got to cultivate it,” Pope said. “The heart of this team is to want to go compete... it makes practice so much fun it's really beautiful.”
Drew Holbrook is an avid Kentucky fan who has been covering the Cats for over 10 years. In his free time he enjoys downtime with his family and Premier League soccer.You can find him on X here.Micah 7:7. #UptheAlbion