LOOKING BACK

 My calendar tells me we are through with high school basketball and college basketball.

This means that for me, I will take in some summer basketball and keep a close eye on who the University of Kentucky is recruiting in basketball to try to be competitive for another National Championship.

The Corbin Redhounds’ football program will open their season in August under Coach Steve Jewell and his staff.

My friend Paul Jones is a baseball fan of the first order. Paul’s favorite team is the Cincinnati Reds and I too root for the Reds. I feel that Paul and I have fallen victim to the great amount of hype that the Reds front office fills the air with each spring.

The University of Kentucky football program begins in the late summer to build the hops of their big blue nation with the talk of championships.

As for me, it’s golf about three days a week with Ron Timperio, Paul Pietrowski and John Johnson.

My golf game is very similar to Kentucky’s football, I always have high hopes but good results seldom occur.

My friends Rossi Farmer and Richard “Pup” Giles have their minds set on fishing, I have never been fishing, but the fish must be pretty smart, because Rossi and Pup spend an awful lot of time on their strategy of how to out smart those little devils.

That brings me to the hottest little 500 rummy game in the state of Kentucky for only fifty cents per player, per game.

It takes place at White’s Pro Billiards five days per week. The rummy game is pretty competitive, but the side benefits are the knowledge you pick up from the conversations that go on. Everything from politics to fishing trips to UK basketball.

Then if you really want to keep a competitive edge you could get in the snooker game with Bob Stewart, Ron Hensley, Bill St. John, Robert Carrol, Johnny Eaton, Earl “take” White, Junior Taylor and Jim Curry.

The Kentucky Wildcats have just finished a 38-2 record and have been crowned as National Champions. In my opinion, this was the very best team in Kentucky history.

The future of the ‘Cats may very well be determined Wednesday as that will be when two of the best prospects select their school to attend next year. Shabazz Muhammad and Nerlens Noel plan to announce their choices. Another important piece of the puzzle will be if the ‘Cats can sign Anthony Bennett, a 6’ 8”, 247-pound power forward from Canada. He may very well be the best of the three.

I am going to take a few weeks off, but I hope to resume the column before long.