The upcoming Kentucky Louisville football game is quickly approaching. As intense as the on the field physical match-up will be, the fans’ trash talk will be even more intense. UofL fans have seemingly always called Kentucky fans ignorant hillbillies, rednecks and backwards hicks. UK fans have reciprocated such love by calling the Louisville fans punks, ganstas and straight thugs. As harsh as these labels seem, the question remains, are these stereotypes fair to these respective fanbases?
Are Kentucky fans all hillbillies? Of course not. Hillbilly by definition is an unsophisticated country person, associated originally with the remote regions of the Appalachians. While I personally may be from Appalachia, I wouldn’t necessarily call myself “unsophisticated”. I mean when I burp or fart I always say “excuse me”. And when I give people the finger as I drive I still manage to use my turn signal as I cut them off. On second thought I may not be the best example. What about UK’s most famous fans like Ashley Judd, Drake, Eddie Montgomery and The Heavy Hitter? They come from various backgrounds and all seem fairly sophisticated. They are also not country, well except for Eddie Montgomery.
I think of the average UK fan as a 35-40 year old father type who wears a blue UK shirt and sunglasses. The average UK fan loves to tailgate and is mostly respectful of others including other fans. I went to Papa John’s Stadium (pre-expansion) for the UK UL game (the one where UK won 27-2) and while walking back to my car I was afraid there might be a brawl between opposing fans, alas no trouble was started. Uk fans chanted S-E-C but that was about it. They at least waited till they got home and got on their computers before rubbing it in.
Now what about the “thug” label for Cardinal fans? Thug by definition is a cutthroat or ruffian; a hoodlum or a violent person/criminal. Even the biggest Kentucky homer would have to admit that this wouldn’t describe the entire Louisville fanbase. A line beard does not a criminal make and flat bill hats turned sideways doesn’t automatically qualify you as a ruffian. Louisville fans are passionate about their team and fashion sense, but I have never known them to inflict any violence randomly or without cause. I have numerous friends that are Louisville fans and none of them are anything close to a “punk”.
My image of the average Louisville fan is a 40 year old father type guy who wears Louisville shirt, hat and sunshades. Kind of sounds familiar huh? Louisville fan usually has more facial hair than UK fan (no, that wasn’t another line beard reference). I mentioned earlier that when UK embarrassed UofL at Papa John’s that there were no incidents afterwards. That was also a credit to the Cardinal fans as they weren’t picking fights or raising hell in an alcoholic revenge rage. They were mostly mad at themselves or in that particular case, Steve Kragthorpe.
Really the biggest difference between the 2 fanbases is their mentalities. UofL fans want to win and want to win NOW. Uk fans are more patient. While UK fans are somewhat loud and obnoxious they still go to the games and hardly ever give up early on their cats (See Auburn football game last year). Louisville fans always feel they need to show UK fans how relevant they are with all their orange bowl trophies. UK fans are just happy to have a winning season in the toughest football conference in America.
Kentucky has a few bad eggs and Louisville has some extreme fans as well, but as a whole, both teams have great fans and do a great job of rooting their teams on. In conclusion, these particular stereotypes are unfair. And to clump “all” fans of one team into a category such as “hillbillies” is just wrong. Unless of course you’re a West Virginia fan.
