Last week, my family and I went on our annual family vacation to the Smoky Mountains. Normally, the readers of a Kentucky sports website could care less about the vacation plans of its writers, but this one happens to come with a funny basketball-related story.
I decided to wear my “I Still Hate Laettner” shirt on drive down, both because it’s comfortable and also, as any of the readers of my previous columns can tell you, I really do hate Christian Laettner. (pictured above)
I could go off on a tangent about how he shouldn’t have even been in the game after he stomped on Aminu Timberlake’s chest, but that’s a column for another day.
The trip down was pretty uneventful, what with the potty breaks, breaking up fights between the three kids in the backseat and the Def Leppard music playing on the stereo (because no road trip is complete without a carful of people hearing ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ at an unreasonable volume). It wasn’t until we made it to Sevierville, Tennessee that the magic happened.
Tradition dictates that when we first get to Sevier County, Tennessee, we stop at Bass Pro Shops before anything else. As I’m looking at the discounted tees and coffee cups, I hear a guy whisper ‘Man, that guy’s shirt is cool”. I turn to see a guy standing a few feet away… in a Carolina Tarheel t-shirt.
I didn’t think much of it at the time as I went about my business. After we were done at BPS, we headed down to The Apple Barn for apple slushies and fried pies (if you’ve never had either, you’re doing yourselves a great injustice). While standing in line, a guy comes up to me and says ‘That is the best shirt I’ve ever seen!” He’s not wearing any team gear, but I just naturally assume he’s Big Blue. My brother-in-law is standing there and says he must be a big Kentucky fan too. ‘Nope, I’m a North Carolina man. But I have to get one of those shirts!”
Encountering two Carolina fans in one day and having them like my Kentucky-themed shirt? Unheard of. But the icing on the cake was yet to come.
As we’re standing outside The Apple Barn, a bagful of fried pies and cupsful of apple slushies in hand, another guy walks up to me and says ‘Excuse me, but you must be a Kentucky fan!’
“Yes sir,” I answered, not sure exactly where this is heading.
“I could tell from the color of your shirt,” he replies, “I’m a Tarheel fan, but (expletive omitted) do I hate Christian Laettner!”
I always wondered if hating Christian Laettner twenty years later was overkill. I asked myself if it was healthy holding that grudge all these years later, after almost everyone involved in that game had retired from the sport (except for Grant Hill, who I’m convinced cannot be killed by conventional weapons). But now I realize I’m completely in the right. Not only is there a big enough market of Haettners out there that a t-shirt was produced, another fanbase suffers along with us. You could argue over who had it worse, us Kentucky fans suffering from a shot that never should have happened, or having to put up with that sniveling snot for four full seasons, but one thing stands the same. We can all stand arm in arm with other college basketball fans under one universal truth: Christian Laettner sucks.
I still don’t like UNC though.
