Kentucky’s keys are in the hands of a coach unlike any other.
LEXINGTON, Ky. — This began with a threat. Not a thinly veiled threat. No. This was about as direct as it gets.
Mark Pope, all 6 feet and 10 inches of him, stood tall, pushing his shoulders back. Considering his size, his shaved head, and his background — a decade spent banging around the paint as a journeyman NBA center back in the late ’90s and early 2000s, when freedom of movement was a foreign concept and survival required withstanding elbows in the chest — he should be an imposing figure. Except Pope has this way of being impossibly likable. He looks and sounds like a human exclamation point. He throws around adjectives like he’s writing the latest “Hardy Boys” volume. Everything he sees or hears is brilliant! Or incredible! Or the greatest thing ever! Mixed in with the overloaded enthusiasm is the reality that Pope is, even though he’ll never admit it, an intellectual. He can spend hours discussing philosophy or theology. In a past life, he was a Rhodes scholar candidate on his way to becoming a doctor. He is, as his former coach Rick Pitino says, “smarter than 99 percent of college basketball coaches.”Add it all up and Pope, no matter how big, isn’t intimidating.
That’s why the threat wasn’t his.
“I’m fair game, but if you say anything about the girls,” Pope warned, shaking hands inside his office at the University of Kentucky, half-smiling, eyes moving cautiously, “Lee Anne will burn your house down.”
Welcome to the Pope Family. There’s your postcard.
Last spring, they were scattered. Each one in his or her own world. Lee Anne was in Texas, visiting a brother in the hospital. Ella, the oldest, was off embarking on early professional life. Avery, then a college junior, was heading into tennis practice at Brigham Young University. Layla, a BYU freshman, was in Salt Lake City, prepping for that night’s Utah Jazz-Houston Rockets game, her makeup half-done for a dance team performance. Shay, the youngest, was home in Provo, Utah, in the throes of high school volleyball practice.
And Dad? He was in a job interview with Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart.
Soon their cell phones were buzzing. Text messages in the family group chat. Pope told his wife and four daughters he needed them on a call. He mentioned a Zoom. No, no, one of the girls replied. Just start a group Facetime. OK. Everyone scrambled to find a quiet spot to talk, a little privacy. But then — where’s Shay? Volleyball practice wasn’t over yet. As the youngest, she is, of course, the favorite. They couldn’t start without her. Finally picking up her phone, Shay found a screen flooded with alerts. “Oh, my gosh.”
The call could hardly handle their collective wavelength. Wide eyes stared at screens, stared at one another. There was smiling, some lip-biting. Finally, Dad asked, “How do we feel if I go to Kentucky?” The tears started rolling.
This wasn’t a done deal yet. Pope told his family, “Listen, if anyone isn’t OK with this, I will stay at BYU.” He meant it. And he needed to hear from everyone on the call. He went around one by one.
