Without leading the Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team in a game, Mark Pope has become a household name in Lexington. His name has already crossed the ocean and reached the Vatican. A Lexington priest was snapped gifting the Roman pontiff a Wildcats jersey with the new head coach’s name on the back.
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PHOTO: Lexington priest gifts Roman pontiff a Mark Pope jersey as CBB world embraces new Kentucky era
Mark Pope, Pope Francis
PHOTO: Lexington priest gifts Roman pontiff a Mark Pope jersey as CBB world embraces new Kentucky era
By
Shivam Pratap Singh
Modified May 04, 2024 13:47 GMT
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Without leading the Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team in a game, Mark Pope has become a household name in Lexington. His name has already crossed the ocean and reached the Vatican. A Lexington priest was snapped gifting the Roman pontiff a Wildcats jersey with the new head coach’s name on the back.
A photo has gone viral on social media showing Father Jim Sichko handing over a Pope jersey to the actual Pope Francis. It was shared by ESPN’s Matt Jones on X, showing the interaction amid a sea of followers looking on. Take a look at the snap here:
“Lexington priest @JimSichko gives the Pope a Pope jersey,” Jones wrote while sharing the photo.While Pope Francis is a known soccer fan, some AI-generated photos of him playing basketball took over the internet last year. While most of the fans realized that the snaps were AI-generated, some believed them to be real. The pontiff has no known connection to basketball as a sport but the new gift he received has certainly created one for the Wildcats fans.
Maybe his blessings are the one thing that the new Kentucky head coach needs to usher in an era of dominance that the fans expect from him. As for the Pope, his newly acquired gift can go well with the Harlem Globetrotters jersey he got back in 2015
