Will Stein didn’t need long to settle in Thursday morning at Hurstbourne Country Club.
He chipped onto the first green, watched the ball finish a few feet from the cup and then looked over at the reporters trailing his group.
“Did you get that on tape?”
The line drew a laugh, and a tap-in for par followed. The rest of the morning carried the same easy rhythm.
That was the feel of Stein’s return to Louisville: no tension, no forced act, just a homecoming for Kentucky’s head coach in the city where he grew up. He was back on a course a few miles from Trinity High School, where he starred long before he became a college coach, and the greetings were mostly handshakes and smiles from people happy to see him back.
For Stein, the city has never been something to distance himself from. His father played for Kentucky, and he spent years making trips to Commonwealth Stadium. In a place where loyalties are usually sorted quickly, he chose blue.
“Not really,” he said when asked whether it feels strange to come back as Kentucky’s coach. “It's where I spent 24 years of my life, so you know, you see people from Big Blue Nation to Louisville fans, all really embracing me coming back, and I think that's what happens when you leave a place hopefully better than you found it. When I went to Louisville I treated people the right way, and coming back to the state, being now the head coach of Kentucky, it's - I think it's special for a lot of people.”
Stein has not tried to scrub any part of his path. Louisville mattered.
Kentucky mattered. Home and dream job ended up living in the same story.
His foursome Thursday included J.B. Holmes and Randall Cobb, two other Kentucky names who spent their careers elsewhere before coming back for a summer round at Hurstbourne.
“Obviously, two legends of University of Kentucky athletics,” Stein said. Of Cobb, he added, “You can't say enough about him from a football perspective.
Definitely should be on our Hall of Honor. One of the best.”
Stein is in a recruiting dead period, which leaves a little more room for golf and a little less for the usual football grind. Still, the job never really pauses for an SEC coach. He has already had a hand in details that might seem small from the outside, including Kentucky’s promotional schedule for theme games being released weeks before kickoff.
“I definitely put a lot into it, because they matter, and our fans matter,” he said. “We can schedule things out just like we do with football.
We organize ourselves and try to set ourselves up for success. I think it's important that our fans get information earlier, that way they're prepared for that moment and not getting information 48 to 72 hours before kickoff.”
That answer fit the morning, too. It sounded like a coach who understands that the work is bigger than game day, and that connection with the fan base starts long before the first whistle.
Still, the image that lingered was the first one: Stein on the opening green, making the shot, then joking with the reporters.
“Did you get that on tape?”
Yes. But the larger scene said more.
A Trinity kid. A Louisville quarterback.
A Kentucky coach. Back home on a July morning.
Stein said he hoped people welcomed him because he had tried to leave Louisville better than he found it.
That’s hard to argue with.
Football will keep score this fall.
Home already has.
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For Louisville, the appeal is as much about the competition as the pedigree. Wibberley arrives with a chance to push for snaps at center or guard, and he enters a room where every interior spot still has to be earned. However the rotation settles, his presence adds another experienced body to an O-line race that needed more proven options. [Read more 🡒]
Louisville Making Early Push For A Guard Cardinals Fans Will Want
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Bell has also drawn attention from a long list of other major programs, which is no surprise for a guard with his profile and national appeal. Still, Louisville has positioned itself well by getting in early and making the case that its system suits his game, and the next step will be getting him on campus once the live period wraps up. [Read more 🡒]