As master of ceremonies of the annual Governor’s Cup cocktail party and press conference, which I consider a privilege and honor, I got to introduce Kentucky coach Rich Brooks and Louisville coach Steve Kragthorpe on Thursday at the University Club outside Lexington.

I didn’t pay as much attention to what they said as how they looked. Maybe it was his short haircut or his tan, but Brooks seemed younger than the 67 he will be on Aug. 20. Maybe that’s what happens when you have two consecutive 8-5 teams at UK and back-to-back wins in the Music City Bowl.

By contrast, Kragthorpe seemed to have aged considerably since last year’s event. He didn’t smile much and his answers were clipped. Maybe that’s what happens when you go 6-6 with a team that was ranked in the preseason Top 10.

My instant analysis: Kragthorpe will go into the season opener on Aug. 31 under a lot more stress and strain than Brooks. Indeed, the U of L coach might want to look to Brooks for an example on perseverance. It wasn’t that many Governors Cups ago that Brooks suffered in comparison with Kragthorpe’s successor, Bobby Petrino.

As Kragthorpe was posing for photos with Brooks and Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, who dropped in to bless the event, he had no way of knowing that Petrino was going to drop a bomb on him the next day at the Southeastern Conference’s pre-season media gathering outside Birmingham.

Asked about Kragthorpe’s comments that he had inherited a lot of off-the-field problems, Petrino said, “We didn’t have a discipline problem when I was there…we had players that were real focused, did a great job, went 41-9, and I think returned 21 starters off that Orange Bowl team. So, you know, I felt good about the way we left the program and the shape that we left the University of Louisville in.”

One thing we know for sure about Petrino is that he will never miss an opportunity to show what a punk he is. He could have defended his work at U of L without taking a cheap shot at Kragthorpe. But that’s not Petrino’s style. His style is to quit a job in midseason without ever meeting with his players. That’s what he did to the Atlanta Falcons last season.

The only question about Petrino’s new job at Arkansas is how long it will take him to show the Razorback faithful what the fans in Louisville and Atlanta already know: He has no concept about things such as class and integrity. In other words, he will never belong in the company of men like Howard Schnellenberger, Derrick Ramsey, Joe Jacoby, or C.M. Newton.

Those were the honorees at this year’s Governors Cup festivities. Ramsey played for UK, Jacoby for U of L. Schnellenberger played at UK and coached U of L. In fact, when I showed up wearing a baseball hat that was half-red and half-blue, Schnellenberger liked it so much that I gave it to him.

The odd man out, sort of, was Newton, who’s known primarily as a “basketball man” because of his coaching career at Transylvania, Alabama, and Vanderbilt. But he also has football credentials. It was Paul “Bear” Bryant who handpicked him to be Alabama’s basketball coach, and he was a close friend of Jerry Claiborne, who coached UK from 1981-’89.

Most importantly, when Newton was UK’s athletics director in the early ‘90s, he joined with Schnellenberger, Cardinal A.D. Bill Olsen and Wildcat coach Bill Curry to iron out the details of a UK-U of L football series that became the Governor’s Cup.

The idea was to promote football interest throughout the commonwealth and give both programs the needed impetus to upgrade their facilities. Newton said the U of L game was the single biggest reason he was able to expand Commonwealth Stadium, and Schnellenberger said there’s no question that the UK game helped U of L raise the money to build Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium.

“Everything has worked out exactly as we hoped – better than we hoped,” Schnellenberger said. “Both programs have benefited from playing each other. The series has generated new football interest in the high schools. It has been on national TV. I’m delighted to see all this enthusiasm.”

But not wanting to put UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart and Brooks on the spot, Schnellenberger didn’t repeat at the Lexington press conference something he had told the audience at the previous night’s cocktail party in Louisville.

“This game always should be the opening game of the season,” he said. “Had it been anything other than that, I never would have agreed to it. One reason is that if you ever have a team good enough to win the national championship, it’s better to have a loss in the first game than the last game. I found that out at Miami in 1983. We lost our first game at Florida, then won 10 in a row, beat Nebraska in the Orange Bowl, and won the national championship.”

Last year, of course, Barnhart and Brooks moved the game from its traditional opening slot to the third game of the season. The Wildcats won a classic, 40-34, but it had little to d0 with the date change. Simply put, UK had a better team, as the final records indicated.

Thursday’s press conference got off to a sad start when it was announced that Maury “Big Mo” Wolford, who played for the Cardinals from, 1948-51, had unexpectedly passed away that morning. He’s the father of Will Wolford, the offensive tackle from St. Xavier High product who bypassed both UK and U of L to play at Vanderbilt.

Wolford and Jacoby both became stars in the NFL, Jacoby as the anchor of the Washington Redskins’ “Hogs” offensive line of the 1980s and Wolford as the primary blocker for Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas on the Buffalo Bills teams that lost four consecutive Super Bowls from 1991-’94.

“Offensive linemen don’t get a lot of credit for anybody except our quarterbacks and running backs,” Jacoby said. “But football is a team sport, and I’m proud of the contributions I made to my teams.”

When Brooks got up to make his remarks, he looked at Ramsey, Art Still, and some other stars from the ’77 team and said, “You guys look like you can still play…when can you suit up?”

Leaping to his feet, Ramsey said, “How about right now, coach?”

Brooks laughed, unaware of the news that awaited him back at his office. Senior quarterback Curtis Pulley, expected to battle Mike Hartline for the starting quarterback job when practice begins, had been arrested twice in the previous six weeks.

On June 12, Pulley was charged with marijuana possession in Louisville. On July 22, he was charged in Hardin County with driving on a suspended or revoked license, with an expired or no license plate, and with no registration papers.
Known mainly as a running quarterback, Pulley could only dream of breaking Ramsey’s records for rushing and touchdowns. Now Brooks can only dream of him providing the inspiration and leadership that characterized Ramsey’s four-year UK career. The first African-American starting quarterback in UK history, Ramsey led the 1976 Cats to a 9-3 record and a Peach Bowl win over North Carolina, followed by the 10-1 team that was ranked No. 6 in the final Associated Press poll.

“Art and I got most of the publicity,” Ramsey said, “but I always give the credit to my offensive line. We didn’t have anybody as big as Joe Jacoby (who was listed at 6-foot-7 and 315 pounds in his NFL days) but we had some guys who knew how to block and compete.”

Ramsey led largely by example, something Pulley now may have a hard time pulling off. When a team leader doesn’t take personal responsibility for his actions both off and on the field, it can have a trickle-down affect that can poison a team’s chemistry.

Unfortunately for UK, Ramsey won’t be around to be a mentor for Pulley. This week he’ll be announced as the new athletics director at Coppin State, the historically black college in Baltimore that has made several NCAA basketball tournament appearances under coach Fang Mitchell.

So even though U of L has lost several players due to bad behavior off the field, at least Kragthorpe no longer has to feel alone. Now Brooks also has something about which to frown as another Governors Cup approaches.

Meanwhile, at Florida Atlantic, Schnellenberger is getting ready to resume the third major building program of his career (the others were at Miami and U of L). He called me the day after the Governors Cup luncheon to thank me again for the half-red, half-blue hat.

“I assure you it will be placed among my most prized football possessions,” he said. “And I will wear it on very special occasions.”