Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy... B-I-L-L-Y!

Well today is another birthday blog. There hasn’t been one in awhile, and you know I kind of miss them. Today is Billy Gillispie’s birthday.

Happy Birthday Billy!

For those of you not in the know, Billy is the head coach of the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team. He first came to my attention as an assistant coach on Bill Self’s staff here at the University of Illinois. At that time I was just getting to know my good buddies Nikki and Karen, co-workers of mine at the Assembly Hall who were college students at the time. Nikki had quite the crush on Robert Archibald, while Karen was smitten with Damir Krupalja. I was feeling a bit out the loop, but was old enough that it was kind of creepy for me to have a crush on a 19-year old player, so I had my eye on Billy.

I could not really participate in conversations about the basketball stats of my “Illini boyfriend”, so I took to throwing in what color suit, shirt and tie Billy had worn when we would chat after the game. Karen and Nikki would talk about how many rebounds, points and fouls Robert and Damir had, and I would throw in tidbits about Billy’s “red power tie”. Anywho, Billy’s fashions ended up having quite the following at the Hall, and often times the color of his tie would often be an indicator of the teams success. We even took to scanning the sidelines while watching away games on TV trying to get a glimpse. Disaster struck when Billy trotted out some hideous brown suit with a peach shirt at Purdue one year. We played horrible, and went down in defeat. To this day we still refer to French blue as “Billy Blue” in reference to one of his blue shirts that brought the team unparalleled success.

About six years ago Billy was given his first head coaching job at University of Texas-El Paso. He was off to UTEP and what was I to do. On a bit of a dare I sent Billy a note at UTEP, wishing him luck as a head coach, and filling him in on our little game of charting his shirts and ties vs. the team performance, and telling him to NEVER wear the brown suit/peach shirt combo ever again. Well, lo and behold the good ol’ boy wrote back thanking me for my support. Since then I always send Billy a birthday card every year wishing him good luck on the upcoming season. One year he wrote back and even sent me the media guide for that years team. Billy is quite the rising star in the college coaching ranks, landing the head coaching job at Texas A & M after two years at UTEP, and then being named the head coach at Kentucky (yes that Kentucky… Adolph Rupp, Ashley Judd) after just three years at A & M. When Texas A & M played DePaul in the NIT tourney three years ago at All State arena, Nik was a sport and went with me to see the game. We hung out and waited for Billy after the game and he knew who I was before I even introduced myself, was super nice, cheesed for picture and once again thanked me for my support. When I sent him a note at Kentucky this spring congratulating him on the new job, he wrote back again… this time he had an assistant type the note, but he still jotted a handwritten “Thanks for the Support”.

Billy is the one who gave new Illini assistant coach, and former player, Jerrance Howard his first job in the business, as J-How was his administrative assistant/coach at A & M for three years. Billy is just an all around good guy, an awesome coach, and the blue eyes, Texas twang and killer smile and dimples don’t hurt either. One of my favorite Billy moments was watching an A & M game last year with Sarah J when Billy got teed up for laying down on the court in protest of a bad call. He didn’t really mean to be quite that theatrical, he has been squatting down in the coaching box, and just kind of fell back in exasperation. Afterwards he was super embarrassed and apologetic, and just ridiculously adorable. I hope he does well at Kentucky and can impress the Big Blue Nation, and they let him stick around for awhile. Kentucky blue really does set off his eyes.

Happy Birthday Billy!