Why everyone loves to hate the Louisville Cardinals

The most resilient athletic program in college sports, the Louisville Cardinals, has rebounded once again, and the rest of the world can’t stand it.

Rock bottom. Hey Louisville Cardinals fans, do you want to talk about it? (my best Cameron Magruder).

Louisville citizens as a people are proud and tight-knit. This is even more evident as one delves inside the raucously unwavering University of Louisville sports subculture.

The synonymous chip on the shoulder has long been on full display here, worn like a pair of brown UPS shorts throughout the Derby City. The most widely successful city-represented college athletic department in history has coincided its success and financial growth with that of the metropolitan area itself.

But let’s face it: the city of Louisville hasn’t always been the cozy, thriving beehive of activity that we’ve come to know and appreciate.

Before Mayor Jerry Abramson took office in the 1980s, what is now Waterfront Park was literally a junkyard. Boat captains that maneuvered their way through the Ohio River gave it the nickname “Junk City”.

But yet over time, with persistence and unbridled determination, we cleaned it up and we rebuilt. That’s what we do here.

So how does the outside world view Louisvillians?

To them, we’re just a bunch of shoeless, toothless, overall-wearing, horseback riding, chicken-frying, whiskey-guzzling country bumpkins in a quaint little southern town with steamboats and tobacco farms with a miniature downtown (partially true).

I think we all remember the city/county merger that took place around the turn of the century. Locals boasted the newfound realization that our hometown had cracked the top 20, becoming the 16th-largest city in the United States.

Society scoffed. 16th? Pssh.

But despite how society views the city as a whole or the people in it, one thing is undeniably certain. There hasn’t been a more consistently tormented fan base in recent memory, and of course, society was here for it (with a Glad bag full of popcorn).

But somehow through the past few years, Card nation has been able to brace for the impending impact, absorb the blow, begin the therapy, and prepare for the come up.

Now, let’s be real. America loves the underdog. However, in 2013 Louisville was lightyears from being that. Fresh off of a Sugar Bowl win, an NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship, an NCAA Women’s Title runner-up, and a College World Series appearance, many around the sports community had dubbed it “The Year of the Cardinal”.

I’ll be the first to admit it. Cloud nine had a spellbinding view. We were the kings and queens of the world. All the naysayers had stopped chirping. All the critics had been silenced. Everything was just right.

But in the words of Biggie: “Mo’ money, mo’ problems”.

It didn’t take long for the target on the back to grow larger and the mouths to grow louder. Because see, when you’re at the top, you become everyone else’s Super Bowl. You get every opponent’s best shot. In short, everybody hates you.

The following year didn’t entirely disappoint, as the Cards whisked into the Sweet 16 and won the Russell Athletic Bowl in convincing fashion. There was no deep dip in overall performance that has become more and more frequent following highly successful campaigns.

It seemed as though we had weathered the feared taboo of a drop-off. We all hesitantly whispered, “we’re good, right?”

Well…hence the word “seemed”.

There goes Charlie. In walks Bobby…again (we’ll get to that).

Here come the strippers.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Facepalm.

It could’ve happened anywhere. Why here?!

Or could it have…?

I mean how many times have we shot ourselves in the foot, stumbled on a key play down the stretch that costed us the game, or jumped offsides to blow any aspirations of a championship, or blew a convincing lead in the waning moments (or 0.9 seconds)?

How many times have we said, “that’s Louisville for ya”? How many times has something bad, and I mean ridiculously bad happened and we have said “of course” or “here we go again?” SO. MANY. TIMES. This wasn’t any different, it was just on a much greater scale. This is why we can’t have nice things.

We became the laughing stock in the sports world, and once again the haters pulled up to the spectacle in droves.

Oh how the mighty have fallen, right? Annnnd here came the jokes to top it all off.

Every basketball away game became a slander-fest. The outsiders assumed everyone was in on the cover-up and every player had relations with a prostitute. It was extremism across the board. To this day when we play Duke, the contest is labeled “Trippers vs Strippers”. Ugh.

Capped by a self-imposed postseason ban for the 2014-15 basketball season, the ugliness was becoming utterly grotesque.

Even if you include the baseball team’s continued success, morale was monumentally low. The Louisville athletic department was branded as cheaters and phonies, and society was basking in the glow of it all.

You could here the snickering murmurs. “Oh, how the tide turns.” “Louisville is done.” “They’ll never come back from this.” Blah blah blah.

We just needed a spark. We got one. His name was Lamar Jackson.

How on earth did this happen? I thought the wheels were coming off. I thought we were paying our penance, reaping what we sewed. I thought we peaked only to descend.

It was only a few games into the 2016 college football season and Jackson was the Heisman front runner. We all know now that he would eventually coast to a landslide victory in the season-long hunt for the prestigious trophy, breaking records along the way.

Louisville was back and society was absolutely livid.

Do you know how many college teams would kill for a player to earn all-conference honors, or how many fanbases just want a reason (any reason) to pop bottles?

That’s why mid-majors empty the stands to storm the field when knocking off highly-ranked Power 5 football opponents. That’s why Big South Conference fans rush the court when they earn a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

People live for moments like that…the good times…fond memories….conversation pieces….and the Louisville Athletic Department had built a reputation on these things time and time again in the past.

Why did these positive things keep happening to a school that clearly did not appear morally upright? It made society cringe to the brink of angry keyboard-lashings.

“Heisman? Yeah right.”

”Should’ve been Deshaun Watson.”

”Lamar stumbled down the stretch.”

”He didn’t earn it.”

”Go buy some strippers.”

Laugh out loud.

Whatever, buddy (strikes Heisman pose).

Cardnation continued to chug along and brush off the pitfalls and the insults that followed. Much like the makeup of Louisvillians as citizens, this athletic program and fan base was going to climb its way out of this mess one way or the other, and the clucking chickens that were spewing negativity like puss from a cyst were suddenly astonishingly worried.

Here we come.

Right?? Right????!!!

Not so fast (Lee Corso).

Fast forward to post-Lamar.

Enter Brian Bowen and the pay-for-play crap. Enter Bobby 2.0.

We hadn’t even allowed the smoke to clear from the Katina Powell days and here we were again, this time submerged in a swampy federal scandal. Society was lying in wait for this day. We were the poster boys and girls for everything that was wrong with college sports.

It wasn’t asking for it enough that we dipped our little paws back into the cookie jar to snag Bobby again, who had just returned to The Ville after a self-inflicted smear campaign at the University of Arkansas and with the Atlanta Falcons.

This time the hatred was understandably justified in a way.

This go around was nothing short of a full-blown dumpster fire.

The burn was broadcasted on every sports media outlet known to man. We were unequivocally put on blast. “Outside the Lines” “Pardon the Interruption”, “Sportscenter”, “The Lead” on the ESPN bottom ticker…it was all-consuming—a catastrophic embarrassment—and everyone loved it.

Once again, we began our tour of shame. Opposing fans arrived to games in jaded unison. The “F-B-I” chants were aplenty. Student sections heckled the players and coaches from opening tip to the final buzzer. Then to put a bow on it, in typical Louisville fashion, we received the biggest shellacking of them all.

They took the freaking banner. They put a freaking asterisk. They erased the freaking records. They rubbed our freaking faces in it. They freaking kicked us while we were down.

No words, man. No words at all.

I remember where I was when I read the news. It was one of the worst days of my life, and certainly the lowest point in Louisville sports history.

The public began to dispute the title. They mocked its validity. Hell, they mocked us for claiming the championship at all.

Meanwhile, in 2018, Bobby Petrino had lost his luster. Bobby 2.0 and the basketball program were fast-becoming a synchronized train wreck. This, my friends, was rock bottom as we knew it.

Once again, everyone from Hater Island had pulled back into the station and hopped out with their popcorn, this time equipped with flash-bulb cameras and shiny new boxes of insults.

This is when I realized it. Wow, they really do hate us. Everyone does.

But somewhere among the cackles, in small talking circles at golf outings, around water coolers, in barbershops, or in grocery stores, there was a strand of codependent sorrow. Remember I told you how this country loves the underdog.

See, people fear what they don’t understand,  and they hate what they can’t conquer. Everyone hates Louisville, and it is entirely fear-driven.

Do you think Big Blue Nation would’ve given us the nickname “Little Brother” if it weren’t for fear? Absolutely not. It is a tactic to keep our fan base emotionally and pridefully at bay. The same goes for the rest of the country. Everyone hates us.

The derogatory chants will never make their way into any Power Five arena if the traveling team is on the level of Northwest Eastern Fayette County Tech, unless the assumed-to-be-inferior team is in position to encroach on the game’s predicted favorable outcome for the home team. In other words, if they have no chance to win then no fear is present. You catch my drift?

So when one of the nation’s greatest college basketball programs and recently up-and-coming football programs takes a plummeting nosedive into the pavement, the sentiment of fear subsides, clearing the path for the underlying human condition of empathy and empathy breeds compassion.

Basically, if we’re down and out there is nothing to be fearful of. If we’re laid out on the mat waving the white flag, then there is no reason to hate us. We had become the underdog. Momentarily, we were out of everyone’s way.

I began to ponder: what does it take to be hated in sports?

If you think about it, when news leaked this Summer that some other schools would be named in the pay-for-play scandal, subconsciously we all had a handful of schools in mind that we wanted to see laid to waste (i.e. Kansas, UNC, Duke, Kentucky, etc.).

Just like if a scandal like that ever rocked the College Football universe, we’d have our fingers crossed in hopes that the allegations would be aimed at the top of the heap. (Alabama, Clemson, Notre Dame, Michigan, etc.)

In the wake of the allegations delivered by the FBI, the University of Louisville cleaned house. Head basketball coach Rick Pitino, the majority of his staff, and Athletic Director Tom Jurich were all given the old boot scoot. It was one of those things where everything just felt so surreal. Like, this can’t be happening. .

But it was.

The college basketball analysts began to sound off now, some claiming that Louisville basketball should be cancelled, and that the school wouldn’t be able to recruit for years to come. Other fan bases hopped in the cypher to land a punch or twelve. Petrino and his staff were effectively removed as well.

How could we ever recover from these depths?

I mean, have we ever seen this at any school?

It has never happened.

There has never been such a massive exodus like there was here in Louisville, where a collegiate athletic department that leads the nation in basketball revenue, and had just finished financing its plans to expand its football stadium, be in a predicament where there wasn’t even a permanent managerial role in place at the helms of the school, the athletic offices, or the two largest money-making sports in the same two years.

Okay, now bear with me.

We were all scared. But I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t intimidated. Neither were you. It’s just not in our bones as a fanbase. It’s not in our DNA as a city or as a community.

As much as the world wanted Louisville to shrivel up and croak, the Cardinals became the pests that wouldn’t go away. People hate pests.

Operating from ground zero, the university implanted President Neeli Bendapudi, AD Vince Tyra, Head Basketball Coach Chris Mack, and Head Football Coach Scott Satterfield.

Suddenly the athletic office had a new life. The basketball team is currently poised for its most hyped up season maybe in history, and the football team is implementing an entirely new culture, and everyone is hating it.

For the sports talking heads, there is nothing left to feel empathetic about. People don’t view the school as a limping mutt anymore. When empathy subsides, discord rears its ugly head.

It is currently July in The Ville but the masses are buzzing about what the cooler seasons have in store.

Go ahead and lump that in with one of our own, Donovan Mitchell, having the most sought-after shoes on the globe. Oh, and be sure to mention how Lamar Jackson tacked on 17 lbs. of muscle in the off-season. Don’t you just hate to see it? (Devilish smirk)

How could this be? We were supposed to be dead. Well, we’re from Junk City, baby…and we never say die.

That’s why everyone hates Louisville….and I’m here for it (with a Glad bag full of popcorn).