Draper James Poncho for Football Season
The perfect outfit for Kentucky football games!
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It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Obviously, I mean SEC football season, and especially those magical weekends where you can take in some races at Keeneland AND a UK football game. Bonus points if you need a sweater, wrap, or poncho, especially this Draper James poncho in Wildcat Blue.
Poncho: Draper James | Jeans: Lauren Ralph Lauren | Bangle: Bourbon & Boweties for Sweet Mash Goods
I had so much fun styling this outfit in anticipation of fall football games! I especially love the Kendra Scott earrings and necklace for fun touches of blue that I’ll wear for so many game days!
If you’ll be in the Lexington area for some Keeneland and football shopping, join me October 2nd at Draper James and October 10th at Kendra Scott for Shop & Sip events benefiting Dress for Success Lexington. Let me know in the comments below what colors you wear on game day!
Gameday Tee and the Stadium that Will Always be Known as Commonwealth
My favorite new gameday tee!
Hey y'all! It's the first home game at, uh, Kroger Field. It's going to take a little minute to get used to calling it that. Anyway, I wish I were in Lexington for this UK game, because not only is it the first game at the newly-renamed stadium, but the Cats are playing my parents' alma mater, EKU.
The University will also be saluting one of my very favorite UK alums, garden designer Jon Carloftis, today! Jon is such a cool, creative, and wonderful Kentuckian, and I love this story of how he utilized his Kentucky degree to craft a dream career.
I can't make today's game, but I am rocking a fun game day tee from Draper James! I love this top because I can cheer for both of the teams I love -- the 'Cats and the Crimson Tide -- without a costume change! (Don't forget to click here for $20 off your Draper James order!)
Who are y'all rooting for today?
Bear Bryant and the Kentucky Wildcats
Remembering a legend of college football.
On September 11, 1913, Paul William Bryant was born in Munro Bottom, Arkansas, the eleventh of twelve children born to Wilson Monroe and Ida Kilgore Bryant. From a young age, he was undertaking legendary things, like the time when, at age 13, he agreed to wrestle a bear at a carnival. The nickname "Bear" stuck.
Kentucky Coach Bear Bryant with Team Captains Vito Parilli and Doug Mosely, 1953. Image via KDL
By 1930, Bear was a high school football player whose team won the Arkansas state championship, but he didn't quite make it to graduation. In fact, when the Bear was offered a football scholarship to the University of Alabama, he had to finish up his degree at a Tuscaloosa-area high school while undertaking fall practice with the Tide.
January 1, 1951 -- Bear Bryant's Wildcats win the Sugar Bowl
Now, here in Kentucky, we know Bear Bryant as the Coach who toughened up the Wildcat football team for eight seasons and reinvented the way we recruited our players. He took the 'Cats to their first Bowl game in 1947 and on to their first SEC Conference title in 1950.
Sugar Bowl Champion Kentucky Wildcats. Image via Big Blue Fans.
The 1950 Wildcats went on to upset the #1 ranked Oklahoma Sooners in the Sugar Bowl, with a final score of 13-7. That Sugar Bowl game is considered one of the greatest upsets in college football history, as the Wildcats ended Oklahoma's run for an undefeated season.
Now, as we all know, Coach Bryant stayed in Lexington through 1953. The stories are murky about why he left us to coach the A & M Aggies. Some say it's over a fight with Coach Rupp over a Cadillac, a watch, or maybe a cigarette lighter. Others say that the rivalry between the two legendary Kentucky coaches has been over-dramatized. In 1966, Bryant himself told Sports Illustrated: "The trouble was we were too much alike, and he wanted basketball No. 1 and I wanted football No. 1...In an environment like that one or the other has to go."
When you have the two best coaches ever to coach their respective sports, the stakes are high.
I hear that, after his 8 seasons at Kentucky were over, he tried his hand at coaching Down South and took to wearing a snazzy hat. I'll leave the stories of those years to our friends in Alabama who can tell them way better than I ever could.
Here's to Coach Bryant and the 1951 Sugar Bowl. Go Big Blue!