John Clay is a sports columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader. A native of Central Kentucky and graduate of UK, he covered UK football for 13 seasons before being promoted to columnist in 2000. He lives in Lexington with his wife and two sons.
Saying good-bye to John Cohen
One of Colin Cowherd’s more irritating habits is to use the phrase “they don’t get it,” or so-and-so “gets it,” as in a certain section of his ESPN listening audience is either smart enough to agree with him, or dumb enough not to agree, or can or cannot see the big picture that only Colin and smart people like Colin can see. But that’s ok. I get it. Colin can’t help it.
That said, let me say this about John Cohen, “he gets it.”
It’s one week to the day that the UK baseball coach informed Kentucky that he was packing up his bat bag and heading back to his alma mater of Mississippi State, despite the threats made by his former coach, Ron Polk. I was up in New York at the Big Brown Letdown at the time and didn’t have a chance to comment on Cohen’s departure.
I hate to see him go. Not just because Cohen did a terrific job elevating the Kentucky baseball program. Not only because he won an SEC title in 2006. Not only because he returned the Cats to the NCAA Tournament this year. Not only because he dispelled the myth that the northern most school in a southern conference couldn’t win in a spring sport. Not only because Cohen was energetic and optimistic and intense and possessed an amazing work ethic.
Here's two Cohen stories to tell you why:
It was 2006, the incredible year in which Cohen led the Cats to the regular-season conference crown. I’ll admit I was slow to grab on to the buzz. By the time I finally made it over to Cliff Hagan Stadium to write a Cohen column, the Cats were well into the winning ways. Many coaches would have greeted a johnny-come-lately columnist with a “where have you been?” or a “you didn’t come around before, I’m not talking to you now.” (That was the Hal Mumme approach to making friends.) And maybe said coach would have been right to do so.
Cohen isn’t one of those coaches. He calls everybody by their first names. (I think the world of Tubby Smith, but to this day I’m not sure he knew any one in the media by name.) Cohen took time to give thoughtful answers. Sure, he was selling. But he believed in what he was selling. And he knew that at Kentucky, baseball needed to be sold.
Second story. It’s 2008, the Cats are playing Ole Miss in the final series of the regular season. Saturday is Senior Day. By one of those editing snafus, an info box with the UK baseball story has the wrong time listed for that day’s game. (The time was correct in the “Around the Town” listings but wrong in the info box.) I hear about it as soon as I arrive at the ballpark from an upset fan. Anyway, Kentucky loses that day. We do our post-game interviews after the game. We talk to Cohen. We talk to some players. I finish and start to leave the field. I look up and see Cohen still in the dugout.
“Hey, John,” he says, waving me over.
I think, ok, brace yourself for a tongue-lashing.
“I’m not trying to be a smart-ass,” said Cohen. “But we really do appreciate you guys coming out and covering us.”
This isn’t to say that Cohen never got mad at the media. A friend of mine had seen a typo in a UK baseball column that had been posted on the Kentucky.com page before it was published and fired me a quick e-mail of alert, saying he wanted me to fix it before Cohen got wind of it. “I’ve seen John mad,” said the friend, “and it’s not pretty.”
But it is to say that one reason Cohen was so successful at UK was that he “got it.” He knew what was required. Sweat. Hard work. Dedication. Intensity. Promotion. Selling. And he didn’t leave the latter two to the marketing department. He did his share. More than his share.
I’m sure Cohen’s successor, Gary Henderson, is a good coach and will do a good job. But let’s not kid ourselves here. There is more to leading a program than Xs and Os, than personnel decisions and in-game strategy. Sometimes that's the easy stuff. It's the things outside the white lines that make or break a program and a coach. To me, those were the things John Cohen "got" and that made him a success at Kentucky. He leaves some big shoes to fill.
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