HE IS BACK: Louisville Cardinals are pleased to announce his arival…

It’s been an eventful year and a half for Allison Cook and Bruce Dougherty as a duo emceeing Louisville men’s basketball games at the KFC Yum! Center.

They’ve met a Michigander named Denny Crum, who drove down with his family to watch the Cardinals play simply because he shares the name of the late Hall of Fame coach. They’ve announced a race of crawling babies as if it was the Kentucky Derby. They’ve watched a fan sink a 94-foot putt to win a 15-year-old bottle of Pappy Van Winkle, a magician escape from a straitjacket in less than three minutes and a frisbee-catching dog poop of the court.

U of L wins have been harder to come by, which explains why they’ve also seen supporters wearing paper bags over their heads and scanned-ticket crowds as small as 4,313 at the 22,090-seat arena.

Theirs is a tough side job, radiating enthusiasm throughout what could be Louisville’s first back-to-back seasons notching fewer than 10 victories since 1940-42. But if you spend even five minutes talking with them, you’ll learn it’s a labor of love. David Johnson - undefined - University of Louisville Athletic

“People are always like, ‘How do you guys always have all this fun?'” Cook told The Courier Journal last month. “I’m like, ‘It’s not fake. This is, truly, how I want to spend my Saturday afternoon.’

Cook and Dougherty first crossed paths at U of L during the mid-2010s. The former, a Louisville native and lifelong Cards fan, was wrapping up her undergraduate studies in sports administration when the latter, who hails from Kansas City, arrived to pursue a master’s degree in the same field.

As paid interns for the athletics department, they bonded over “grunt work,” Cook said — rolling up T-shirts to be tossed out at games, for which they helped develop production plans. In 2018, Dougherty returned home for an entertainment assistant job with his beloved Kansas City Chiefs; while Cook shifted into a full-time role with her alma mater.

Both can point to specific moments when they realized they had a knack for, and got a kick out of, hyping up fans.

She hasn’t slowed down since, with three sports now on her plate in addition to her day job as a marketing manager for Norton Healthcare. Each game she approaches with the same mindset she has when she teaches fitness classes at Shred 415.

“Whether there’s one person in the room or it’s a packed room of 33 people, I bring the same energy,” Cook said.

“A lot of these people are paying a lot of money to come to the game, to park, to buy beer, to bring their families. I want to show up for them on their Saturday just as much as I would hope someone would show up for me.”

Dougherty’s moment came in 2019, when he and some friends who worked for the Chiefs decided to record a series of rap songs inspired by the team on its run to the AFC Championship. One, called “All Gas No Breaks,” was such a hit with the fan base that it was played at Arrowhead Stadium during the postseason.

It was the nudge he needed to feel comfortable taking the stage. Then, work brought him back to Louisville — first for a job in the athletics department; now, he helps produce events such as the Derby for Van Wagner.

The University of Missouri, where Dougherty earned his bachelor’s degree, remains No. 1 in his heart. But he feels right at home in the 502.