LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The city seemed huge. Overwhelming, Kenny Payne says. He grew up in a not-tiny but not-big town in southeast Mississippi, on five acres of land it took him three days to mow. Now, here he was, a 17-year-old at the University of Louisville and more or less on another planet. He’d come to play college basketball with $300 his parents saved up to get him started. On his first day, Payne left his wallet on the bench at Crawford Gymnasium. He finished his workout and walked back to the sideline to find that the wallet and the money were gone.
He’s nevertheless smiling in the front row of Louisville’s film room, more than two decades later, fresh off another community appearance on a Thursday night in early October. He didn’t run home after losing the wallet. He endured, for four more years. And now he has these stories to tell, which is kind of why he’s here, preparing for his first season as Louisville’s new men’s basketball coach, walking through the gym doors at 7:31 p.m. with yet another someone wanting more of his time.
Before this, it was a speech downtown for 200 doctors and assorted staffers at U of L Health. He didn’t have any prepared remarks, because Payne, 55, does not prepare remarks. Asked if he had even the vaguest of scripts, Payne points a long index finger to his chest. All off the heart, he says. If he had a script, he’d mess it up. So after an introduction, Louisville’s coach talks about his team and his players, about how much he values the care U of L Health provides for the less fortunate in the community and, as a corollary, about his definition of leadership. A true leader, Payne tells the group, puts others before themself. If his team is bad, he has to take the heat with humility and grace. If his team exceeds expectations, he has to credit his players and staff and leave none of it for Kenny Payne.
Then everyone wanted pictures. Everyone always wants pictures. After an exceptionally difficult few years, a city and a community and a university crave hope. Something to rally to. Louisville basketball always has been a connective fiber, until it hasn’t been. But with one of their own working from the heart, everyone wants to believe it can be again, that this won’t be another once-great program laid to rest by one failed hire after another. They want to believe their new coach knows precisely where he is: where he’s meant to be.
“He’s what we needed,” says Milt Wagner, one of Louisville basketball’s forever names, who has joined the hoops staff to help the cause. “He’s one of ours. He could be the one to bring everybody back together.”
It has been 36 years since Louisville men’s hoops won a national championship the NCAA record books recognize, but reality requires us to use a different lens. The Cardinals won a title a decade ago, even though banners came down later. As recently as December 2019, they spent two weeks as the No. 1 team in the country. But the tumult is undeniable. A self-imposed postseason ban in 2016 during an NCAA investigation into a scandal involving escorts and recruits. Firing Rick Pitino and Tom Jurich in 2017 due to the FBI’s investigation into men’s college basketball, followed five months later by the NCAA’s instruction to vacate all records from 2011 to 2015. Pitino’s departure officially changed to a “resignation” after his $40 million lawsuit against Louisville was settled. Chris Mack arriving with a seven-year contract and walking away 14 games into his fourth season. One NCAA Tournament win in the last seven years. The program has been through some things.
