Abdallah Shaaban is die-hard UK fan even though he lives in Beirut, Lebanon, and now his son, Adam, attends the University of Kentucky
Kentucky football fans certainly enjoyed last weekend when the Wildcats got verbal commitments from three top 500 players — twins Destin and Keaton Wade of Spring Hill, Tenn., and Kiyuanta Goodwin of Charlestown, Ind. However, when I saw on social media that Abdallah Shaaban had watched the commitments online from Beruit, Lebanon, I was intrigued. How did UK football have a fan in Lebanon?
“I attended UK from 1983 to 1992 (BS, MS, Ph.D. in Civil Engineering). I would hear my friends talking about (former UK basketball players) Sam Bowie and Melvin Turpin with passion and I frankly thought they were kind of stupid to be talking so much about a basketball game,” Shaaban said.
“I wasn’t interested until 1986 when I found out that we could get free student tickets and that waiting for the tickets was a party. This is how I became a UK basketball fan.”
As a UK student almost 50 years ago, I understand what he meant about the festive atmosphere waiting to get tickets. However, becoming a football fan was more difficult for him because he didn’t understand football.
“I used to watch students walking in waves to then-Commonwealth Stadium and wasn’t interested in knowing more about it until a Lebanese friend who worked in catering while studying at UK invited me to have a free lunch at the stadium,” Shaaban said. “The pregame meal is something, I can tell you that. Then he took me to watch the game from the pressbox. Obviously now I understand the game and love it.”
The story gets better, though, when he explains how he went from fan to fanatic.
“I only became a fanatic once I married my ex whose family are UofL fans. Good thing my kids turned out to be solid UK fans,” he said. He is now Chairman and Managing Director of Ecolife Properties in Beirut who relies on Twitter and sports websites to keep up with relevant University of Kentucky sports news. He said his biggest challenge is finding streaming sites to watch games.
“It used to be very slow but is now much better with fiber optic. ESPN and CBS censor viewing from outside the U.S. I don’t see the logic behind it but I guess they know better,” he said.
“The biggest challenge by far is the time difference. Lebanon is seven hours ahead of the EST. So 9 p.m. games play at 4 a.m. here. I still manage to wake up for most of them.”
There are other UK alumni living in Lebanon but he’s not sure if any of them watch Kentucky games like him due to the time difference. He used to watch games with his daughter, Mia, a die-hard UK fan now living in Louisville. (His son, Adam, is now a freshman at UK and another daughter Hannah, lives in Bowling Green.)
He admits football recently overtook basketball as his favorite UK sport.
How did that happen?
“The basketball players are not hanging around long enough for me as a fan to connect to them as we did before,” Shaaban said. “I still love the team because of the logo on the front of the players’ shirts but I wish players could stay longer and develop.”
He found out on social media when the Wades and Goodwin were going to commit.
“I love that UK is even being considered by athletes coveted by big schools. I guess we have become a big football school and I give lots of credit to AD Mitch Barnhart who stuck with (head coach Mark) Stoops when things were bad the year we could tackle anybody about five years ago.”
I wondered how Shaaban had even decided to follow me on Twitter. Luckily, his memory was a lot better than mine.
“We first connected when Makayla Epps came to play basketball in Lebanon,” Shaaban said. “I offered her my best advice and to let me know if she needed anything. I remember you sent me a ‘look after her tweet.'”
