Lee Anne Pope, left, cheered after her husband, Mark, and UK got a win over Illinois Sunday. (Vicky Graff Photo)
How does Mark Pope always manage to be so positive?
He’s been tested in his first year at Kentucky with a series of injuries and has had his team at full strength for only a few games yet the Cats will be playing Tennessee Friday night in Indianapolis in the Sweet Sixteen.
Pope says a lot of coaches from high school coach Rich Belcher to his first college coach Lynn Nance to Kentucky coach Rick Pitino to NBA coach Larry Bird along with a “whole slew” of other incredible coaches helped shaped his career.
“I got to work for Dave Rose at BYU which was one of my great teachers and mentors. I’ve been really blessed,” Pope said.
Pope’s current players also feel “blessed” to have spent this season with him after he brought in transfers and signed three freshmen to put together a totally new roster that has UK as the only team in the Sweet Sixteen with zero retiring points from the prior season according to CBS Sports.
That could test Pope’s positivity but he has a strong foundation just like he did when he was the captain of Kentucky’s 1996 national championship team.
“I think that my life view, most of it comes from my faith. And I’m a believer. And that makes — it just makes you see the world different. It really does. I think the world is — I think it’s actually real that the world is what we see and what we look for. I think that we are active creators in the world that we live in,” Pope said last week in Milwaukee.
“I mean, I really believe that. I believe that if we really want to see the goodness of the world, if we work hard, we can see it. I really believe we can see it. Right? I think that my faith is — a foundational principle is gratitude, and I think it’s really hard to not be positive, not be joyful, not be happy if you work really hard at gratitude.
“I mean, if we all take the time in our day to sit down and start listing the things that we could be grateful for, starting from the very basic level, how can we not love life and be so incredibly full of joy and positivity. Because it’s just miracle after miracle, just the fact that we get to wake up every morning.”
Pope used a unique story with the media to emphasize his point of view.
“If I gave you $10 million right now, would it make you happy? And most people would be like, yeah, I would take that in a second. No strings attached. Are you kidding?” Pope said. “And if I said well, here’s the deal. If I was going to give you $10 million today or you could wake up tomorrow, which would you choose? And you would choose to wake up tomorrow, right?
“So waking up tomorrow is worth way more than $10 million. That’s a fact, and it’s a reality. It’s just sometimes we don’t actually take the time to look at it and understand it that way. And when we actively do that, I think our lives get really, really good really, really fast.
“So I think that I want my guys to be challenged. I want them to face all of the struggles and trials and adversity that this game and this experience can offer them, because it gives them a chance to grow. But I also want them every single day to remember how blessed they are to have the opportunity to wake up, to be basketball players at the University of Kentucky. It’s just incredible.
“So I don’t know. I love it, man. I love the whole thing, and it’s not hard. It’s not hard to find joy in life.”
7 Responses
Pope has it, being positive will take you a long way in life. So glad he’s our coach.
It’s God, not positivity! God gives you the positivity! You’ve missed the whole point!!!
Pope will hang some banners here at Kentucky. He smiles and is happy all the time but he also wants to prove that he’s one of the elite coaches in college basketball and you do that by winning not putting tons of players in the NBA. If your good enough the NBA will find you no matter what team you play for and that’s something that Cal never understood. Cal was always 2 good shooters away from a championship and he ignored it to get as many athletic players as he could. Pope realizes this and embraces it. I’m glad Pope is our coach and the players will play there tails off for him because its not just about NBA scouts its about developing a relationship with your players and he gets it. Plus nowadays the players are much more soft and yelling and screaming at the them all the time doesn’t work in 2025. He has found a way to connect to his players and they know he loves them and will do anything for them. Plus they know they got green light and better shoot the ball when they are open. This will help guys like Noah Perry and Chandler get better and better.
nah … He had all the tools… Several times. Vegas betting goons had something on him. Cal sitting Ulis and Booker for the final six minutes in the final four, because "the Harrison twins were seniors and deserved to play those minutes"…. Please. Vegas stood to lose the most it ever would have, if the cats had won that game. Something like 900 million… to some fool who picked UK to win it all and go undefeated. Turns out he wasn’t a fool… Except for the fact that he should’ve known Cal would throw the game in the final 6 minutes, by taking out the best long range shooter he ever coached and the best point guard in college at the time. Cal is compromised… Otherwise he’d prob have 6 national championships already.
If he doesn’t hang a banner ( which I think he will/may ) still a great choice – hope the BBN’s pressure/ sometime stupidly doesn’t change him – don’t think it will.
He will above
So glad to have coach Pope, he really cares about UK tradition and what the fans want
Comments are closed.