Long night at Knoxville for Dane Key’s grandmother got lot longer when someone stole her wheelchair

Kathy McKnight (seated below her daughter Nicole Key wearing the Dane Key No. 6 jersey) had her wheelchair stolen during the Tennessee game Saturday. (Vicky Graff Photo)

Kathy McKnight had a difficult enough night in Knoxville Saturday watching Kentucky lose 44-6 to Tennessee, the No. 1 team in this week’s college football rankings.

Her grandson, Kentucky freshman receiver Dane Key, had just one catch for eight yards. She probably had to listen to “Rocky Top” more than she ever wanted.

But just when she had to think the night could not get any worse, it did.

“I have a bad knee and have to wait  until December for a knee replacement,” McKnight said. “I can walk a little, but not any great distance. I have a wheelchair that folds up that we use for ball games so I don’t have to walk so far. (My daughter) Nicole or someone just pushes me.”

She uses the wheelchair at UK home games and since it folds up, took it on the airplane with her to Florida when the Cats beat the Gators in September.

McKnight had it with her at Tennessee since the hotel where they stayed was about a 2-mile walk from the football stadium.

“Someone always just pushes me up to the ramp at the stadium, we lean the wheelchair against a well and I walk to my seat,” McKnight, who is also battling breast cancer but does not like to miss games, said. “Saturday we did the same thing at Tennessee.”

There’s not a lot of flat areas around Neyland Stadium in Knoxville and she needed the wheelchair even more. Her grandson, Devon, checked in the third quarter to make sure it was still where they left it and it was.

“But at the end of the game, somebody had taken it,” she said. “We checked with the security people and they did not have it.”

Kentucky Sports Radio’s Ryan Lemond, who was at the game with the Key family, went to a first aid station to see if they had it. Again, no luck. Same with the second station they checked.

“Whoever took it had to know somebody had ridden to the stadium in it so why would you think they would not need it to leave?” she said. “It could have been somebody in worse shape than me.”

McKnight “limped up the hill” toward the hotel as far as she could go before she waited with her daughter, Nicole, and Devon headed off to get the car to take her back to the hotel.

Mother and daughter were in their Dane Key No. 6 Kentucky gear as jubilant Tennessee fans walked by where they were waiting.

“Some fans said some things but nothing too bad,” McKnight said. “I still can’t believe someone stole a wheelchair. My knee was a a little sore but I am fine now. It was just the whole idea that somebody would do that. We didn’t get back to the hotel until 12:30 or 1 (a.m.). It was a long night in a lot of ways.”

And no, they have never heard from anyone about where the wheelchair might be.