Memories of Mike Pratt fill the air one more time. ‘He bled blue, through and through.’
Hundreds of friends, family, and Kentucky basketball fans who had surely come to feel like both gathered in Memorial Coliseum on Friday afternoon to honor the life and memory of Mike Pratt.
For a couple of hours, the building that Pratt had filled with cheers more than 50 years earlier was filled with fond stories, many laughs, and a few tears for the UK basketball great.
Pratt passed away June 16 after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 73 years old, and he spent most of his time on this Earth as a Kentucky Wildcat, no doubt one of the proudest ever.
Tom Leach, who has spent the past 21 seasons as Pratt’s radio partner for UK basketball broadcasts, served as the master of ceremonies for the celebration of his friend’s life. Leach referred to Pratt — a native of Dayton, Ohio — as “a Buckeye by birth but a Kentuckian by choice.” He then introduced Jim Richardson, who had befriended Pratt on their first day as UK students 56 years ago, to sing a rendition of “My Old Kentucky Home.”
Richardson played the tune on a blue, acoustic guitar, the crowd in Memorial standing at attention, some singing along at the end. And when the song was finished, the stories began.
Dan Issel — the Wildcats’ all-time leading men’s basketball scorer — is often remembered as one with Pratt. They came to Lexington in the same class. They played all three seasons of college ball together. Then they both signed with the Kentucky Colonels of the ABA, continuing there as teammates for two more seasons.
Most recently, the two friends hosted a sports radio show together in Louisville. Friends from the very beginning, right?
“Mike and I didn’t get off to a great start,” Issel acknowledged Friday.
He said Pratt was assigned to be his roommate at Haggin Hall when the college freshmen showed up for their first classes in 1966. They tried it for about a month, but Issel said they had such a hard time getting along that they split up. Pratt went to room with Mike Casey, while Randy Pool moved in with Issel.
Whatever disagreement there was didn’t last long. Issel and Pratt soon enough became thick as thieves. Quite literally, on one night in Mississippi.
By their senior year, the two were roommates during road trips. Issel explained that a lot of the places they played in those days were dry, and it was the duty of Claude Vaughan — longtime trainer and academic adviser for Adolph Rupp’s teams — to bring along the adult beverages for the coaching staff.
One night in a hotel in Oxford, the UK seniors were walking down the hall and noticed that the door to Vaughan’s room was ajar. On the bed, an open suitcase with a bottle of bourbon, a bottle of vodka, and a six-pack of beer. And no sign of Vaughan.
“So Mike grabs the six-pack and we high-tail it back to our room,” Issel says.
They knew it wouldn’t be that easy, and, sure enough, Vaughan is banging on their door five minutes later.
“I know you guys took it!” Issel recalls him yelling. “Where’s that beer?!”
The pair let him in, professed their innocence, and watched as Vaughan turned the room upside down. He looked under the bed, under the pillows, through the drawers, in the closet, in the bathroom. No beer.
“Mike had taken the top of the toilet tank off and put the six-pack back down in the tank,” Issel said with glee. “And what was even better was that he went and got a bucket of ice and iced it down. Right there in the tank.”
The two star players reveled in the hijinks and waited for the drinks to cool.
“When it got cold, Mike and I both had a beer, and laughed out loud,” Issel said. “Because, technically, Coach Rupp had just bought one for us.”
‘The best mentors in life ...’
Jimmy Dan Conner didn’t get to UK until a couple of seasons after Pratt had left, but — while they were never teammates — the older Wildcat had a profound impact on the younger’s life.
Conner would eventually earn Kentucky Mr. Basketball honors and join the 1,000-point club at UK, but when he first met Pratt he was just a 16-year-old kid from Lawrenceburg who had a growing reputation but at the time was spending his summer as a lifeguard.
Pratt and Issel called to see if he wanted to come work their basketball camp at Centre College.
“You get a call from Mike Pratt and Dan Issel, you best do what they ask you to do,” Conner said Friday.
And from the day he showed up at that camp, Conner had someone to show him the way, through basketball and life, for the next five decades.
“The best mentors in life are the people that you don’t realize are mentoring you,” he said.
That was a common theme among those who spoke Friday.
Rev. Brad McMahan of Adventure Christian Church in Jeffersontown recalled that Pratt “emptied his heart” into every person he met. He said Pratt looked for the good in people and brought out the best in people, noting that you could hear that every time he sat down with a UK player for the postgame radio show.
The conversation didn’t sound like a color analyst talking to a college basketball player.
“It sounded like a dad talking to his son,” McMahan said. “Encouraging his son.”
Pratt’s stepdaughter, Christina Stone, gave a tearful speech that was shown on the Memorial Coliseum big screen. She spoke of the importance Pratt held in his family’s life and the guiding light he had been for his children and grandchildren.
“Mike always gave advice that never came off as advice,” she said. “It was a life lesson, weaved into a perfect blend of what your heart needed to hear. That was Mike’s truest gift: he gave you the answer you needed, without giving you the answer. And this is absolutely what I will miss the most about him. His grace made us all better.”
Pat Pratt told stories of growing up with his brother in Dayton, their weekly telephone calls in the decades that followed, the importance that being a Kentucky Wildcat held in Mike’s life. As he spoke, photos of Pratt from childhood, his high school playing days, his career at UK — on the court and as a broadcaster — scrolled on the Memorial Coliseum video board.
John Calipari was the final speaker. He brought up the oft-told story of how — without Pratt — he might have never been Kentucky’s coach. As that story goes, Pratt, who was on the search committee, was the one who gave then-UK president Lee Todd the final nudge to take a chance on Calipari and hire him to lead the Wildcats.
Calipari said the greatest compliment you can give someone is to say you feel better after having spent time with them.
“That was Mike,” the UK coach said. “From the first time I met him, he was family. What I learned over the years while traveling with him was that he was family with a lot of people. Mike connected in personal, special ways with every person he crossed paths with.
“And I’m just thankful he crossed mine.”
‘Listen to this!’
Most of the remembrances of Pratt in the two months since his passing have centered on his personality off the court. He was a beloved figure in Kentucky basketball, someone who returned to UK fans later in life — and introduced himself to a whole new generation of them — as an analyst on the team’s radio broadcasts and a smiling face on Rupp Arena game days.
“We lost one of the greatest ambassadors this program has ever known,” Calipari said. “Mike Pratt loved the University of Kentucky from the moment he stepped on this campus in 1966. And he spent a lifetime giving himself to the betterment of this program. And inspiring others to love this game and this program as much as he did. He bled blue, through and through.”
Issel reminded those in attendance Friday that Pratt was a heck of a player, too.
In fact, the program’s all-time leading scorer went as far as to say that, in his opinion, Pratt is the best Kentucky basketball player to not have his jersey retired in the rafters of Rupp Arena.
“And I think we all need to do something to change that,” he said to applause from the crowd.
Leach pointed out that — when Pratt ended his college career in 1970 — he ranked in the top 10 in program history in points, rebounds and assists. Fifty two years later, he’s still in the top 30 on all three lists. And Pratt accomplished that in just three seasons, since freshmen weren’t allowed to play college basketball at the time he arrived on campus. In those three seasons, UK went 71-12, with a 48-6 record in the Southeastern Conference.
Issel noted that the team won the SEC Tournament all three years.
The afternoon ended with the voices of a couple of Kentucky legends.
First, a snippet of a recent interview with Pratt was played. Asked what he’d change about his playing days, he mentioned a couple of close losses — to Ohio State and Jacksonville — each with a trip to the Final Four that ultimately eluded him on the line. A couple of extra baskets there would have been nice, but he concluded that, no, he wouldn’t change anything.
“I was very lucky,” he said. “I’d hate to do it over. I’d probably screw it up.”
And then Pratt’s laugh filled Memorial Coliseum before he went on to say that he loved the University of Kentucky and everything that came with being a Wildcat.
Then, with the crowd silent, came the voice of Cawood Ledford.
The broadcast was from March 2, 1970 — Pratt’s final game in Memorial Coliseum.
“Listen to this!” Ledford exclaimed to his audience, then and now.
The longtime UK radio announcer paused as the crowd noise in the background intensified. Pratt had just fouled out late in the second half of a 102-81 victory over Auburn, and the Kentucky fans were realizing that he was walking off his home court for the final time.
“Listen to ’em!” Ledford exclaimed, again pausing to let his listeners soak up the atmosphere.
Fifty two years later, the roaring noise of appreciation echoed throughout the same building, otherwise silent as Pratt’s loved ones listened on.
“Well, the officials just stand while this crowd gives a standing ovation to Mike Pratt,” said the Voice of the Wildcats, the cheers filling in the open spaces. “He stands and waves to the crowd as they continue to thunder their appreciation for Mike Pratt. And it goes on. And on and on. Listen to them!”
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