Kentucky Pickers: Other People's Clothes Edition

If there’s one thing Kentucky fans love more than their teams, it’s the stuff they can buy to support them. KSR wants to see your odd and unique UK memorabilia. No, not just your run of the mill UK flag or t-shirt collection. We want the weird stuff. Have a stuffed Wildcat eating a cardinal? Send it in. A portrait of John Calipari made entirely of popcorn? Send it in. The odder, the better.

A lot of you have sent in some pictures of awesome articles of clothing once owned by UK players. Let’s start with Sterling Peck, who owns Ralph Beard’s letterman sweater. In his own words:

Hey Tyler, just wanted to share that I have Ralph Beard’s letter-man sweater from 1947. Back about five years ago, me and my friend would save up our money and try to find crazy stuff like this, meeting some awesome old players like Vernon Hatton and Cliff Hagan along the way. We found a guy named Will who knew some of the older players. He had a huge basement full of old UK basketball stuff and was trying to sell the majority of it. So we called him up and went over there, and it was the craziest collection of UK stuff I’ve ever seen, including Kenny Walker’s shorts and Kyle Macy’s shoes. But this was maybe the coolest thing he had, and he was willing to sell it to me.

Before Beard passed away, he auctioned off a lot of his UK stuff in New York in 2002, and somehow Will found out about it, and got some of it. I’ve always admired Ralph Beard’s story. Even through the point shaving scandal, you could tell he was a very good, decent man. I’ve thought about selling some of the other UK things I have now because of money, but I’m not ever going to get rid of this one! Gotta preserve the history.

Now, Rick Robey’s tube socks, which are owned by Garris Sullivan. Writes his nephew, Donald Cherry:

My uncle Garris Sullivan operated Young’s department store in Russell Springs, KY in 1978 when Rick Robey visited. He recently shared this photo with me from that time. Autographed Rick Robey tube socks from 1978. $2.00 price sticker still on the socks.

Think you can do better? Send us a picture of your unique “UK junk” along with the story behind it and we’ll post the best ones on the website. Email pictures to [email protected] with the subject heading “Kentucky Pickers.”