Matt Jones tells NPR about his five favorite things

A few months back, you may have heard Matt mention an interview he did with 89.3 WFPL, the Louisville NPR affiliate, in which he was asked to describe his five favorite things. That interview was released this morning, and we now know which objects Matt values more than any others (thankfully, he didn’t list his cell phone). One of them is a program from the 1992 SEC Tournament, the last one he attended with his grandfather.

“I became a sports person because of my grandfather. I went to games with him. I went to the SEC tournament with him every year, and [1992] was the last one he was physically able to go to. He had lung cancer at the time and he took me to that [tournament]. It was one of the best SEC tournaments of all time, from a basketball standpoint.

“But it was also, for me, powerful because it was this team of guys that I’d watched play in high school. I mean, they were all from the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. That’ll never happen again. And it was also the last one I went to with him, and he was so physically sick he couldn’t leave the room, so we went to the hotel and then he didn’t even go to the games. I went with his friends to the games. He passed away before he could see me have a career following UK sports, but my love of it came from him, and since that was really the last time I was able to go to something with him, it’s always been very important to me.”

Listen to Matt describe the other four objects on the podcast, which lasts about 40 minutes:

Five Things: Matt Jones Of Kentucky Sports Radio