YOU ARE HERE: Central Kentucky Home→Collections→John Wall

Walker got his nickname at UK's first Madness

October 16, 2010|By LARRY VAUGHT | larry@amnews.com

LEXINGTON — He had just played a few months earlier in the McDonald’s All-American game, but Kenny Walker admits even today that he was “scared to death” when he participated in the first Midnight Madness at Kentucky in 1982.

“We had 12,000 or 13,000 fans there. That was the biggest crowd I had ever been in front of,” Walker said Friday as he watched Big Blue Madness. “It was wild. I was overwhelmed. Dicky (Beal) and Sam (Bowie) have traveled across the state to play in Blue-White games and they kept telling me I wouldn’t believe the crowd and that I wouldn’t be ready for it.

“Heck, people started lining up hours early. We walked from (Wildcat) Lodge to Memorial Coliseum and it was wall-to-wall people. It was like walking through a tunnel. There were high-fives and slaps on the back from everybody. It was crazy.”

It got crazier.

The plan was for the players to go through a lay-up line. Walker isn’t sure which player dunked first — he thought maybe guard Dirk Minniefield — and then he said the crowd went crazy.

“The players had seen me dunk, but the fans had not. Once somebody dunked, we all started dunking,” he said. “It got the loudest I ever heard. That was my greatest and best memory of Midnight Madness.”

And it actually started at midnight because that was when the NCAA didn’t allow practice to begin until 12:01 a.m. Oct. 15. Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness started at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

“Back then, it was totally unscripted. Now they have a major production for recruits and fans. It’s more of a show and it is great,” he said.

“I remember last year when John Calipari gave his state of Kentucky basketball address. He mentioned everybody connected with UK basketball. I thought he was running for president.”

Last year Kentucky freshman sensation John Wall unveiled the John Wall dance at Big Blue Madness. But 28 years ago, Walker was so impressive that he got his nickname — Sky Walker — because of his Midnight Madness performance.

“I could always jump, but that night I was so pumped up I was jumping out of the gym,” Walker, a past NBA slam dunk champion, said. “I don’t remember if it was Sam or (assistant coach) Leonard Hamilton that gave me the nickname. But one of them said, ‘He looks like Sky Walker.’ I didn’t have the name before that. It was right on the heels of the Star Wars movie (with star character Luke Skywalker) and the name just stuck. Even today people still call me Sky and it all started that night.”

Walker’s only regret from that night was that he never got to play a game in Memorial Coliseum.

“Even today I wish we could have just played once there. Rupp Arena was great, but that Midnight Madness at Memorial always had me wanting to just play one time there,” he said.

|

|

|