All We Got: Inside the Heart of Kentucky Basketball

by Lonnie Wheeler

What Friday Night Lights did for Texas football and Hoosiers did for Indiana basketball, this perceptive book does for the fanatical culture of basketball in Kentucky.To call basketball a religion in Kentucky is to overstate the fervor of most religions. From the coffee shops of Paintsville to the glittering confines of Rupp Arena, Kentuckians' lives rise and fall with the fortunes of their University of Kentucky Wildcats. In All We Got, bestselling author Lonnie Wheeler explores this phenomenon in all its dimensions.Wheeler examines the present-day University of Kentucky program under Rick Pitino, perhaps the most worshiped head coach in the nation. He explores the mad recruiting blitz as it focuses on one of the nation's top prospects. He looks back at the dark moments in UK history, from the point-shaving scandal in 1952, through the 1966 loss to Texas Western, to the infamous air freight envelope in the late 1980s. But most of all, he explores the enormous pressure on the 'Cats to win -- a pressure so fierce that they described their 1978 NCAA championship season as "joyless". Not since Friday Night Lights has a book portrayed such an all-consuming sports obsession and provided such rich insight into the culture of sports fans in America.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1998

About the author

Lonnie Wheeler was an American sportswriter and author known for his work on baseball. He wrote for The Cincinnati Enquirer, The Cincinnati Post, and USA Today and was the author of twelve books. He co-wrote the autobiographies of Baseball Hall of Famers Henry Aaron (I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story) and Bob Gibson (Stranger to the Game: The Autobiography of Bob Gibson), as well as a biography of Negro league legend Cool Papa Bell. His work extended beyond baseball, including a co-written autobiography of Detroit Mayor Coleman Young and books on college sports.
Wheeler's books received multiple Casey Award nominations, and in 2022, he was posthumously inducted into the Greater Cincinnati Journalism Hall of Fame.