Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops joined Kentucky Sports Radio Friday morning to discuss the football team’s protest Thursday by stepping away from the practice field, a move that was followed by other programs around college football.
The UK head coach discussed why he supported his players’ decision to take a break from football Thursday in hopes of bringing attention and ultimately change to social injustices taking place in the country.
Stoops went into a long discussion about relationships with former players, most notably Alex Montgomery. Montgomery was part of Stoops’ first recruiting class in Lexington and played at Kentucky from 2013-2016 before multiple knee injuries forced his retirement in 2016.
“Alex got hurt, got hurt again, was drifting away in school, was going to float away, and I wouldn’t stand for it,” said Stoops on KSR. “I brought him in, I got close to him, and I got to know him even more, I got to know him personally better, and he was done playing. It would have been real easy for me to just turn over and go to the next guy.
“He really had nowhere to go. He had no family. When he grew up, he woke up one morning and half his siblings were gone. His grandmother told him when he asked where his mother was, his grandmother told him, ‘Your mom didn’t want you.’ He has no one in this world. I’m his father and Chantel, his mother.”
Alex joined the Kentucky Daily podcast Friday to discuss his relationship with Stoops and what the UK coach means to him.
You can listen below. Be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
