Kentucky basketball coach treats coal miner’s household to tickets

When Mollie McGuire answered the cellphone on Monday after seeing a quantity she did not acknowledge, the caller on the opposite finish mentioned, “Howdy? That is John Calipari.”

“I used to be shocked,” McGuire informed ESPN.com.

A photograph of McGuire’s coal miner husband, Michael, had gone viral after he arrived at Kentucky males’s basketball’s Blue-White scrimmage in Pikeville, Kentucky, on Saturday with recent soot on his face whereas carrying his miner’s work uniform and boots.

https://twitter.com/UKCoachCalipari/status/1584598084532961280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

McGuire mentioned her husband left the mines and instantly drove to the sport to be along with his spouse and their 3-year-old son, Easton. Though he was drained after an extended shift, Kentucky’s scrimmage was the primary stay basketball sport their son had attended, and he did not need to miss it.

McGuire mentioned her husband was unaware of the thrill in regards to the photograph as a result of he’d been within the mines all day.

When Calipari reached Mollie McGuire on Monday, he provided her household tickets to an upcoming sport and “VIP” remedy at Rupp Area.

Calipari had organized the scrimmage at Appalachian Wi-fi Area to lift cash for communities in Japanese Kentucky that had been ravaged by flooding over the summer time.

Mollie McGuire mentioned her household averted the devastation different households endured throughout flooding that killed 39 folks in that a part of the state in August. Her household — additionally they have a 1-year-old daughter — packed up luggage of clothes and gave them to relations and mates who’d misplaced every little thing.

She mentioned Kentucky’s fundraising scrimmage will assist these households.

“It is superb that these guys got here right here and raised cash,” she added. “It will put roofs over folks’s heads.”