It’s been an momentous year and a half for Allison Cook and Bruce Dougherty as a team emceeing Louisville men’s ball recreations at the KFC Yum! Center.
They’ve met a Michigander named Denny Crum, who drove down with his family to observe the Cardinals play essentially since he offers the title of the late Corridor of Popularity coach. They’ve reported a race of slithering babies as in the event that it was the Kentucky Derby. They’ve observed a fan sink a 94-foot putt to win a 15-year-old bottle of Pappy Van Winkle, a entertainer elude from a straitjacket in less than three minutes and a frisbee-catching pooch crap of the court.
U of L wins have been harder to come by, which clarifies why they’ve too seen supporters wearing paper sacks over their heads and scanned-ticket swarms as little as 4,313 at the 22,090-seat field.
Theirs may be a tough side work, emanating excitement all through what might be Louisville’s to begin with back-to-back seasons indenting less than 10 triumphs since 1940-42. But in the event that you spend indeed five minutes talking with them, you’ll learn it’s a labor of adore.
“Individuals are continuously like, ‘How do you folks continuously have all this fun?'” Cook told The Messenger Diary final month. “I’m like, ‘It’s not fake. This can, be genuinely, how I need to spend my Saturday afternoon.'”
‘The individuals are so passionate’
Bruce Dougherty and Allison Nichole Cook are emcees for the Louisville Cardinals.
Cook and Dougherty to begin with crossed ways at U of L amid the mid-2010s. The previous, a Louisville local and deep rooted Cards fan, was wrapping up her undergrad ponders in sports organization when the last mentioned, who hails from Kansas City, arrived to seek after a master’s degree within the same field.
As paid assistants for the sports office, they reinforced over “snort work,” Cook said — rolling up T-shirts to be hurled out at diversions, for which they made a difference create generation plans. In 2018, Dougherty returned home for an amusement right hand work with his cherished Kansas City Chiefs; whereas Cook moved into a full-time part with her alma mater.
Both can point to particular minutes when they realized they had a talent for, and got a kick out of, hyping up fans.
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For Cook, it was a Cards baseball amusement played within the pouring rain. She, as an understudy amid the 2017 season, was charged with standing on the domestic burrow and bringing a little swarm to life.
It went well, so her boss inquired in the event that she’d like to undertake another. At that point it was, “Do you need to undertake women’s ball?”
She hasn’t slowed down since, with three sports presently on her plate in expansion to her day work as a showcasing chief for Norton Healthcare. Each diversion she approaches with the same attitude she has when she educates wellness classes at Shred 415.
“Whether there’s one individual within the room or it’s a pressed room of 33 individuals, I bring the same vitality,” Cook said.
“A parcel of these individuals are paying a parcel of cash to come to the game, to park, to buy brew, to bring their families. I need to appear up for them on their Saturday fair as much as I would trust somebody would appear up for me.”
Allison Cook and Bruce Dougherty both considered sports organization at U of L.
Dougherty’s minute came in 2019, when he and a few companions who worked for the Chiefs chosen to record a arrangement of rap tunes motivated by the group on its run to the AFC Championship. One, called “All Gas No Breaks,” was such a hit with the fan base that it was played at Sharpened stone Stadium amid the postseason.
It was the bump he required to feel comfortable taking the organize. At that point, work brought him back to Louisville — to begin with for a job in the sports division; presently, he makes a difference deliver occasions such as the Derby for Van Wagner.
The College of Missouri, where Dougherty earned his bachelor’s degree, remains No. 1 in his heart. But he feels right at domestic within the 502.
“The individuals are so enthusiastic, cherish everything around the school,” he said. “It made it simple fair to be ingrained and fall inside the culture since it was a bit, like ‘Oh, man, this school implies so much to the city.'”
Bruce Dougherty already worked with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Many weeks some time recently the Payne time tipped off, Dougherty’s old boss at U of L called. She and Cook had been engaging the thought of bringing another emcee into the fold for men’s ball diversions.
“We fair continuously had good energy — bounced thoughts off each other — so I knew, ‘OK, we are able kind of choose up where each other cleared out off,” Cook said. “In the event that I’m having a bad day, Bruce will choose me up. In the event that Bruce is having a long day at work or something, I’ll come in with the buildup.”
As Dougherty reviews, this was their pitch:
“You’re silly. (We’ve) seen you hurl a T-shirt into the swarm decidedly.”
He told them, “In case you believe me, I’m down.”
‘Natural enthusiasm’
By this point, Cook and Dougherty are a well-oiled machine.
The script has been committed to memory. Their feet have gotten utilized to walking 15,000 steps around the Yum! Center each amusement with the arena’s longtime cameraman, Check Wells. Blending with the fans comes normally.
“They both have this normal excitement,” Wells said. “Both of them are just genuinely playful and positive around everything.
“You have got to have that kind of passion to do something like that,” he added. “It can’t not be there (once) you go out and do this as much as they do and make it work.”
Allison Cook and Bruce Dougherty take turns emceeing U of L women’s basketball games.
Cook and Dougherty take turns solo emceeing women’s diversions. They said carrying a complete generation is more difficult than teaming up when the men play, but there’s one major advantage.
Jeff Walz’s group entered February with an 11-0 record at the Yum! Center this season. Payne, on the other hand, was 9-20 at domestic as a head coach when the calendar flipped.
Swarms that appear up to observe the previous as a rule bring more juice for Cook and Dougherty’s favorite portion of recreations, the playing of Wolfmother’s “Joker And The Cheat” amid crunch time, than the latter. But that doesn’t damper the bliss they exude every time the song’s opening guitar riff starts — no matter the score.
Credit Sean Moth, the radio voice of Louisville baseball who spent more than two decades as the public-address announcer for its ball, football and volleyball groups. His words of intelligence are still ringing in their ears.
You never know when it’s attending to be someone’s first time, or in the event that somebody as it were has the means to create it to one diversion.
Bruce Dougherty and Allison Cook present the start of the men’s ball diversion between the Louisville Cardinals and the Florida State Seminoles on Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024 at the KFC YUM Center in Louisville.
“Considering of, just, like the kid who’s in the stands,” Dougherty said. “There might not be a ton of individuals within the stands, but this means so much to them — to come to the diversion and be energized.
“I feel like we owe it to them to bring that vitality nonstop.”
