Background:  Texas A&M head basketball coach Billy Gillespie (A NATIVE TEXAN!!) left Texas A&M today to accept the head coaching job at the University of Kentucky.  In the past weeks, coach Gillespie led the Aggies deep into the NCAA tournament, and has publicly stated his intention to stay at Texas A&M.

 

 

(Sniffle)

 

So when you said all those things before....

 

about how this was it and you wanted to stick around forever? 

 

I guess that was just all pillow talk, right? 

 

Quiet one liners after a couple of great runs in the tournament?!?  

 

That really hurts, Billy.  I really thought you meant those things you said.

 

OK, I know...  I need to be grown up about this.   I can accept this like an adult.... 

 

I mean, I'm a strong, respected research university!  I should be smart enough to recognize that I was really playing out of my league there for a while. 

 

Seriously, who am I to think that I'm entitled to a Sweet Sixteen appearance every year?  I'm just a working class school from the Coastal Prairie.  Why, just yesterday, I couldn't give basketball tickets away with a gun!!!  Any conference win at all was worth a whole week of feeling good about myself.   

 

I should have known it wouldn't work out from the beginning....  a big-time coach like you and a little prairie school like me. 

 

OH PLEEAASE!!!  Say it ain't so!!!  You were the one, Billy!!!  Together we took Texas A&M Basketball to places it had never been before!!! 

 

You and me, Billy!!!  

 

(sniffle)

 

I guess you're just telling me now what I knew all along.  It was all just a stepping stone for you, wasn't it?  I remember how - just yesterday - you used to say those mean things about poor old UTEP when you and I were making sweet music in the dance...  And now...  how can I compete with this new kid... Kentucky?

 

I mean...  all that history and success. 

 

UK?  I could never measure up to anything like that.  Adolf Rupp?  The winningest program in Men's College BB?  UK is a trophy wife supermodel I could never be. 

 

But be careful Billy...  That's right.  Be careful what you ask for. 

 

And don't you worry about ole' Army.  

 

Don't you worry about me!  I'm gonna be just fine, Billy!  I'm gonna keep on truckin'!  I'm going to find that person that's right for me.  A person that doesn't need all the bright lights and big city.   You mark it, Billy!   We're going to settle down and we're going to keep moving ahead without you.

 

And one day...  and that time is gonna come, Billy...  that one day when your honeymoon with your sweet little sassy Kentucky is over...  When she and all of her friends and boosters make fun of you and run you out of town...

 

You'll remember me and you'll wish you were back.