Disclosure time again.
Cotton Top was 12 years old at the children’s home in Versailles when he became a University of Louisville fan. Like the other kids he strongly disliked the word orphanage, not enjoying the words “Methodist Home” on the side of the school bus that carried them everywhere. 
Knowing he would live in Louisville after high school. Cotton Top took an interest in everything Louisville. Applying his small allowance toward subscriptions to the daily newspapers, keeping large meticulous scrapbooks of every article about U of L. He was also more familiar with the city map than most Louisvillians.
Already a Louisville fanatic, the skinny little kid was often a target of kids of the UK persuasion during U of L games, with TV only becoming more available during his teen years. More than once, the aggravation became so intense there was no option other than stepping outside to defend one’s team.
As an adult, Cotton Top would obtain a postgraduate degree from the University of Louisville a decade after graduating from Kentucky Wesleyan and a stint in Vietnam. He would marry a girl with a University of Kentucky degree, happily watching her switch her allegiance to U of L a few years later.
Later known as the observer, he would see his Louisville-born son become equally, if not even more, enthusiastic in his support of U of L, Steve winning Volvo’s Biggest Fan of the Big East contest in 2011, as well as enjoy seeing four grandchildren wearing the red and black and their parents loving the colors.