Faces in the Game

Nobody Lives for Kentucky football more avidly than 83-year-old
Jim Brown. A Lexington resident and a 1942 Kentucky graduate,
Brown has attended every Wildcats home game since the '45 season:
340 consecutive games. His streak would date back to '38, his
freshman year at Kentucky, had he not been called to serve in the
Navy in '44 during World War II. Six times a year Brown cheers
from section 129, row 41, seat 22. The streak nearly came to an
end in 2000, when Brown had a retinal occlusion in his right eye
that threatened blindness. Brown went to the games anyway, using
a monocle to aid his vision in the diseased eye. He has since had
surgery to correct his vision. "I've had my sanity questioned
sometimes, especially when the team wasn't that good," he says,
"but you have to be a little crazy to be a Kentucky fan."
--Gene Menez

COLOR PHOTO: BRECK SMITHER/TEAM COYLE Brown