Rich Brooks brought winning back to Kentucky football. Now, more than a decade after his retirement, the program is giving back to its former head coach and his wife, Karen, by honoring them in writing.
Kentucky's newly-renovated indoor training facility is now home to Rich and Karen Brooks Field.
"Obviously it’s a very special moment. Seeing the new expanded indoor facility without the track and the nets around it and having a full field, a safer practice area, if you will, for the team that Mark Stoops will appreciate, as well. It's just a wonderful honor and I’m very grateful," Coach Brooks told BBN Tonight's Maggie Davis.
"My friend, Brett Setzer, called me and asked if I would mind if they named the field after us. I said no, it’s just an honor. Thank the Setzer family for making all of this possible."
"We love Kentucky, so anytime we can get our name on something in Kentucky it means a lot to us," Coach's wife, Karen Brooks said. "We have our names in the Children’s Hospital, that meant a lot. It brings us back."
When asked if they could have envisioned this happening back when they arrived in Lexington in 2003, both Rich and Karen laughed.
"No. No! That wasn't in my mind," Coach Brooks said with a smile. "Just trying to win enough games to be respectable and get a bowl game to take the program back to a different level than it had been in a few years."
That's exactly what Coach Brooks and his staff did, when they became the first to take the Cats to four consecutive bowl games and win three of them.
"That was a special time because when I came here, we were on probation, had 61 scholarship players to start, and we were limited on how many we could replace each year. It took us into the fourth year to turn this program around."
"The growth that Mark Stoops has made in this program, in my mind, goes right along with the growth of the facilities as well," Brooks continued. "He’s done a remarkable job, consistent job. Not always being able to recruit all the five-stars that Alabama, Georgia or Auburn can do. But recruit, develop, coach them up, and put extremely talented and competitive football teams on the field in this league, and the number of years he’s done it in a row is a remarkable accomplishment."
"This program in football has never seen that. We had a little spurt of it during my last four years, but he’s taken it to a different level."
Among the renovations inside the updated facility, various banners now hang with key words Stoops has emphasized over the years. When current - and future - Kentucky football players practice in this facility, they'll look up and see words like attitude, toughness and discipline. But when they look down, they'll see "RICH AND KAREN BROOKS FIELD."
What do they hope that will mean?
"I hope they remember things weren't always as good as they are currently for Kentucky football," Coach Brooks began.
"It’s been through some tough times. It took a lot of work and a lot of contributions by the people of Kentucky to build facilities to make them as competitive, and as talented, and as good as they are now in the SEC. I just hope they can look back and look at the days when everybody that played football here didn’t have what they have right now."
"And worked hard to get it," Karen added.
Even standing next to his own name splashed across a brand-new field, there's always a humbleness about Coach Brooks.
"It’s obviously pretty special, but I will remind you that I also had "DITCH RICH" bumper stickers and t-shirts sold in the parking lots at football games! So before the success happened, there was a hard road to climb. So there is humility that does come along with the honor of having such a special thing done in our name."
"My legacy I hope is the association with players, their development, their life after playing football, their families, their jobs, their successes. I do run into quite a few of them from time to time, and that is the pleasure of what I have been able to do in coaching - just seeing them in their environment today as grown ups."
