I want to start by saying that I do not personally know Will Stein. I have been around him a bunch this season at press conferences, but I haven’t had a lot of one on one time with him. This article is really about my perception, based on the things he has said and what I have seen since he became the Wildcats’ head football coach.

Will Stein isn’t just another coach. Will Stein is one of us.

“One of us” is a cliché sometimes used to make fans feel more connected to whoever the coach is.

But for Will Stein, it isn’t a cliché.

When I watched the LSU unKut episode today and saw Stein sharing pictures of himself as a kid, wearing the Power K helmet and the Power K shirt. His dad’s 1984 team rocking the Power K jerseys…and it really hit me. How would we behave if we had sat in the stands as kids and now got to roam the sidelines for the Cats?

I think we would act a lot like Will Stein.

This place means something to him. It’s not just a job. He’s a lifelong fan getting to live out a childhood fantasy. Probably a fantasy many of us fans have had at one point in time in our lives.

Most coaches are poised when they take the field. They run out with purpose and head straight to the sideline. Will Stein can’t contain himself. He jumps in the air, pumps his fists and screams for the crowd to get louder. Or, at an opposing stadium, he says things in the tunnel we would say before going out to shut up 80,000 people.

It’s in those moments that you see that little kid who sat in the stands in him come out. That love for his childhood team overflows with emotion and joy. He probably envisioned running out of the tunnel at Kroger Field a thousand times as a kid.

Stein never got the opportunity to take the field as a Wildcat, but as many of us know, our childhood dreams rarely die when we get older. I’m 41 years old now, and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that I still wonder what it would be like to run through that tunnel. I think many of you reading this feel the same way.

Will Stein not only gets to take the field and let his boyhood excitement take over for a few seconds before heading to the sideline. He gets to do it with his father, Matt Stein, who also played for Kentucky and is on the field for the games.

As a son and a father, I can only imagine what that connection feels like. The little boy who dreamed about Kentucky is now leading the team, and his dad gets to be there to see it.

That goes to the deeper meaning of why he is “one of us.” As kids, we talk to our parents about what we want to be. We imagine taking the field for our favorite teams, many times in front of those same parents. They smile, knowing the chances of it actually happening aren’t the best. But we let our kids dream nonetheless.

For Will Stein, that dream is now his life.

Will Stein is one of us. Yes, he’s the head football coach and acts as such. But he’s also that little boy who sat in the stands at Kroger Field. Who saw Couch to Yeast to beat Alabama, the Bluegrass Miracle, the countless heartbreaks against Florida and the win over #1 LSU at home. And now, he’s 5-1 with two top 10 wins in his first year in charge of his boyhood team.

He knows what this means to us. To Kentuckians. To fans of the Blue and White. And you can be damn sure there is extra juice behind wanting to bring something to Lexington that we thought was impossible.

A championship contending program, led by that little boy who grew up dreaming of the day Kentucky would be prominent on the national stage.

Content by – Paul Novielli for  SPORTS VIEW AMERICA … Please check us out on X , INSTAGRAM, & FACEBOOK …  Photo Galleries at Facebook.com/SportsViewAmerica & SVA PHOTOS