Go to the movies during a UK basketball game. Or out to dinner. Lots and lots of people. In Lexington most people don't actually pay that much attention to UK sports. And that's around 400,000 people. The whole Maori folk tradition could be an eye roller for him. He's half Maori, I think. I could be wrong. So I'm sure he knows the stuff.. Several of the Native Americans I've known have viewed the traditional ways as quaint. I just think we should give the kid a chance to not be saddled with stock notions of what he's about.
There's a nice movie with the star-du-jour Chris O'Dowd called The Sapphires. It's about an Australian Aboriginal girl group in the late 1960s. They wanted to sing American country music. It's a big world & it's great to let people surprise you.
Sure, our "country music" is actually more popular than you'd think in Australia. Of course, the distance between Australia and NZ is about that between Kentucky and Guatemala. And unlike NZ, Australia does have a couple world-class cities, a range of disparate biomes, and varied local cultures to go along with them. But that's neither here nor there.
I agree with you in principle, but unless people are saying something cruel (would be odd, because Kentuckians love these kids), it's really just shaking your fist at the ocean to make a fuss about it. People make connections with what they know. Kids from Chicago or New York are tough, tough, tough. Jamal Murray has already been asked about poutine, hockey, and maple syrup at every opportunity. If we get a kid from Denmark, he's gonna get asked nonstop about his favorite breakfast pastry. And so on. In 2015, the fashionable thing to do is to portray these simplistic, sometimes awkward attempts at connecting as malicious acts - I know that's not actually what you're doing, but my point is that people are trying to reach out and show they know a little something about the place that the other person comes from, even if it's just one thing.
And I don't think you picked the best example by talking about UK fans. I really disagree about "most people" in Lexington - as someone who has lived in other sports markets in the US (mostly pro markets), including two blocks from Fenway Park in Boston, it's tough to articulate to others around the country how in love the state (and especially that city) are with that team.
IMO, unless your standard is football in Brasil, it's tough to come up with an athletic team that has the attention of a greater percentage of a local population than UK basketball in Kentucky. Alabama football is huge, but Auburn fans strongly split the devotion in that state. Red Sox baseball, Yankees baseball, cricket in Pakistan - there are many noteworthy contenders, but in those places, I don't see nearly as many grannies knitting away and watching the ball game.
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....................................................May be at least 6 or 7 games...
