Mark Pope stresses importance of finding quiet as noise builds

Mark Pope was inspired by a sermon he attended in the days leading up to Kentucky‘s annual media day earlier this week. It hit his heart hard, he said, and wants to teach his team the importance of being still ahead of the 2024 season.

Pope began his press conference on Tuesday by discussing the topic, which eventually became the theme of the day in Lexington. Pope explained to reporters what it means to find your quiet place, specifically from his team’s perspective.

“We’re spending time with our staff and our team talking about finding moments just to be still,” Pope said during Kentucky’s 2024 media day. “From a religious perspective, be still and know that I am God; from a team perspective just be still, just find a quiet moment off of your phone, off of media, off away from guys where we can be still in this melee and it’s awesome. So I think it’s important for our guys. It’s certainly important.”

Pope said that those moments where he can just breathe and be peaceful are centering for him. It’s a helpful tool he plans to use throughout the season. That means that not only is it a way for his guys to be calm and stay focused — something Kentucky is chasing all season long — but he hopes that it intensifies his team’s internal voice within the locker room and brings his players closer at the end of the day.

“That’s really vitally important,” Pope continued. “For every young person right now that’s growing up and carrying this around and is immersed in this social media barrage of input and opinions by people that don’t really care about you, I think this taking a moment just to be still and listen to your internal voices.

“I just think is massively important — probably more here at Kentucky than anywhere else because what makes this space brilliant, if you can handle it in the right way, is the volume, but it can also make it debilitating. It’s something we’re spending a lot of time teaching our guys about, and thinking about.”

To Pope, the Kentucky job is a non-stop grind. It’s begging him to be consumed with the X’s and O’s, recruiting, personnel, etc. From a spiritual sense, Pope said that he can’t give his players the same effort he expects out of them if he isn’t able to stop, pause, and listen.

It’s important to Mark Pope to be a good coach and mentor on behalf of his players and for his alma mater.

“For me to advocate on behalf of this program and this university and this state and represent this the way it is, I’m certainly not going to do it well if I’m relying only on myself and if I’m not taking time to really be still,” he said. “It’s really important to me. I think it’s a big deal. I actually think it’s something that I’m advocating for my players and certainly for everyone. I think it’s awesome.”

Pope’s philosophical changes will be on full display when the Wildcats begin their 2024 season on Nov. 4 against Wright State. Based on what we’ve seen from Kentucky’s practices so far, being still may be the last thing their offense is physically capable of.