ESPY Awards List Laettner Shot as "Top 20" Moment

Christian Laettner: Re-living his youth harder than Luke Perry.

In preparation for the 20th anniversary of the upcoming ESPY Awards, ESPN decided it would be a good idea to run through the top twenty moments in sports from the two decades the ceremony has been around.  Classic moments include Tiger Woods’ first green jacket, Muhammad Ali lighting the Olympic torch, and Kerri Strug’s infamous, ankle-breaking gymnastics routine.

Oh, and also Christian Laettner’s game-winning shot against Kentucky in 1992.  You might remember that one.  I like to think that shot doesn’t matter anymore, especially after beating Duke in the tournament en route to a title in ’98, but I have to admit I still get a little upset watching the replay.

So what’s a UK fan supposed to do to assuage the oldest pain we know?  How about voting for Kentucky’s ESPY nominees, making sure they win all the categories they’re nominated in.  After all, if Sports Illustrated is to be believed, BBN has more than its fair share of online presence.  There should be no reason we don’t turn out in ridiculous numbers to make sure the Espys, like the recent NBA Draft, are another two-hour advertisement for the University.

If you don’t want to vote for all the categories (I’m not sure we really care about “Best Bowler”), you can skip around to just the ones that have a UK representative.  In case you forgot, those are:

Best Team – Kentucky Men’s Basketball

Best Coach/Manager – John Calipari

Best Breakthrough Athlete – Anthony Davis

Best Male College Athlete – Anthony Davis

If you really want to salt the earth, throw in a vote for Lehigh Over Duke in the “Best Upset” category.

The voting for the individual awards ends when the show begins on Wednesday, July 11th at 9pm, but the Best Team award is open for participation throughout the program, via Twitter.  We’ll give another heads up as the time gets closer, but if you get a head start this weekend, you can find multiple computers to vote from.  I’m at three already, and I might “borrow” people’s offices at work on Monday to vote from their computers as well.

They say success is the best revenge, and UK has a chance to display their successes this year on a very big stage.  Let’s help make it happen.