Kentucky’s Joker Phillips plays bass in the most cliched country music video ever made
Unlike his coaching peers who often seem too laser-focused on their jobs this time of year to have any fun off the field, Kentucky's Joker Phillips appears to be more than capable of balancing business and pleasure.
He rewarded his players for their first practice in pads last week by having an ice cream truck stop by the field afterward. He did a flip off a diving board Tuesday during a team bonding trip to a nearby water park. And he played the bass in the music video for a country music song shot in July and released this week.
My knowledge of country music is sufficiently bleak that I barely know LeAnn Rimes from Busta Rhymes or Sugarland from Sugar Ray, but even I am pretty certain J.D. Shelburne's "Farmboy" is no Grammy threat. It's a cookie cutter, over-produced, bubble-gum "New Country" song overflowing with ripped jeans, old pick-up trucks, weathered barns, gratuitous American flag shots and repetitive guitar riffs.
[ Related video from Yahoo! Sports: 2012 Kentucky Football Media Day ]
To be fair to Phillips, that's not his fault. He manages to keep his dignity intact throughout the entire video, strumming on his bass and swaying to the music in the background during the chorus while Shelburne takes center stage.
Phillips was generous enough with his time to help generate publicity for Shelburne by appearing in the video with the Kentucky alum. Maybe that bit of good karma will help keep the Wildcats within four touchdowns of Florida and Arkansas this autumn. No? Well, it's worth a shot.
