Two days ahead of he traveled to the Vatican, a Catholic priest requested College of Kentucky president Eli Capilouto for a want.
Jim Sichko of the Diocese of Lexington asked a jersey bearing the final title of newly employed Kentucky males’s basketball trainer Mark Pope.
“Right here I used to be going to satisfy the Pope,” Sichko instructed Yahoo Sports activities. “I believed it could be neat if I may get a jersey with ‘Pope’ on it.”
That No. 23 jersey used to be tucked below Sichko’s arm on Wednesday when he attended Pope Francis’ Basic Target market. Sichko described Pope Francis as “thrilled” when he introduced the opposite Pope’s jersey as a present.
“He used to be truly enthralled by means of it,” Sichko mentioned. “In most cases he fingers off the presents he receives to his assistants to place in plastic bins, however this one he folded and he stored on his lap. He used to be very intrigued by means of it.”
Sichko has introduced a present to Pope Francis more or less each six months for the previous 8 years. Prior to now, Sichko has introduced Pope Francis anything else from uncommon bottles of bourbon to customized tennis sneakers made by means of a Lexington store.
The basketball jersey generated much more buzz than maximum of Sichko’s earlier presents. When he posted the photographs he gained from the Vatican to social media on Friday morning, Sichko mentioned, “I by no means concept in one million years that it could cross loopy like this.”
“Actually no different fanbase can be loopy sufficient to even strive this,” wrote one commenter on X.
Added any other: “We were given the Pope on our facet?!? Ohhhh this season finna be IT!!”
Mark Pope wore No. 41 within the mid-Nineties when he performed for Kentucky. The No. 23 at the jersey that Sichko introduced Pope Francis represents Pope changing into the twenty third head trainer in Kentucky males’s basketball historical past after he succeeded John Calipari final month.
Sichko does now not know Mark Pope individually, however he hopes that the basketball trainer gets the similar kick out of the tale that many lovers have.
“It is a feel-good, loveable tale,” Sichko mentioned. “At a occasions when there are such a large amount of tricky issues happening on this planet, I feel this brings a grin to folks’s faces.”