The cell phone has no signal in the bowels of the Kentucky coal mine where people work every morning Michael McGuire he dives to start his shift. Because of this, the miner could not know that his name was going around the world on the internet. He noticed it as he emerged from the tunnel, and the companions of the second round gave him an ovation. His cell phone was buzzing with calls, and the foreman handed him a dusty slip of paper listing the TV stations that wanted to interview him.
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THE DAY BEFORE
McGuire had been at the mine yesterday and had come out an hour and a half later than expected. She no longer had time to go home, wash and change as she pleased. The only solution was to rush to the sports arena, where his wife and eldest son Easton were waiting, holding tickets to a charity game for his favorite basketball team: the legendary University of Kentucky. There, Michael was depicted in a photo that later appeared on Facebook. The overalls were dirty and unbuttoned, with the orange fluorescent stripes on a black background. The head and bearded face marked by the soot creeping to dig early wrinkles on his twenty-nine-year-old forehead. Michael is completely exhausted because he left the house at half past four in the morning. Body almost on the chair but face turned to Easton, the four-year-old son, excited at his first experience of a live game. It’s an image of universal appeal: the moment when a loving father shares a heartfelt passion with his son, in a passage sometimes destined to last a lifetime. The signs of hard work allowing the three to savor the moment of joy add to the drama of the photo. The strength of this portrait has not escaped the team’s coach, the equally legendary John Calipari, who has been on the Kentucky bench for thirteen years and in the US Basketball Hall of Fame for seven years. Early that morning, while Michael was still underground, the coach reached his wife Mollie by phone: “My family’s American dream began when my grandfather, who worked in a coal mine in Clarksburg, West Virginia, told her that.” Photo hits me deeply ».
Michael McGuire didn’t have time to shower and wash off the coal dust before the game. It was so important for him to be there. https://t.co/rFeCno3Nr8
– FOX 4 NEWS (@ FOX4) October 26, 2022
A NEW JOB
Coal mining in Kentucky was in decline until a few years ago when US energy policy shifted towards clean and renewable sources. Investment has returned recently, with subsidies the Trump administration used to give to the sector and the hardship caused by the war in Ukraine. Michael McGuire quit his job as a mailman last year to be hired by the Wellmore Coal Company; a risky but better-paying job. A second call from Calipari, this time to the miner, after he returned home, brought this touching story full circle. The coach has invited the entire McGuire family to a game of their choosing in the upcoming college league. The three (four, with their little sister Annie, just a year old) will receive the treatment reserved for celebrity guests: sideline seating, exclusive access to pre-game warm-ups and individual meetings with the players. End of race dinner with Calipari and the other University of Kentucky managers. “Michael’s desire to see the game was so strong that he pushed to come without changing clothes, but that didn’t move me,” says Calipari, “he wanted to be there, next to his son. And that counts».
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