With Kentucky taking a four-game losing streak into this weekend, it seemed like a good time to set basketball aside and embrace something more uplifting.
Enter Joe Everson, a self-described “live-action painter.” His claim to fame — having gone viral on the internet — is painting a patriotic picture as he sings the national anthem. He performed before recent Kentucky games at West Virginia and Missouri.
As Everson reached the home-of-the-brave climax of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and fans became aware of what his painting depicted, a full-throated roar of approval erupted.
With even the national anthem divisive in these polarized times, Everson is sensitive about being perceived as a super patriot. He does not mean to inspire criticism of, say, pro football players who tried to call attention to grievances by kneeling during the playing of the anthem.
“I actually came up with the design and concept pre-election,” he said of Donald Trump being elected president in 2016. “Pre- the kneeling becoming a hot-debated topic.”
That said, Everson acknowledged that displays of patriotism and protests during the anthem are good for his painting-while-singing business.
“I’d be a fool to say that that hasn’t caused some of the viralness …,” he said. “But my goal is to unify the country as much as possible.”
Everson, 33, who grew up in Midland, Mich., said he comes from an artistic family. A grandmother was a photographer. He is a college graduate with degrees in psychology and theology. He had a minor in music.
“I always loved music, and I always loved art and drawing and that kind of thing,” he said. “And I had a dream of making a studio and getting a studio started and being an artist.”
He learned to play the piano by ear, worked weddings as a photographer, and paints with oil, acrylics, water colors, charcoal and pencil.
“I call him a Renaissance man because he’s one of those unique souls that can do anything and be good at all of it,” said Dan Lyles, his business agent. “And it makes you sick.”
During the starving artist phase of his career, Everson’s mother came up with the idea of a variation on the performance of the national anthem.
“Hey, you should be a singing painter or something like that,” he recalled his mother saying. “I kind of laughed it off.”
Lyles encouraged Everson to pursue his mother’s idea. Only Lyles suggested Everson do the painting upside down. He would then turn the canvas right side up at the conclusion of the anthem.
“I was, like, wait, what?” Everson said. “It got crazier and crazier.”
His painting of the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima is dedicated to a second cousin, Benito Diaz, who was killed in the Vietnam War.
Everson has been singing and painting for about a year. His performance went viral about a year ago when he performed before a minor league hockey game for the Toledo (Ohio) Walleye. His performance made ESPN’s top-10 list.
Everson has performed in about 70 cities in the past year. That includes college basketball games at Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, High Point, UNC Wilmington, Nevada and Baylor. He’s also performed at NBA home games of the Los Angeles Clippers, Orlando Magic, Milwaukee Bucks and Golden State Warriors.
His fee can reach four figures, although West Virginia recouped some of the expense by auctioning off his painting at a baseball banquet for $1,000.
Everson, who lives with is wife, Bethany, and three children in Greenville, S.C., said the idea of performing at a Kentucky game was “awesome.”
UK’s director of strategic communication, Guy Ramsey, said the school has not yet made plans for future renditions of the national anthem.
Everson said he did get an endorsement from UK assistant coach Joel Justus, who approached him at Missouri.
“He said, ‘Hey, I really appreciate you doing the anthem at the other game,’” Everson recalled. “‘He said, ‘What are you doing? Following me around?’”
Losing SEC record and NCAA bid
Kentucky’s 6-7 SEC record going into its game against Alabama this weekend raised a question: How likely is it for a team with a losing SEC record to receive a bid to play in the NCAA Tournament?
Short answer: It happens.
Since the NCAA Tournament field expended to 64 teams in 1985, SEC teams have received 157 bids. Of those 157 bids, six went to teams with losing records in league play.
Three of the six teams got into the NCAA Tournament through the automatic bid that goes to the winner of the SEC Tournament. Most notably, Georgia had a 4-12 league record in 2008, and then won the 2008 SEC Tournament. Of course, that was the SEC Tournament that moved to Georgia Tech when a tornado damaged the Georgia Dome. Georgia’s second-round victory over UK featured another once-in-a-lifetime oddity: Billy Gillispie ordered a player (Perry Stevenson) to goaltend a free throw.
Arkansas (7-9) and Auburn (7-9) got into the NCAA Tournament by winning the SEC Tournament in 2000 and 1985, respectively.
Since 1985, three SEC teams with losing records received NCAA Tournament bids without winning the league tournament: LSU (8-10) in 1987, Alabama (7-9) in 2003 and Arkansas (7-9) in 2007.
How did the six teams with losing SEC records fare in the NCAA Tournament?
Four of the six lost first-round games. But Auburn won two games in 1985 before losing to North Carolina in the Sweet 16. LSU won three games in 1987 before losing to Indiana in the Elite Eight (That was the game in which Bob Knight received a technical foul after pounding a telephone on the scorer’s table.).
By the way, 12 teams that finished with .500 SEC records have received bids to the NCAA Tournament since 1985.
Conclusion: With the SEC basketball profile higher than usual this season, it would seem there’s a greater chance for a team with a losing league record to receive a bid.
Auburn atmosphere
After his team defeated Kentucky on Wednesday, Auburn Coach Bruce Pearl trumpeted the atmosphere in Auburn Arena.
“I’m not sure that there was a better environment in college basketball tonight than Auburn, Ala.,” he said. “It was the loudest that I’ve ever heard the building.”
Auburn announced a capacity crowd of 9,121. Students who sit behind the sideline opposite the benches and behind both baselines cheered or jeered at the slightest provocation.
It was Auburn’s fifth home sellout of the season, with two more expected when the Tigers play Alabama on Wednesday and South Carolina on March 3. Prior to this season, Auburn had had five sellouts in Auburn Arena, which opened in 2010-11.
No one suggested the atmosphere fazed Kentucky. If someone had, it would have surprised Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes.
Before Kentucky played at West Virginia, Barnes dismissed the possibility of the WVU crowd affecting UK players.
“When the Big Blue rolls in, they’re going to have an atmosphere, and they’re used to that, obviously … because they have a buzz wherever they go,” he said.
It’s something to keep in mind when Kentucky plays at Arkansas on Tuesday and then at Florida on March 3.
‘It’s fleeting’
Kentucky continues to try to bring greater coordination to the play of its freshman team. Before and after UK played Tennessee on Feb. 6, John Calipari saluted the Vols’ unified approach.
Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes suggested that he cannot take for granted the cohesion that has marked his team’s play much of this season.
“It’s fleeting …,” he said. “It’s an everyday thing. We talk every day about how to be effective.”
Congratulations
To former Valparaiso Coach Homer Drew. The National Association of Basketball Coaches announced Friday that Drew will receive its 2018 Hillyard NABC Golden Anniversary Award for long and outstanding service to college basketball.
“Homer is one of the finest men I have ever met, and has many of the qualities of John Wooden,” former LSU Coach Dale Brown said in a news release. “He has all the ethics in the world, and I believe he is the model coach.”
Brown hired Drew as an assistant coach at LSU. They met when both were assistants at Washington State.
Of course, Drew’s sons Scott Drew (Baylor) and Bryce Drew (Vanderbilt) are college coaches.
Happy birthday
To Tod Lanter. He turned 27 on Thursday. …To Al Robinson. He turned 80 on Saturday.
Jerry Tipton: 859-231-3227, @JerryTipton
This story was originally published February 17, 2018 1:42 PM.