The Kentucky Wildcats basketball team made a trip over the weekend to Pikeville for a charity preseason scrimmage at Appalachian Wireless Arena, which was already news of itself. But it got even more interesting after the event when Kentucky basketball head coach John Calipari shared via social media an image of a father at the said arena to watch the event in person with his son, while still covered in coal dust, obviously heading straight to the location from work.

The image made a tremendous impact on the Kentucky basketball head coach, who asked for help to connect him to the family of the said basketball fan.

Calipari eventually did reach out to the family of the man, later known as Micheal McGuire, whose wife took a message from the head coach.

Via Kyle Tucker of The Athletic:

“He said, ‘Hey, it’s Coach Cal.’ I just kind of sat there like, is this real?” Mollie says. They spoke for about half an hour, Calipari sharing how his own grandfather was a coal miner. “He said he passed before Cal was old enough to experience any of that but said, ‘I wanted to know what I came from,’ so he actually went into a mine with a crew. They told him going down, ‘We go in together, we come out together. No one left behind, because we’re one crew.’ He said, ‘That’s what I teach my team — that we’re one team and we can only do it together.’ Just to know somebody that popular took the time and wanted to do something like that is amazing.”

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Calipari promised the family tickets to a Kentucky basketball home game of their choosing, though, Micheal and his wife have yet to make up their mind.

“Calipari told them to pick a home game (she’s partial to Kentucky-Tennessee on Feb. 18) and they’ll be his guests for a dinner, pregame shootaround, meet-and-greet with his players and courtside seats at Rupp Arena.”

In any case, this is a story that will warm people's hearts and make Kentucky basketball fans even more excited for the 2022-23 college basketball season to kick off.

The Wildcats will open their season on Nov. 7 at home against the Howard Bison in Lexington.