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Coach pays for fans’ gas money after W. Kentucky’s poor play

Western Kentucky’s used to college hoops success. Maybe that’s why coach Ken McDonald decided fans deserved something for showing up to an early December thumping by Vanderbilt.

But what to get the diehard fan who made the 70-mile trip from Bowling Green (Ky.) to Nashville (Tenn.)? Well, you can’t refund their time, but what about expenses?

“I told the guys, anyone that came down (to the game), I’m going to write them a check for the gas money,” McDonald told the Bowling Green Daily News. “It’s not right. It’s not right and we’re going to change that. Those are things you take very seriously and you just have to figure out how to motivate the team.”

McDonald wasn’t kidding. He wrote letters and sent personal checks for $60 to about 20 WKU fans who sat behind the bench for that Dec. 1 game.

But those fans feel his pain.

According to Rick Bozich of the Louisville Courier-Journal, some fans returned the checks, and none of them have been cashed. WKU senior associate athletic director Todd Stewart told Bozich that fans sent notes “saying that teams can have bad games and no check was necessary.”

Want more? I’m also on Twitter @BeyndArcMMiller.