Back on July 3, Deuce Hillerich's response to a front-page Courier-Journal story on The Coopers, Louisville City FC's largest supporters group, was one of disdain.

"Must be summer, no real sports to cover! #IWantMyFootball," Hillerich said at the time.

When he next logged into Twitter, the Louisvillian had multiple messages in response from LouCity fans encouraging him to give their kind of football a try. Defender Tarek Morad also reached out, tweeting, "I'd love to leave you some tickets to come to one of our next home games."

"People could take that as, 'Oh, this guy has no respect for soccer,'" Morad said this week of the tweet. "But it turned out he'd never been to a game before. Instead of reacting a different way, I'm trying to grow the sport, obviously. I think the best response was to give him tickets and let him experience it himself."

The day came Saturday when Hillerich and his family attended LouCity's game against Orlando City B, checking in as a few of the 8,351 at Slugger Field for the Saturday night match. Louisville gave up a pair of stoppage time goals and fell late, but Hillerich left saying he and his family were the club's newest five fans.