For more than a decade it was home and a place to grow as a man, to learn life lessons both easy and hard. If Dwane Casey sounds a bit wistful about a return, it’s entirely understandable.

Casey, who became the person he is during his important growing years as a star player, team captain and an assistant coach at the University of Kentucky, will walk back onto the floor at Rupp Arena in Lexington on Friday night to take part in a fundraising evening celebrating the star-studded history of the Wildcats.

He will look around, see familiar and welcoming faces and old friends and feel at home. And happy.

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“I was at Kentucky probably from ’75 to ’88 all together, playing and coaching,” the Raptors head coach said in an interview this week. “You spend a lot of your formative years there at Kentucky, I grew up a lot there, became who I am. There are a lot of great memories, way more good than bad. It’ll be great to be back there.”

The memories are of some of the major accomplishments in the 60-year-old’s basketball life. He captained the iconic Wildcat team and won an NCAA championship, he learned at the feet of one of the game’s masters in coach Joe B. Hall and cut his coaching teeth there. But the hard life’s lessons came at the end: Casey was caught up in a recruiting scandal and basically drummed out the NCAA coaching ranks, one avenue of his career closed off.

“It was something that you go through in life but I grew up tremendously from the situation,” he said. “There’s no ill feeling on my part (and) people back there welcomed me back. . . . I’ve been back for football games, more football games than basketball games just because of the season.

“People have welcomed me back from the top down. From coach (Rick) Pitino, coach (John) Calipari, coach (C.M.) Newton back when he was athletic director. It’s not like I was exiled or anything like that.”

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Still, the return to the Rupp Arena floor will be special.

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Casey will be taking part in a significant fund-raising event for Calipari’s charitable foundation during an evening that includes a “legends” game and an exhibition involving a handful of the Kentucky alumni throughout the NBA.

He’ll see Hall, who said of Casey earlier this year “the value he added to our program with his presence in the locker room was a whole lot greater (than an on-court contribution)” and reconnect with old friends while helping raise money for a charity because “that’s why you also feel good about doing this, it’s for a great cause,” he said.

“You go through the league … there are so many guys around the league and you see them and it’s kind of a secret fraternity that you have. Pat (Patterson) and I had it with team and around the league you see everybody. The (Rajon) Rondos, Anthony Davis, Cousins and all those guys.

“There’s a respect factor there, you’ve been where they’ve been. It’s kind of a good thing to go back and see those guys under less competitive circumstances where you’re not trying to kick each other’s butt.”