John Caliparicomes to Kentucky with a Huge Contract, a Banner Recruiting
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COLLEGE BASKETBALL PREVIEW The Very Best of Enemies John Calipari comes to Kentucky with a huge contract, a banner recruiting class and a history with the state’s other big ego, Rick Pitino | BY GRANT WAHL n the spring of 1988, during his first season coaching the New York Knicks, Rick Pitino made an emergency trip to his alma mater, the University of Massachu- setts. Pitino was on the search committee for a new UMass basketball coach, and he’d learned that athletic director Frank McInerney had soured at the last min- ute on the consensus choice—a 29-year-old Pittsburgh assistant named John Calipari—after hearing concerns about Calipari from a prominent coach. “Look, people have enemies in this game,” Pitino says he told the AD. “You can’t change your mind because one coach calls and says these things. That means he’s worried. If I he’s worried about this guy, then that’s a good thing.” Photograph by ED reINKE/AP Debate ensued. Finally, Pitino recalls, McInerney came around. “O.K., I’ll go with Calipari,” he said, “but we have one problem, Rick. I offered him a $63,000 salary. We only have [$58,000]. If you’ll write a check for $5,000, we’ll stick with our original decision.” “Fine, I’ll send it to you,” said Pitino. “No,” said McInerney, whose department was BLUE HEAveN After four seasons without strapped for cash. “I have to have it now.” These even a Sweet 16 appearance, days Pitino can’t help but laugh as he tells the story. Kentucky fans—including 23,500 at the first “The guy wouldn’t let me out of the meeting until practice—have hailed I wrote the check!” Calipari as a savior. 60 | SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | NOVEMBER 23, 2009 SportS IlluStrated 11/23/2009 CBKCALIPARI.l/o leFt PAGe 60/1 oF 2 SportS IlluStrated 11/23/2009 CBKCALIPARI.l/o righT PAGe 61/1 oF 2 Version: 22 11/16/2009 01:41pM / Mcadams / Kelly-Crawford / torre Version: 21 11/13/2009 08:40pM / Mcadams / Kelly-Crawford / torre a.d./ext: SKALOCKYx2118 11/13/2009 07:55pM sskalocky1271 a.d./ext: SKALOCKYx2118 11/13/2009 07:55pM sskalocky1271 revise comments: OOF--adjusted intro paragraph. adjusted photos on turn page to fit text shift; v. 22 OOF, remove extra word space revise comments: OOF--adjusted intro paragraph. adjusted photos on turn page to fit text shift ±local read± ±Conference± ±art approval± ±HOLD:updates/Checks ±HOLD:art ±local read± ±Conference± ±art approval± ±HOLD:updates/Checks ±HOLD:art COLLEGE BASKETBALL PREVIEW Funny how the world works. More than new team, a new coaching staff, a Pitino paused. He knew Calipari wasn’t refusing to continue playing Memphis after parallel career arcs: runaway success in sur- two decades later Calipari is the highest-paid new style. All of it’s different.” asking for his approval; knew, in fact, that Louisville joined the Big East. prising places (Pitino at Providence, Calipari coach in college basketball, freshly hired at Well, not all of it. When junior Calipari was heading to Lexington no mat- These days Calipari is trying to play at UMass), humbling NBA failure (Pitino Kentucky for eight years and $31.65 million, forward Patrick Patterson passed ter what he said. The two men are not close. down any animosity. Yes, he avoided tak- with the Celtics, Calipari with the Nets) and and tasked with restoring its championship up the NBA draft and returned to The last time they had dinner together was ing his assigned seat next to Pitino at June’s then triumphant college career revivals. tradition. Along with a reputation that’s equal Lexington, Calipari asked him why. a year and a half ago, at the LeBron James NBA draft, but Calipari claims he needed What’s more, the reputations of both parts outlier, outsider and outlaw, Calipari Simple, Patterson replied. He had summer camp in Akron, and even that was to jump up to congratulate Tyreke Evans’s coaches took major hits during the sum- comes in with enormous expectations, a high- never played in the NCAA tourna- a big-table affair. When Calipari and Pitino family. (“I couldn’t do that from where Rick mer. In August the married Pitino admit- flying offense (the dribble-drive motion) and ment; he was on track to graduate shared the stage at a charity fund-raiser in was sitting,” Calipari argues, and then ted that in 2003 he had engaged in con- a powerhouse freshman class, led by point with a communications degree in Louisville last month, witnesses described a adds, “I waved to him!”) And yes, while sensual sex in a Louisville restaurant with guard John Wall, the country’s top recruit. three years; and he knew that at palpable chill in the air. In Calipari’s mind, hailing Kentucky’s history of successful a woman, Karen Sypher, who pleaded not The response among Kentucky fans, whose 6' 9" his NBA future depends on his though, the conversation with Pitino needed coaches at Big Blue Madness, Calipari cited guilty in May to felony charges of attempt- team hasn’t reached the NCAA tournament’s ability to develop a floor game—the to happen. “To me it was Camelot,” Pitino Adolph Rupp, Hall and Smith but some- ing to extort $10 million from him. As for second weekend since 2005, has been seis- kind that’s the hallmark of Calipari’s finally told him of his time in Lexington. “I how neglected to mention Pitino. Calipari Calipari, he became the first coach in col- mic. Wildcats backers filled nearly 500 tents dribble-drive motion attack. “He coached there for eight years, and I never claims that was done to prevent a cascade lege history to preside over two vacated camping out for as many as three days just wants all his players to be able to had a bad day on the job.” of boos. “People want to act like we hate Final Four appearances when the NCAA to snag tickets for the first practice, which handle the ball like a point guard,” During Calipari’s meteoric rise at UMass, each other,” Calipari says, “but I don’t hate wiped all of Memphis’s wins in 2007–08 sold out 23,500-seat Rupp Arena. For the says Patterson. “I’m trying to adjust as he validated Pitino’s original endorsement, from the record books (and placed the school past seven months, in the wake of Billy Gil- from posting up to facing up.” Calipari seldom missed a chance to thank him on three years’ probation), a fate similar to lispie’s two-year reign of error, Calipari has Yet even with Patterson, Ken- for the opportunity, while Pitino called the Calipari brings UMass’s after he left Amherst. crisscrossed the commonwealth, spreading tucky was only an NIT team last program’s climb from irrelevance to a No. 1 In his defense, Calipari notes that he the message of change like a hybrid of Ba- season. If the Wildcats are going to ranking “the greatest building job in college a reputation wasn’t singled out for wrongdoing in either rack Obama and professor Harold Hill. All make the Final Four, the onus will basketball history.” But the relationship grew case, that the Memphis ruling is under ap- of which has been care- rebUILDING be on a potentially historic fresh- icy over the years as they competed head- that’s equal peal and that he raised the graduation rates fully monitored down BLOCK man class, which includes three to-head, first in the college game (in which at both UMass and Memphis. But while he the road in Louisville The 6' 11" Cousins likely first-year starters: DeMarcus Kentucky beat UMass in the ’96 national parts outlier, admits that his reputation has been tar- by Pitino, the coach who (15) originally Cousins, a mountainous 6' 11" for- semifinals), then in the NBA (where Pitino’s nished, he won’t promise that something committed to rescued Kentucky from Memphis but ward from Mobile, who originally Celtics split six games against Calipari’s Nets) outsider similar won’t happen at Kentucky. “I sit here the depths of probation in followed Calipari committed to play for Calipari and once again at the college level (where and want to tell you that it won’t,” he says. the 1990s, led the school to Lexington. at Memphis; Eric Bledsoe, a jet- Pitino’s Louisville and Calipari’s Memphis and outlaw. “I would hope that we’re recruiting the right to the 1996 national title propelled guard from Birming- kind of kids and that we and returned (to the ham who may be Kentucky’s best all do our jobs and there everlasting consterna- shooter; and the jewel of Calipari’s won’t be any issues. We tion of Wildcats fans) to Kids, Wall, a 6' 4" point guard from run a class program, take over the archrival Cardinals in 2001. Raleigh whose length, speed and vision StrAINED we do things right, but When the Kentucky job came open last combine to make him the projected top pick reLATIONSHIP there are times when If Kentucky is to Pitino (far left) March, Pitino campaigned publicly for the in the 2010 NBA draft. helped launch things happen, not just candidacies of Oklahoma State’s Travis Ford make the Final Yet for all the excitement among Wild- Calipari’s career but in this program but in and Arkansas’s John Pelphrey, two coaches cats fans, there is only one game they really now has to any program.” Perhaps, who had played for Pitino in Lexington.