1 American Enterprise Institute Web Event — Personal Agency and The

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American Enterprise Institute

Web event — Personal agency and the promise of the American dream

Discussion: John Calipari, Head Coach of Men’s Basketball, University of Kentucky Ian Rowe, Resident Fellow, AEI

11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Monday, September 14, 2020

Event page: https://www.aei.org/events/personal-agency-and-the-promise-of- the-american-dream/

Ian Rowe: Good morning. My name is Ian Rowe. I’m a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and much of my work focuses on ensuring the next generation of young people learns how to become agents of their own uplift. So a lot of my focus — the themes that I really hone in on are upward mobility, education, entrepreneurship, strong families. And so I’m really pleased this morning that we are going to talk about “Personal agency and the promise of the American dream.” And I’m really excited that I get to engage with someone who’s legendary in the college basketball world, John Calipari, but most folks know him as Coach Cal. Coach, welcome. Thank you for joining us.

John Calipari: Thanks, Ian, and it’s a pleasure to be here.

Ian Rowe: Yeah. Well, for about 30 years, you’ve been what many people call a player’s first coach. You’re in the Hall of Fame. You’ve been to the Final Four. Six times, you took University of Kentucky to a national championship. You got nearly 50 players in the NBA draft.

But what I really loved about reading your bio is how much you really focus on your young people, your young men — focus on academics, developing grit, the ability to visualize their future. And it really seems that those concepts are very important now, at a time when a lot of young people might be thinking the American dream isn’t really within their grasp. And so as we start this conversation about personal agency and the promise of the American dream, it’d be helpful to hear just how do you define the American dream? And what is it that you tell your players they need to do in order to achieve it?

John Calipari: Well, let me first of all, Ian, tell you that I was fired by the New Jersey Nets. So, you do talk about the climb is never one step, next step, next step. There’s always stuff that’s going to happen. And then how you approach failure and how you approach those things have as much to do with your success as having success, because I’ll say this to all that fate intervenes at times. Some people have an advantage. OK. They do. There are others that I say fate intervenes in a bad way. Medically, there are things — I have a friend who just, all of a sudden, he’s sick, and you’re like, “Wait a minute. What did he do? He didn’t do anything to deserve it.”

Ian Rowe: Right.

John Calipari: Yeah. I mean, so it’s that. But when you talk about the American dream that I had — my mother was a dreamer, and she would tell me, “Always dream beyond the surroundings. You’re not responsible for the surroundings. You can be whatever you want. You go get what you want in this life and in this world.” The other one was, “Nothing is given to you, and if it’s given, it’s probably not worth a whole lot. You have to earn what you want.” But the biggest thing was “Dream beyond your surroundings.”

So I never felt that this is who I am. This is where I live, and this is where I was born. That came from my mother. My mother, she died in November of 2010, but she always thought I was going to be president of the United States. And I would laugh. She said, “When are you going to run?” That was her way of telling me, “You can be what you want to be.”

So, you know, when you talk about my job with my players and my sense of the responsibility I have to do my job and do it well, is that I’m walking into homes where the hope and aspirations for a family a lot of times lived through that child. And you find out that 2

those families, sometimes it’s a mother. Sometimes the strongest is a grandmother. They only have the same hopes and aspirations that my family had for me, which is I want — my parents, “We want better for you than what — that we were able to do.” My parents were high school educated. They weren’t college educated. So they wanted all of us to get a college degree.

So when you look at our players, one of the things I asked them at a young age, “What’s your why? What’s your why? Why do you want to do this? Tell me what’s going to move you? What gets you up in the morning? What is it?” Most cases for my kids it would be they want to have a better life for their family. They want to be able to get mother in a better place, get their family, their father. They want to make sure that they take care of their family, and it’s their why. It’s what moves them. It’s what wakes you up.

And I would say to everybody listening, “What’s your why? Tell me what moves you. What is going to make you do what you’re doing to the level you’re going to have to do it to?” I’m going to say this: I’m always impressed with people born outside the stadium that get home. The guy born on third base, you know, there’s a buck, and the guy gets home, and he thinks he hit a home run. Dude, you were on third base. The pitcher blocked, and you got home. The guy outside the stadium has got to figure out, “How do I get in the stadium? Because I got to get to the dugout, but I got to get in the stadium first. How do I do that? Doors are shut. Well, I can stop. I can make you — or I keep fighting. How am I going to do this? And then when I get into the dugout, I got to create a niche for me. I got to create my space within a team. I’ve got to take basically what I want, but within a team to get up to bat to get a chance to hit a home run to get home.” That’s the person that I respect the most.

Ian Rowe: Yeah. For the last decade, I’ve been running a network of public charter schools right in the heart of the South Bronx in Lower East Side of Manhattan. I agree with you. All of our families, they have the same aspirations for their children. I have for my own beautiful two children, right? But, you know, they see obstacles.

And so where does it come from because people don’t just pull themselves up by the bootstrap, right? That’s the proverbial response. So, that doesn’t happen. So, where does it come from? How do you cultivate that within a young person, to look all around them and say, “You know what? This doesn’t have to be my reality,” which, by the way, doesn’t mean they have to leave their community, but they want —

John Calipari: It’s a bridge, Ian. It’s a bridge that they can know they can walk both ways, but it’s a bridge that means you can be here, but you can be there, and you can come back here, and you can come back. So, it is not just leaving. It means — my mother’s point was, “This isn’t you. This is where you were born. This is where you live now, where you want to be.” And again, my hope is many why — the whys on here are because I want to make a difference in my community. I want to start a KIPP program, a private school. I want to do something back, but that’s what’s moving me to be special, which will wake me up.

I didn’t mean to interrupt, but it’s kind of when I get a thought, I got to go because as I get older, I start forgetting stuff. All right. And let me say this. Ian, if I say the same thing twice, say, “Coach, you already told that story.”

Ian Rowe: No, it’s all right. I’ll zap you around a few times. So, you know, the odds for many of your students of actually getting to the NBA, you know, are pretty small, right, just 3

to be totally upfront about that. So I presume a lot come with those aspirations to play in the NBA someday. So how do you balance that very vibrant aspiration and the fact that many of them actually have the talent to do it, but to know that that may not be the ultimate thing? So how do they prepare to still lead a fulfilling life even if that singular aspiration may not be the most realistic?

John Calipari: All right. So, we’re going to go back to my UMass days. So, I coached at the University of Massachusetts. I was 29 years old — 28 whenever I got started, and I was really young, had no idea what I was doing in basketball, but being about family, being about teaching, being about giving. We didn’t have as many NBA players as we do now. Even my time at Memphis, what I was doing was taking over programs that had poor graduation rates that we had to say, “Look, you dudes aren’t all going to be in the NBA or playing professional. This is preparing for the rest of your life. This is teaching life skills that are going to carry you the rest of your life.”

So, let me just give you two. The best players that I’ve coached, they built their own self- esteem. They did it themselves, and they did it through really hard work, demonstrated performance. So you got to go out after — you work at something, you train at something, you got to go out and then perform, and you build your own self-esteem. If it takes you or I to build somebody’s self-esteem, “You’re the best. You’re great. You are unbelievable.” The minute you or I go, “That is awful. I can’t believe that,” their self-esteem goes down. But if you build your own self-esteem, no one takes it away, ready, except you. You can take it away, but no one else can.

The second piece of this is being curious. The best, the highest-achieving players that I’ve coached — and let me just tell you, my kids are making in the NBA like current contracts almost three billion. I don’t know if I said this right but billion.

Ian Rowe: Is that a stutter?

John Calipari: You stutter when it goes that big, but that’s not endorsements outside. That’s just their pro contracts. Those kids that have done it at that level are curious, like you can get them to read. Like I’ll always pick out books for my guys to read, you know, just a simple to get them to think different. “The Energy Bus” by Jon Gordon is a great —

Ian Rowe: What’s the book?

John Calipari: “The Energy Bus.” It’s just a parable that talks about changing your mindset. Building your own self-esteem — you got to work; you got to train; you got to prepare, but then you’ve got to be — have demonstrated performance where you’ve taken that to real life, and you go, “I love this. It works.” And then the other thing: Are you curious enough to read? Most of my reading is so that I can give things to my players. So I’m not reading novels. I don’t have the time. That’s not enjoyment to me. Enjoyment is learning something that I can give to these at any one time, 12 guys that I’m coaching, or reading a book that I say, “This will hit home with them. It’s something that they would enjoy.” Those are the curiousness. If you’re not curious about a lot of things like just, “How can I grow,” it’s hard to chase the American dream. I’m just telling you, you have to be curious, but you also have to have your own. If you expect in this country we live for others to build your self-esteem, your self-respect, you’re in for a hard road. I’m just telling you.

And the last thing, and I’ll just say this: My job and what I have to do, I’ve got young people from all different kind of backgrounds, all different kind of communities. I have to teach them the thing that’s going to lead to their success are habits. The habits that you have probably are not going to work. So, what are the successful habits you have to have? Are you ready?

I have kids that grew up on hot dogs and pizza. Well, that’s fuel for your body. It’s not enjoying eating. It’s that you need fuel to really be good at this. So, teaching them habits and eating. How about training and conditioning? They’ve never lifted a weight. Most of them, their high schools didn’t have weights. So now all of a sudden they come, and they’re like, “What is this?” There’s going to be a consistency to your training. How about this one? Sleep habits. How about you learn how to sleep? How about, again, mastering your craft? Do you have a consistency? Will you get up early in the morning and do extra? When you spend more time than the other guy doesn’t guarantee success.

Ian Rowe: Hard work. Exactly.

John Calipari: But let me say this. Lack of spending that time will guarantee failure. I mean, the other doesn’t guarantee success, but it gives you a chance. And so developing professional habits, if I don’t do that, I’ve cheated these kids. It’s beyond winning. Now, winning as a team, everybody benefits. So you want to win, which means you got to give up to each other. You got to sacrifice and share. But those are things that I would say that I’m trying to teach my guys.

Ian Rowe: Love it. Love it. Love it. So I get the pleasure of asking you questions, but I do want to let the viewers know they can ask questions as well. So please submit questions in the chat box — either in the chat box, or you can post questions, hashtag personalagency or email [email protected]. That’s [email protected]. Keep those questions coming. In a few minutes, we’ll open it up so I can ask questions on behalf of our viewers.

So, Coach, you just said your team — some of your players, you know, their numbers are now in the billions in terms of salary, right? So that’s really attractive. But what a lot of folks don’t know is that there is a surprising number of NBA players that five years after retirement, they’re filing for bankruptcy, right? So how is it that they go from billions to not being able to manage their dollars?

John Calipari: Well, one of the things that I do — my kids have all done pretty good with their money. But let me say this too. In my 11 years at Kentucky, we’ve graduated 20 athletes, 20 players including four graduated in three years. Two of those are in the NBA. So you can do both.

My kids also have lifetime scholarships. So, Ian, if they decide to leave after a year or two — and I want them to because there’s no better job than they’re leaving for and Steve Jobs left early. You know, I can go on and on of all the guys that stayed in school a year and left to chase their dreams. But these kids can always come back. It’s like an insurance policy. And they have. We’ve had eight or nine. We’ve had almost 40 guys go to the NBA. We’ve had eight or nine already begin the process of coming back.

You know why I tell them you want your education? Because someday you’re going to have kids, and that child is going to look at you, and you’re going to say, “You need an 5

education.” And that child is going to say, “You didn’t have one, Dad. You did pretty good. Why should I go? You did all right with that.” Well, you can then say, “Yeah. I was in the league 12 years, and during that time, I went back, and it was so important to me to be an educated man because you’re not going to get robbed, and you’re not going to get fooled. I wanted to be an educated man, so you would understand.”

Those are the kind of things we’re doing. It’s not just basketball. Now, let me say this: At Kentucky — this is a dumb number that you would say, “Well, why wouldn’t every kid go there?” And I’ll tell you why in a second they don’t — nearly 70 of the players that receive a scholarship at Kentucky end up getting drafted.

Ian Rowe: Wow.

John Calipari: No, that’s almost like what that — because what we knew growing up, Ian, is they said, you know, “Less than 1 percent are going to be professionals. You better get your education.” And I’m saying to you, 70 percent of the guys that come here go on, and if you’re watching the bubble right now, you’re hearing Kentucky, Kentucky, Kentucky. It’s like the Kentucky bubble. And so that’s all part of what we have to do, but it’s not just basketball.

The money, before they leave me, I ask them a couple questions. Before they come in and they say, “OK. I’m going to put my name in a draft.” “OK. Before we do it, I’m going to ask you two questions. Are you ready to be the CEO of your company? Are you ready to say no to your family, to other people? You make the decision of where things go and who gets what. Because sooner or later, you’re going to have a girlfriend, and she’s going to be your wife. She’s going to be your family. So, if you’re not ready to be the CEO, you’re not ready to leave.”

Second piece. I tell them to put the first million dollars away. I know this is crazy numbers. My dad made $13,000 a year. When I grew up, we lived in a house with 16,000. My mom worked at the cafeteria. My dad looks at me now and just said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, son. Keep fooling them,” because — but I say this to them, “If you put the first million dollars away, in seven to 10 years, if you do it right, it should be $2 million, and you never touched it.” Now, I tell them, “At the worst of everything the bottom drops out, what would you be able to live on: 100,000, 150,000?” Yeah. I mean, my dad lived on 30,000 — 25. Yeah. OK. That $2 million would be able to draw nearly that a year without touching it.

And if you get to your second contract, give that money to your family. Give it to your sister, your brothers. Do what you want with it. If you let that in there another seven to 10 years, guess what, now you got four million in there in a normal situation with business people.

The other thing I tell them is you don’t put your money with one person. You put it with multiple. And they all check on each other. They all do accounting, and they know you read everything. And let them know you’re reading. I said, “You try to protect yourself from someone taking your mind.” I’d give all these kids that kind of talk before they leave, and most of them will say, “I put the first million away, Coach. I live tight to the vest coming out of the gate.”

Ian Rowe: That takes an unbelievable level of maturity at a very young age to make that happen. You’ve talked a lot about the success. I hope I still got you, Coach. You look like you’re frozen. Hopefully, I still got you.

John Calipari: You look frozen to me, but you got me. Go ahead.

Ian Rowe: Coach, are you still with us?

John Calipari: Yes.

Ian Rowe: OK. So you’ve talked a lot about the successes. What have been some of your biggest disappointments that you’ve experienced while coaching?

John Calipari: The biggest disappointment you have, you want every kid to make it, either they get a college degree, and they do well. And our kids have either gotten drafted or gotten a degree. But there are kids that aren’t patient enough, kids that think they have to leave after one year or I’m a failure. They come in and they talk, and I say, “Listen, it may take more time.” Kids that have left us and then didn’t make it to where I thought they could make it.

In a lot of cases, one of the things for us that’s a problem is kids feel if you go to Kentucky, if you don’t make it in one or two years, you’re a failure. And we’re trying to fight that to say we’ve had kids stay three years, Willie Cauley-Stein. We’ve had kids stay four years, Darius Miller. It’s been across the board, one, two years. We had last year a couple kids stayed two years, and they’re going to do great. We’ve had P. J. Washington in Charlotte stay two years. We’ve had kids go on and graduate, stay four, and not be that guy, but they go on with life. And the skills that we teach them, life skills, not only help in basketball — let me give you this, my own son.

My son played for us for three years. He graduated in three years and said, “Dad, I want to play more.” So, he went to the University of Detroit. OK. And he’s now a player there. He had two years to play. So he played last year, had a fabulous year. My son is not going to be an NBA player, but I am so proud of his diet, his discipline, his training, his work ethic. It does not matter what my son gets into now. He’ll know how to work. He’ll know how to be committed. How about this: He knows how to play with others. He knows how to sacrifice. He knows how to take what you want, earn your way, create your space within a team. He’s fine. And you don’t have to be an NBA player here with what you walk out with.

Let me tell you this. You know, we may have people on the call, and I’ll say what I do when I recruit. If you’re into drinking, smoking, clubbing, or chasing, you don’t come here. If you’re not into basketball, you’re going to be out there by yourself.

Ian Rowe: And your grades.

John Calipari: Well, I start with basketball because if you’re not into that in this situation, it don’t work. Then if you think you’re coming here and you don’t have any desire academically, don’t come here because my job is to get you to a love of learning, to be more curious, to do things you’re not comfortable doing, and learn to be comfortable being comfortable, being uncomfortable when you’re uncomfortable. So academics, yeah, but if you’re not into basketball, you won’t work here. If you’re not into learning and being curious, it won’t work here. It just won’t. 7

And so I’m not promising you’ll start, how many minutes, how many shots. That’s why we lose kids, because others will: You’ll start. You’ll shift. Well, we’re going to retire your number; you’re going to be the best, but I’ll play you every minute. I’ll never sub you, you know. Listen, here they said it on the NBA broadcast, “At Kentucky, if you’re not doing what you’re supposed to, he will take you out, tell you, and then put you right back in.” But you’re not just out there doing whatever you want. You’re learning. There’s a base being set. So this isn’t for everybody. And I say it. It just isn’t. But the ones that come here know that there’s going to be competition.

For anyone on this call that thinks you’re going to go through life and there’s no competition, that’s the American way. There is going to be competition. And if it’s you by yourself, let me just say this: If you walk in a room — and I tell this to my players — if they walk in a gym, if you walk in a room, and you’re by far the smartest, most talented, best, you’re in the wrong room. You’re in the wrong room. You want to walk in a room where you go, “Oh, moo.” You call mom and say, “Mom, you can’t believe this. These people are geniuses, but you know what, I’m going to hold my own. I’m going to have to catch up now because they’re a little older than me. I am jack because it wakes me up. And my own self-esteem and confidence has been built. So I can do this.” That’s where you want to be. That’s what you’re chasing. And that’s what — to me, the American dream is being in that room.

Now, I’m going to say this, and part of the issue is access and opportunity. Some will have it; some have to fight for it, but at the end of the day, some people are outside the stadium, and some people are born on third base. It’s what it is. Yeah. There is no excuse. I’m still going. And you know what? When you get knocked down and knocked down and knocked down, you’re ready to chase it, and then if you get knocked down, you’ll deal with it. Others on third base get knocked down; they don’t know how to deal with it. They’ve been every enabled and they [inaudible] well.

Ian Rowe: You use your adversity as an asset.

John Calipari: It’s fuel. It is fuel.

Ian Rowe: It’s fuel. Wow. So we’re getting some great questions. Please, everyone, email [email protected]. That’s [email protected] or hashtag #personalagency on Twitter.

Great question: So, you mentioned the bubble, the fact that some people have access and do not. It’s impossible not to address the moment of the sports world addressing the whole Black Lives Matter movement. What do you think about what’s happening in the bubble right now in terms of players expressing their voice? Because there’s both been support as well as pushback.

John Calipari: Well, first of all, Ian, whatever you do — at first, you’re a black man. Before the executive director, the fellow, you’re a black man. And for these athletes, before they’re basketball players, they’re black men. And so they have a right in my mind to speak to — I like action more than just speaking. I mean, speaking, here it is. We’re all mad. I look at myself as a white man, and I said this, and please, people — I had friends of mine get angry with me. I said white privilege played a part in my success, and, Ian, people went crazy because they knew how I grew up. My friends, “I know how you grew up. You didn’t have 8

shit. You didn’t have anything. Your dad was a laborer. Your mom worked at the cabin. You didn’t have” — I said, “That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is you have an advantage being white. I’m not embarrassed of my success, but I’m being truthful. I know that’s there.”

When this all happened, I stepped back to say, (1) African American families have entrusted me with their sons, which is why I’ve had the success I’ve had. What action? My wife was all over me, talked, “What action are you going to take?” In my sphere of influence, first of all, Ian, it’s my staff. Is my staff diverse? I have 12 people. Is it a diverse staff? For 20 years, 20 years, really longer than that — I’ve been doing this a long time — it’s been diverse. I’ve had a diverse staff. So now it becomes what about within athletics. So we have no issue with diversity on fields or courts, but within the athletic departments, we do. So, we started on our campus —

Ian Rowe: Is that a pipeline issue?

John Calipari: Yes, it is. It is. You’re right. So here’s what I did to help fill the pipeline. We started, along with 80 other coaches who joined me —and I’m talking black coaches, white coaches, football coaches, Nick Saban and others, baseball coaches — to say we will fund positions within athletics — minority positions — we will fund them through the John McLendon Foundation. Please, anyone listening, google John McLendon and read about him. He was a pioneer, an icon on so many fronts. If you read his story, you’ll say, “Wow, we’re housing this in his foundation.”

Ian Rowe: Sixty seconds on John McLendon. Who was he?

John Calipari: John McLendon was one of the first black head coaches who pushed because, in the ’50s and ’40s and ’60s, there was no integration where black teams played white teams. He trained under James Naismith at Kansas who developed — the originator of basketball. And he was the first black head coach in the NBA, first black head coach to coach at a predominantly white school, was one of the first — he did the four corners, North Carolina fans that used to — Dean Smith did the four corners. He developed it first. He was the father of fast, great basketball, pressing basketball. Again, he was a pioneer when it was hard, not when it was easy. So we housed it under his foundation.

And now there are jobs that are being posted. Right now we probably have 20 jobs that are posted. We want to get to 30 before this school year because people are going to add jobs in January. By next year, we’re hoping it’s 100. And what these are, are access and opportunity for minority women and men to be in athletics, but the training may lead them to business. I’m fine. It’s about access and opportunity that maybe they haven’t had, to touch shoulders, to touch elbows. And it was — for me and the other coaches — it’s our area of influence that we had to fund. So these kids are — I say kids. They’re college graduates; some of them have master’s degrees; some of them are working on master’s that they apply for specific jobs in specific areas in the country. These jobs are east to west. And now they have —

What I want this, in all of us coaches, is a springboard, a springboard for these young people to have access they would not have had unless we coaches said we’re funding him. And by funding him, Ian, it’s you don’t want him to have a second job. You don’t want him to have to take a loan or savings. These jobs are going to pay 2,500 a month, a stipend that will — like in other areas, it may be more, but it’s a starting point to be in an athletic department to 9

learn, because if we want more diversity in coaching football. We need it in athletic directors.

Ian Rowe: Gotta start early.

John Calipari: And so that pipeline, it may take 10 years to have an impact, but you could tell I’m passionate and excited about it and ready — we’ve hired a couple. We’re going to end up hiring six positions at Kentucky.

Ian Rowe: Wow. I mean, the reason I like that is it’s substantive, but you recognize it’s going to take some time. There are a lot of other organizations that are responding to this moment with a lot more symbolic gestures, you know, black squares on Instagram. What do you say to corporate leaders who actually, you know, do feel a genuine desire to do something, but, you know, they’re doing these symbolic things that are having really no impact?

John Calipari: I call it optics. OK. When we did this with the coaches, we had them commit to four years so that it’s not optics. You’re committed to this for four years. And now we can see where it goes. But let me say this: To the future leaders that are involved, that are getting these jobs, you got to prove yourself. You got to earn your way now. You’ve got the opportunity. It’s up to you. We can’t do it for you. You earn it. It’s an opportunity maybe you couldn’t have. Here’s what I would tell business leaders, and I would tell anybody listening to this that would want to apply for these positions: minorityleaders.org.

If you’re a business — and I’m talking to businesses this way. They’re all excited because they kind of want to — I’m going to use the term “poach,” and I’m happy that they would poach. But I’m saying to a business leader that would look at this and say, “I’ll give money to matching dollars. Where a coach is giving money, we’ll match his money and now — but can we have that future leader for three months to intern with us?” So nine months on a college campus, three months on a business, and now they make a choice. Do you want to be in business? They have to earn their way. They have to prove their worth. I think we’re going to find stars. That’s what I think we’re going to find.

When I tell you over 500, maybe 600 people have applied for these 20 jobs that means they’re going to be hard to get. That means that, look, you may have to wait a year and apply again next year. Guess what, if you’re outside the stadium, so what, I’ll figure out how I survived until I get through this door. My hope is within two to three years, we’re at 300 or 400 opportunities for access to athletics and business.

Ian Rowe: I love it. I mean, what you’re talking about is what some call “earned success,” right? Like nothing’s just going to be given to you. But sometimes in the current dialogue people say, “No, somehow that” — I mean, I’ll even use the term, “it’s racist to” — you know, people have been suffering for so long. You know, it’s not about earned success. It’s about trying to make, atone for, you know, past discrimination.

John Calipari: I would say, the more we can create access and opportunity, the more we’re addressing that. I’ll give you an example: minority small business. There should be a big pool of money that we address. Let’s help in that area. But they got to earn their way, and you got to prove your worth. But we understand it’s harder; you’re behind. So we’re going to do this. I call those hand-ups, not handouts. They’re hand-ups. 10

And you know what, the people, most are going to tell you, “I just want a chance. I want access and opportunity. I’ll earn my way; I’ll show you what I am, but I can’t even get in the door. I can’t get that loan.” And that’s where I say, for all of us out there, you may be in that situation.

I was in that situation basically because of where I came from but not close. I was white; I had a privilege, but I was poor. I didn’t have any people. There were all laborers in our whole family. There were no professionals. On both sides of my family, everybody was a laborer. You went and worked at the mill. My dad worked at the mill. He said, “Son, you never want to work at the mill.” He said, “You will not live a long life if you’re working.” He worked near the blast furnace. The blast furnace, if you were in Pennsylvania, and you’re driving down the highway, and there was a mill, there’d be a red line. That was the blast furnace. And you would lose weight. If you were near that blast furnace for any amount of time, you’d lose 15 pounds sweating.

So, I had some disadvantages, and I had to fight. But I’m telling you, I was privileged being white. So, again, all that I’m trying to do, even with my own players — do you know what’s great about sports and especially basketball? There’s not political stuff to this. Either you’re good enough, white or black, or you’re not. Players know who can play. You can’t tell them this guy can play, and he can’t play because they’ll say —

Ian Rowe: True meritocracy.

John Calipari: There. Exactly. And even coaching is that way. I mean, in coaching, black or white, do you win? John McLendon won at every level. He was black. It didn’t matter. I can tell you some of the great coaches were black.

Here’s the other issue, though. If you do get fired, do you get a second opportunity where if you’re white, sometimes you do? And I didn’t want this to go black and white. But there are things out there that you may face that may make it harder. It doesn’t mean you can’t do it.

But let’s be truthful here. It’s harder for some than others. It is. But the question is do you understand, though, you get to appoint, politics, who helps who? I’m in Kentucky. Listen, as a player, I didn’t play for anybody great. I went to UNC Wilmington, wasn’t good enough, and went to a Division II school, Clarion University. I didn’t play for any of the great coaches. I’m coaching at Kentucky. As a player, I was small, but I was slow. So, as a player, I didn’t get here because I could play. I’m telling you I had an advantage. I was white. But I’m also telling you it was not an easy road. How I got here I have no idea to be honest.

Ian Rowe: Well, you opened and said you got fired, you know, as the coach of New Jersey Nets. In that moment when you realize that you’ve just been let go, what did you think? Did you think that “I’m just going to shrug this off, and I’ll be at the University of Kentucky, winning a national championship”?

John Calipari: Well, do you want to know what I — it was hard to think anything under the covers, because I was under the covers for about a week until my wife dragged my leg and dragged me to the floor and said, “Get out from under the covers.” And then your second thing would be, “I’m never going to survive. I’ll never come back.” See, you control those thoughts. 11

So then it becomes how do you get those thoughts out of your mind and start marching forward? You know, exercising. What are you reading? Who are you talking to? Who are the people around you who can give you truthful advice? How do you stay positive?

I went through all that. As matter of fact, I wrote a book on that, “Bounce Back,” because everybody kept asking me, “How in the world did you come back?” I barely did. And you may have people who fired you who want to prove that you should be fired and try to make sure you never make anything. That happens too now. You got to battle all that. But I’ll tell you, it makes you stronger. And here’s the second thing. When you get fired once —

Ian Rowe: You’re not scared of having it.

John Calipari: Yeah. You get fired once, how about this, and you know you survive; it’s not like getting eaten by the alligator. They didn’t get eaten by the alligator. I mean, I’m good. As a matter of fact, from there, I go here, go there; I’m in the Hall of Fame. When I was fired, it’s like, “He’s done. He’ll never make it. He’s never coming back.” And that’s why I try to remind everybody: I got fired, and it wasn’t friendly. It wasn’t in a friendly way. It was very public.

Back then, there wasn’t a whole lot of social media. So you couldn’t defend — you can’t defend yourself anyway. You got to have other people defend you. But as stuff came out, you just had to sit there and take the shrapnel, and it was coming. And I say even to this day. Someone says, “Well, you know, some of the things you’ve done and said, you kind of got heat.” And I said, “Listen, when they’re shooting arrows at me, I got bazooka holes in my body. They go right through. They don’t even touch skin.”

You know, and as a young person who may be listening to this, you learn way more from failing. You learn more about the people around you, too, from failure than you do success. And from success, you should be asking the question, “Why did this happen?” You may end up saying, “Fate kind of intervened, and I just happened to be here and there.” But let me say this. You always come back to where you prepared for your opportunity. And if you weren’t, when the opportunity comes, you can’t blame anybody. You can. It doesn’t do anything.

Ian Rowe: There’s a lot of that going on right now, blaming a lot of other forces, right?

John Calipari: Yeah. Well, here’s the thing you understand. When things happen to you, there’s no reason addressing all of it because your friends don’t need to hear it because they know, and the people that want you to fail they believe in it anyway. So whoever you’re talking to about, it doesn’t work that way. What you’re doing is, “All right. What’s next? How do I climb? What do I do?” How about this? If you have a family and something happens to you, you make sure you keep an eye on your family. When I got fired, my first concern was my kids and my wife. I was not angry, angry. I was really disappointed that they would do it because the year before, we went to the playoffs in the NBA and had the biggest turnaround in NBA in 30 years. But the next year, you’re fired.

Ian Rowe: Wasn’t good enough, right? What have you done for me lately?

John Calipari: But my wife was angry. She was mad. You know, she’d still today try to hit somebody in the nose. So I had to make sure my wife and my kids were fine. Then I had to come and say, “OK. Now, how am I going to do this?” And I was given a life raft.

Larry Brown was the head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, and he was my mentor. He’s been my mentor for life. As a matter of fact, it’s his birthday today. He turns 80. I already called him this morning. But he hired me in Philadelphia as an assistant, and I went back. And he said, “You need to just get back, get back in the saddle, be my assistant, and then go from there.” And within six months, I was hired at Memphis, and, you know, the climb started again.

Ian Rowe: Wow. So when you hit a really tough moment, you had a mentor that you could — beyond your wife. It sounds like you had someone you could call. For young people who don’t have that immediate, how do you find that person? How do you find that person if it’s not within your own family, a person who when things really do get tough?

John Calipari: I would say you get a kitchen cabinet of four or five people when you’re doing well that you’re running things off of, that they’re invested in you. Here’s what people are afraid to do, Ian. They’re afraid to ask for help because then they think they’re not smart. They’re not qualified enough. No, when you ask somebody above you, somebody that’s big in your profession for help, and they help you, they are now invested in you and will follow because they want you to succeed, because they were the ones that helped you. And it brings great pride and joy to them to see it. So don’t be afraid to ask for help. Even now, you should have a kitchen cabinet. It may be a family member, one, but there may be four or five other people that you can call on that give you great advice that are truth tellers for you. When things are good and bad, don’t just do it. You’re calling on people when things are going good.

Let me say one thing, and this is hard because I don’t know the age of who’s listening. I don’t see faces here, Ian. But my thing to my team, if I can really get through to them, is being servant leaders. That’s what team is. I’m more worried about you than I am myself. And if everyone on the team is more worried about the other guys than themselves, that’s when you see my teams at the end of the year and say, “How does he get all these new guys? He’s got a brand new team, and by the end of the year, they’re playing hard; they’re fighting; they’re diving on the floor; they’re making extra passes. How does he do it?” That’s how we do it: servant leadership. Somebody will say, “Well, you know, when you don’t have a shirt — you have one shirt; it’s hard to give a shirt away.” Yeah. But if you want to bring joy to your life, it’s about how you’re making other people feel and how you reach out to them.

So I have a kid named Michael Kidd-Gilchrist who’s 17 years old at the time. In 2012, we’re on a path to win a national title; we’re in the league championship, SEC championship game, tournament championship. He comes in and says, “Sub Darius Miller.” This is prior to the game. “Let him be a starter instead of me.” Are you sick? Are you hurt? He started all year. He started every game. He said, “Because we need Darius to win a national title,” which would be played — after this tournament, you play the NCAA tournament. We’re in the very last game. We’ve won 25 in a row. He’s telling me, “Change the starting lineup.” And he says, “Darius needs it. We need him for us to win. I’m good, Coach. Your choice, but I’d like you to do it.” So I did it.

Ian Rowe: Why’d you do it? 13

John Calipari: Because I have to trust my team if I empower them. So my job is to get them empowered. So it’s their team, not my team. And if that’s what he wanted to do, I was going to roll with it.

Now, what happened was Darius went in — the year before — I’ll give you background — he was the MVP of the SEC tournament. This year, he did not score a point in two games. So that’s the backdrop. So I’m like, “OK. You know, maybe that’s the reason.” Darius went, I believe took 15 shots in that game, made six, maybe seven. I think it was six. Michael, who was not used to coming off the bench, got in foul trouble, and we lost the game by five at the end. But we won the national title because Darius played out of his mind because his newest teammates had his back, and we needed that one more guy. And that came from a 17-year- old servant leader. So don’t say you’re too young to be a servant leader. You can do it whenever you choose.

And here’s what I would say: How many of you will give up something that you’ve earned, that you have the right to, because someone else needs it way more than you, to keep them going and keep them alive? You want to know servant leadership? That’s what it is. And that’s what I strive for, to empower my team so it’s their team and create a bunch of servant leaders that are about each other. Because if you are, you’ll get by failure faster — your own personal failure faster because you’re not worried about you. But if you are solely into you, and one thing goes wrong, it may take you weeks to recover.

John Rowe: Yep. Wow. Do you stay in touch with your players?

John Calipari: I do. And let me tell you how I have to do it and whether it’s, you know, knowing their birthdays and still to this day sending out birthday wishes to those guys. But every morning with the guys in the NBA, every morning I come in, there’s a list on my desk of who played last night of my players, what their team did, win or lose, and how they played, so that I can in five minutes look through a list of 30 names, seven names, maybe one game, 40, one game one day, and text anybody that did anything special.

And then try to stay in touch with the guys from my UMass days. You know, it’s funny. The guys I was hardest on probably have stayed in touch with me more. When I was 28, 29, 30 years old, trying to survive was probably more aggressive, more loud, more — you know, there was no place to go. If we failed there was no — I mean, I couldn’t go to my parent’s basement. We didn’t have a basement. It was like, you know — I’m married with one child, my daughter Erin, who’s at Vanderbilt now. She’s a doctor of research up there.

Ian Rowe: Congratulations.

John Calipari: Yeah. I’m proud of her. And Megan’s in Reading, Mass. She and her husband both of — Cody’s married to Erin, and Megan is married to Mike. Mike’s a fireman. Megan is a pastry chef. And then my son’s at Detroit. So I’ve got three older children.

Ian Rowe: You’ve lived the American dream.

John Calipari: You know what? And I want my children to have it better than I do. I want them to have more of it, more joy, more love, more curiousness than even I’ve had. And my 14

kids have an advantage. They do. They have a privilege. And I think we’ve tried to raise them. One of the things I’ve always said to them, “Everything you see is borrowed. It’s not ours. It’s borrowed.” So whether it’s a house, the car, the money, whatever it is, it’s all borrowed. You can’t take it with you, and what you do with it and how you use it and how you use it to help others and how you pay it forward, as my mother used to say.

I don’t know if anybody out there lived in a house that at Christmastime — no one had much. So, the gifts kind of exchanged. You know, like my uncle would come and give a gift to us, and then somebody would walk in, and we’d give that same gift to them. And they go home and give that gift to somebody else. It may even come back to my uncle. Like, “Dude, they never changed it. They never unpacked it.” So, paying it forward was something that I’ve learned at an early age too.

Ian Rowe: I mean, the thing that’s amazing about you, you just said, you know, your kids are privileged. They are privileged, but those privileges, you know, they’re growing up in a strong family, great household, intact. Those are assets that are available to everyone, right, black, white, it doesn’t matter. And I think these are the important things to keep reminding our young people that the American dream is within your grasp.

And as you said, it’s not fair. There are some who have advantages, the third base versus being born outside of the stadium. But there are things in your control that you can make that dream more accessible to you and to your own children.

John Calipari: Here’s the advantage my players have that they may not have — that I’m on it to develop those professional habits, and if they walk out of line, I push them right back in line; that I’m able to do stuff that maybe they’re not going to be trained that they’ve got to do on their own. You’re ready? Do it. All I can tell you is do it because if you want to be professional, you got to have professional habits. If you want to be professional, you have to be curious. If you don’t want to be robbed or fooled, be educated. If you’re not, you’re going to get robbed and fooled. And now mastering your craft. I’ll just say this. I don’t care what you’re doing, but if you spent one hour a day, one hour a day at your craft, really studying, honing it in, and you do that every day, you’d be in the top 1 percent. In a year, you’d be in the top —

Ian Rowe: No matter what it is, right?

John Calipari: It doesn’t matter what it is. An hour a day that you are going to master your craft, and you’re going to spend time, you would be in the 1 percent. But it’s really hard. You can’t say, “Can you just give me the magic wand? And if I go to Kentucky, poof, I’m a pro.” No, no, you’re getting up in the morning before class. You’re going to work. If you choose not to, I don’t get upset, move back —

Ian Rowe: You’re just not on the team.

John Calipari: Well, you’ll be on the team, but I start calling you by number instead of name: “Twelve, come on over here. Come here.” I mean, I don’t have time —

Ian Rowe: Is that the signal just for someone to know that they’re — ?

John Calipari: If I start calling you number five, you know, “Uh-oh, he’s not even worried about me anymore.” Now all of a sudden you get the picture of “I’ve got to compete.”

Nothing here is given to anybody. Nothing here is promised. That’s why I don’t get every player, because people want that easy road. They want promises. They want guarantees. Please listen. There are no guarantees. There are none. And if you want to be sold a bill of goods, you want to be sold the Brooklyn Bridge, someone out there will sell it to you. You want to buy swampland in Florida; oh, there’s someone out there that will sell it to you.

If you want to earn your way, it falls back on, “OK. I got to do this.” I’ve had achievers here. Part of it’s through the recruiting process. Don’t come here if you don’t want to try to achieve and earn your way. Don’t do it. You’re making a mistake. You’re making it hard on me. Kids that don’t come here, most cases I’m like, “They knew before I knew they shouldn’t have come here.” You know, kids know that — you know, I tell them when I walk out of a house, if you look at your mom and dad and say too much, I don’t want all that — “I get it. Don’t come here. It’s fine.”

Ian Rowe: Well, Coach Cal, this has been amazing. Thank you for just sharing what the reality is. Nothing is guaranteed. The dream is out there. It is within your grasp. And there are a lot of factors that shape that — your family, your school, your work ethic — but there’s something within you, too, you know, and that we got to pull that out and let young people know that they control how they react to the situations that they’re in. They may not shape — they may not have control over the situations they’re in, but they shape how they respond to it, and that’s a very powerful motivator. So thank you. Any final parting words you want to share with the kids?

John Calipari: I hope I touched one young person listening out there that they can look back in five years from now, they can send me a note and say, “That had an impact on what I did and what I was able to do. I was ready to give up. I was so angry. I wanted to argue with anybody. I wanted to blame everybody. And you know what? I stopped and said, ‘If I choose to do this, I can do it. It may be harder for me than others, but so what?’” That’s not the point. The point is getting there. And if it is harder, you’ll enjoy it more and appreciate it more and will never let go of it. Someone else may get there, and the first time they get hit, they let go because they didn’t earn it the way you did. I wish everybody well that’s watching.

Ian Rowe: Coach Cal, thank you very much, and thank you, everyone, for listening to our segment on personal agency and the power of the American dream. Let’s go get it.