Calipari Will Save Kentucky From Itself

It's a marriage of mutual necessity. He needs them -- and, oh, do they need him, as sure as Ashley Judd can fill a "Go 'Cats'' t-shirt. The anguished looms at Kentucky need John Calipari because he'll hustle, sell the program, recruit stud players, kiss babies and embrace the psychotic romance that is Big Blue Nation. And John Calipari needs Kentucky because, well, he still isn't roundly accepted as an elite coach, a perception he'll change if he resurrects a fallen dynasty.
Hell, if Calipari takes Kentucky to a Final Four anytime soon, they just might put him in a "Guitar Hero'' commercial. And hopefully, he'll be asked to keep his pants on, because no one wants to see Roy Williams, Mike Krzyzewski, Bob Knight and Rick Pitino in their underwear.

He couldn't possibly have stayed at Memphis, where he has maximized an above-average program and fought a stigma of playing cupcake schedules in the inferior Conference USA. In the national discussion, it's time for him to stop playing defense with an overachiever and give himself every built-in chance to win a championship with a resource-rich powerhouse. Kentucky still has the haughtiest tradition in the sport, plays in a cathedral in Lexington and practices in a $30 million building far grander than most arenas at other programs. The problem, of course, is the tradeoff: the intense scrutiny of a state that draws its identity and esteem from the Wildcats. For coaches who can't handle the borderline insanity, it becomes a bad job, as Billy Gillispie would say as he ran away from a TV camera crew on his firing day and Tubby Smith would say as he fled to Minnesota.

My assumption is Calipari will handle the deep fryer better than those men. His outgoing personality is well suited to glad-handing boosters and hugging grandmas, job requirements unique to Kentucky basketball. Yes, it's silly and almost disturbing to think the coach at UK has to be the most important person in the state, particularly in troubled times. But we saw Calipari stroll into Memphis, a depressed city with its share of problems, and turn the Tigers into the predominant source of civic pride. Did you notice the 48-hour vigil outside his home, when a fan placed a sign with two messages -- "NOT FOR SALE BY OWNER" and "STAY CAL" -- in the front yard? Five police cars had to block off part of the street, positioned to fend off TV camera crews. Speaking of TV, one station set up a Cal Cam outside an entrance at the school's basketball headquarters. Then there was the scene at a doughnut shop, where Calipari stopped by, told some friends that Kentucky would happen and that Arizona had offered him a blank check over the weekend. No one knows Calipari better than his nomadic mentor, Larry Brown, who told the Associated Press that he had no choice but leave Memphis for the huge job.

"That community, that town, just adores John and respects what he's done. But it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," said Brown, allegedly coaching the Charlotte Bobcats. "I think all along, he's always been thinking in the back of his head, 'I'd love to be (on a big stage).' And how can anybody fault him? If he leaves, they're going to be upset, but it's because he's done such a phenomenal job."

He came within a couple of mental lapses and missed free throws of winning a national championship last year. He had the best incoming recruiting class in the country, too. So just think of what Calipari might accomplish at Kentucky, where he'll command the national spotlight, appear on ESPN regularly and try to live up to that checkerboard of squares on the lobby floor in the Craft Center facility.

Checkerboard, you ask? Yep, the squares that feature each of Kentucky's national title years -- 48, 49, 51, 58, 78, 96, 98 -- followed by a blank square for the next championship, whenever that may happen. Gillispie, a self-described workaholic bachelor, was too aloof as he attacked the ultimate challenge in college hoops.

Calipari has more balance in his life, as a family man with a sense of humor, and he won't back down from what Gillispie called unfair expectations. "If they don't win every game, I think they ought to be on the coach all the time," the deposed coach said with a smile over the weekend. "I think they need to turn the heat up on that a bit any time they lose a game."

The Kentucky family believes Calipari will thrash through the pressure, to the tune of a reported $35 million over eight years. He becomes the highest-paid coach, in total pay, in collegiate sports. Too much in a crippling economy? Not when you consider the pressures, the demands. "We understand the challenge and importance of finding our next caretaker for this very special basketball program," athletic director Mitch Barnhart said. ``We desire for Kentucky basketball to be a part of the championship picture every year; that is our goal.''

No one should be shocked if Calipari makes immediate impact in the suddenly limp Southeastern Conference. His glittering recruiting class at Memphis includes two blue-chippers, 6-11 center DeMarcus Cousins and 6-6 wing Xavier Henry, who could leave for Kentucky.



Calipari also has a strong relationship with John Wall, the nation's top prep point guard. And while it's possible the best two players from Kentucky's team, explosive scorer Jodie Meeks and big man Patrick Patterson, will declare for the NBA draft, what if Calipari talks one or both into staying?

That's why Kentucky needs Calipari. He brings immediate cred and results. And why does he need them? Because if he pulls this off in a blueblood program reduced to utter joylesness, he'll finally win universal respect as a gold-standard coach of his era. When Calipari gathered his Memphis players the other day and described Kentucky as the Notre Dame of college basketball, he nailed it. Just as the Fighting Irish brand has faded, so has the UK brand. The problem is that Gillispie was Charlie Weis and unable to awaken the echoes.
Calipari will.

And he'll do so in a heated in-state environment with Pitino, who doesn't get along with Calipari and will conduct recruiting warfare down I-64 in Louisville. In that sense, Calipari will be trying to repeat what Pitino already has accomplished in returning Kentucky to glory. There are unsubstantiated rumors that Pitino, who absorbed a bitter loss Sunday to Michigan State and has suffered two straight defeats in the Elite Eight, will leave for Arizona. Assuming he stays, look for some serious scorched earth across the 75-mile expanse between Louisville and Lexington. It hardly was coincidence that Pitino, when asked last weekend at the Midwest Regional, endorsed two of his former Kentucky players for the job: Oklahoma State coach Travis Ford and Arkansas coach John Pelphrey. Think he wants any part of the Calipari Storm?

"Kentucky's a very unique job. I'm sure it's very similar to Notre Dame football and Alabama football,'' Pitino said. "I'm not naming the coach, but I'll stick my two cents in. For me, last time around -- Billy Gillispie is a terrific coach -- but I would have immediately hired either John Pelphrey or Travis Ford last time around. It's such a unique job that you need to win over the fans. You need to win the press conference right away. Pelphrey and Travis are brilliant young coaches. On top of that, they're beloved by the Commonwealth of Kentucky and all their fans, what they call Big Blue Nation. So for anybody, it's a big adjustment. For those guys, it's not. Those two guys, you cut them open and it spells UK. That's what I would do."

And why not a big name -- such as, hmmm, Calipari? "Everybody looks for these marquee names, big names. I think football got really smart,'' Pitino said. "Instead of looking for the marquee names, they went after guys that can really coach and really recruit. It takes a little bit of homework.''

Come on, Rick. Stop snowballing us. Tuesday, he finally did in lauding --grudgingly? -- the Calipari hire. "He's done a great job at UMass. He's done a great job at Memphis, and he would do a great job at Kentucky," he said. Pitino was a New Yorker who didn't know Kentucky from Mississippi when he took over a scandal-ridden mess from Eddie Sutton in 1989. He quickly won over the fans with pressure defense, homegrown kids sprinkled with major recruits and plenty of success, with a national title coming in 1996. He left to run the Boston Celtics, then returned to Louisville. Calipari is Pitino 20 years later.

Convinced that Gillispie was the problem, and that the sociology of Kentucky basketball is perfectly sane, university president Lee Todd is holding Calipari to even higher standards. "You have to be an ambassador to this program,'' he said. "[Gillispie] had a lack of understanding that this job is a complete job that requires a lot more than just coaching and recruiting. It's kind of like the president's job; nobody ever writes out exactly what you have to do, but there is a lot to it. And philosophically, I think we need someone who nurtures the entire Big Blue Nation, has the philosophy that this is a very unique opportunity, a very unique job and it's one that is a lot broader.''

By the way, he was referring to the President of the United States.

But I think Calipari is up to it. Years ago, he was something of a punk, engaging rival coach John Chaney in an embarrassing press-conference screaming match and running a program, Massachusetts, that was forced to vacate a Final Four berth when Marcus Camby took gifts from an agent. A failed experience in the NBA humbled him, cleansed him and led him to Memphis, where he stayed out of trouble, created his own baby and damn near won it all.

In Lexington, I think he will. And then, maybe he and all those crazy people in the Commonwealth will find peace for once in their basketball lives.