Calipari hasn't forgotten his roots...

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Friday, 08 October 2010 14:35


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Kentucky coach John Calipari wasn’t born to coach. At least that’s what he thought before taking a job at Kansas that ushered in his successful coaching career.

While he was at Kansas, Calipari met his wife Ellen. It was also the beginning of a coaching career that has included successful stints at UMass, Memphis and Kentucky. Calipari grew up in Pittsburgh, but his coaching career was launched in Kansas.

It was all part of a plan that Calipari didn’t draw up originally in the game of life.

“Fate Intervenes in our lives,” he said. “Things happen to us that we do not deserve. Being born here (in the United States) versus being born somewhere else, you have nothing to do with that. There are things that happen to us in a good way and in also, ‘why me?’

“There are people making dumb decisions at the top of the business and people at the bottom of the business losing their job. What happened?”

Calipari wanted to be the coach at Kentucky three years when Tubby Smith resigned, but wasn’t hired.

It wasn’t his time, yet.

Instead, Kentucky employed Billy Gillispie, who was fired after two seasons with the Wildcats.

Calipari admitted that it would have been difficult to follow in Smith’s footsteps and added that it was mean for him to remain in Memphis until “fate intervened.” In between the letdown and the offer, Calipari was at the right place at the right time.

“It was two unbelievable years for me and my family and the players at Memphis needed us (at the time.),” he said. “Two years later, (Kentucky) needed me a little bit.”

Calipari originally wanted to be a teacher. Yes, a teacher. His career has involved teaching, which is what coaching basketball involves, a dose of both teaching and motivating skills.

“(Early) in my life, I never saw myself as a lawyer or a doctor,” Calipari said. “I didn’t have any in my family. We were all laborers. A teacher, that’s what I grew up thinking I was going to be, because that’s who I looked up to and that’s who I respected.”

Since Calipari has arrived at Kentucky, the Wildcats have returned to the limelight and “back in the conversation” as one of the most feared programs in the country. Four players from Calipari’s first recruiting class with the Wildcats were chosen in the first round of the NBA Draft last summer and indication that Calipari has indeed put Kentucky back on the map nationally.

“Aren’t you proud that we have kids from around the country wanting to come here?” he asked. “This is a player’s first program. We’re going to recruit the best and the brightest.”

Calipari, one of the most successful coaches in the collegiate ranks, hasn’t forgotten is roots, either.

“I’m the grandson of a coal miner, that’s who I am,” he said.






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