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[B]Coach Cal’s Mailbag: Week of December 6[/B]
LIVE Chat with Cal Takes Place Monday, December 13 at noon ET
[URL=”http://www.foxsportssouth.com/pages/coachcalmailbag”][COLOR=#0d1db8]Click here to view Coach Cal’s Mailbag on FOXSportsSouth.com[/COLOR][/URL]
FOX Sports South, in conjunction with the University of Kentucky Men’s Basketball Coach John Calipari, presents “Coach Cal’s Mailbag,” an interactive webpage found exclusively on [URL=”http://www.foxsportssouth.com/”][COLOR=#0d1db8]FOXSportsSouth.com[/COLOR][/URL].
“Coach Cal’s Mailbag” features Calipari in video responses to reader-submitted questions every week throughout the 2010-11 college basketball season. Readers can submit questions by visiting [URL=”http://www.foxsportssouth.com/”][COLOR=#0d1db8]FOXSportsSouth.com[/COLOR][/URL].
In addition to the latest Wildcats basketball news and videos, “Coach Cal’s Mailbag” will also feature live monthly chats with Calipari, the first of which will take place next Monday, December 13, at noon ET on [URL=”http://www.foxsportssouth.com/”][COLOR=#0d1db8]FOXSportsSouth.com[/COLOR][/URL].
[B]Upcoming University of Kentucky men’s basketball games on FOX Sports South include:[/B]
· December 22 – vs. Winthrop University Eagles – 1 p.m. ET
· December 28 – vs. Coppin State University Eagles – 7 p.m. ET
[I]Please check your listings for channel location.[/I]
[B]This week in Coach Cal’s Mailbag:[/B]
[I]My condolences to your whole family after your mother’s passing. How tough was it to get back on the sideline and coach after losing someone so dear to you? – Ashley, Lexington, KY[/I]
Coach Cal – “I’ve been emotionally drained the last week… My mother had cancer so we knew at some point in the next year it was going to happen. We knew it. But it doesn’t matter. It still comes as a shock and a surprise… The grieving time that I need and still continue to need probably is going to have to wait for a while. It’s hard but you’ve got to say, ‘This is what I’m doing with my basketball team.’ The players have been fabulous.”
[I]What a tough battle against North Carolina. I’m an aspiring coach. Would you take us into your locker room and share the key points from the post-game speech? – Frank, Madison, WI [/I]
Coach Cal – “When [we] win a game, that’s when I get on them. When [we] lose a game, very rarely am I going to raise my voice… In the case of North Carolina, I told them, ‘I can’t believe we were in the game at the end.’ In one way I’m telling them we shouldn’t have even been in the game, yet we still had a chance to win it. I don’t kill them after we lose. After we win, I’ll get on them hard.”
[I]Can you please explain “The Calzone” defense and how often you expect to use it in games? Was the name your idea? – Trevor, Murray, KY[/I]
Coach Cal – “We’re looking for a name for this defense. I just called it ‘Funky’ at one time and someone else came up with ‘Calzone’, but it’s a morphed kind of a zone [where] we can use our athleticism and length… My issue right now is how to transition our defense into a zone that’s just as important as in a man-to-man.”
[I]Pick any three people, living or deceased, to play in a round of golf. Who would it be and why? – Dustin, Phoenix, AZ[/I]
Coach Cal – “First of all, because it’s golf, I would say Arnie Palmer. You’ve got to want to play with Arnold Palmer… And I’d love to have played golf with John F. Kennedy… I don’t know who else. I would say those two stick out in my mind – one, a golfer and another, a person I would’ve loved to have met.”
[I]At what moment did it hit you that you were the head coach of the most storied program in college basketball? – Justin, Charleston, SC[/I]
Coach Cal – “John Robic and I were in the office – it’s 11-o’clock at night – and we look out this window and we see ‘Kentucky Basketball’ glittering on the [practice gym] wall, and those seven national titles, those banners, on that wall. He looked at me and I looked at him and we said, ‘Can you imagine we’re coaching the University of Kentucky?’ When you work your way through, when you start at the bottom… and have to work your way to this kind of a job over a 20-year period, you take great satisfaction in just being able to sit in this seat.”
