Sports Ilustrated has a nine-page article about Kentucky head coach John Calipari and how he is perceived by the general public.
Here is an excerpt of the must-read article:
[QUOTE]Asked why Pitino would say that, Calipari nearly chokes and says, “I would just tell you: I respect him, respect what he’s done over his career.” Then he yells in a voice thick with sarcasm, “And thank him for all the help he’s given me over my career!”
Evans, the Pitt coach, remembers that it was Pitino—not Carnesecca—who brought up the rumor about Calipari and the cancer allegation at the coaches’ meeting in ’86. And Nathan, the Minutemen’s booster, and others have told Calipari for years that Pitino’s story of helping him get the UMass job and contributing to his salary is a myth. Instead, Nathan says, the search committee narrowed the pool to Shyatt and Calipari, voted and then threw the final decision to David Bischoff, dean of the school of physical education. “The vote was, I believe, three to two in favor of Larry Shyatt,” Nathan says. “And I can tell you that Rick Pitino was not one of the two people who voted for John Calipari.”
Wong says of Pitino’s version, “That’s not my recollection.” Bischoff says that he never heard of a budget shortfall. McInerney died last May. Told of the search committee’s comments, Pitino says he remembers no such vote and insists, “I didn’t care who they hired, Calipari or Shyatt. The guy I would’ve loved to see was Stu Jackson.”
Regardless, Pitino says, “It was really the worst job in college basketball at the time.” And though he repeats that “I really don’t know the guy,” he says that in Amherst, Calipari did one of the three best program-building jobs in college history.
UMass hadn’t made the NCAA tournament since 1962. Flint, then an assistant at Coppin State in Baltimore, heard plenty of warnings when he was considering a job with Calipari in 1989. “He was like the devil,” Flint says. “Guys were like, You’re going to be on probation.” But what Frank Marino, a Five-Star coaching legend, said carried more weight. “Put five guys in a pitch-black room where nobody knows where the doors are and say, ‘Find a way out,’ ” Marino told Flint. “John Calipari’s going to get out first. That’s why you go with him.”
Within four years Calipari had made the Minutemen a force in the Atlantic 10, then a national power that achieved a No. 1 ranking and a trip to the 1996 Final Four, where they lost to, yes, Pitino’s Kentucky team. Nearly 80% of Calipari’s UMass players graduated.[/QUOTE]
[URL=”http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1182972/6/index.htm”]Complete Article[/URL]
