Kentucky Wildcats head coach John Calipari speaks to the media during a practice day before the first round of the NCAA men's college basketball tournament at Wells Fargo Arena.
John Calipari is the most hated coach in college basketball.
Some of this is due to his success. He has the 18th most wins in college basketball history and has taken his teams to the Final Four six times—if you include the 38 wins and the Final Four that was vacated at Memphis, and the Final Four that was vacated at UMass.
Which brings us to the second—and main reason—why Calipari is so hated: a general aura of sketchiness. He’s never been personally implicated in any improprieties at his three high-profile college head-coaching stops, but scandal seems to follow him wherever he goes. And when it hits the fan, “Coach Cal” seems to be gone in the nick of time, off to an even better job.
An ESPN 30 for 30 coming out in April, aptly titled “One and Not Done,” explores exactly this topic. And as March Madness rolls on, Cal haters are going to continue to decry the thin ethical boundaries by which the coach operates. So with that said, here are seven reasons why John Calipari is sports’ sketchiest coach:
When he had no idea Marcus Camby was dealing with an agent.
Way before Calipari was the head coach of college basketball’s flagship program, he was just trying to find his footing as the head coach of a middling A-10 program. UMass was a loser when he first got there in 1988 but gradually got better as the years went on—culminating in a Final Four appearance in 1996 backed by eventual No. 2 pick Marcus Camby. According to the record books though, that Final Four appearance never happened.
The team’s 4-1 tournament record and Final Four were vacated after it was discovered the team’s star had accepted money from a sports agent. Calipari was never implicated and denied any wrongdoing.
When he made up “The Athletic Director’s Academic Dean’s List."
That list doesn’t exist.
Cal low-key introduced alternative facts to college basketball in 1994 when he made this assertion. He said that Camby, who had problems with academics, had turned it all around and made the “Athletic Director’s Academic Dean’s List.”
Camby was actually on academic probation.
When he left UMass just before sanctions were coming.
Despite the fact that Calipari claimed to have no knowledge of the Camby violations, he left UMass directly after the vacated Final Four in 1996 to coach the New Jersey Nets. That’s some coincidence.
Cal’s tenure in the NBA was a largely forgettable one; he went 72-112 in three seasons with the Nets and was fired 20 games into the 1998-99 season.
When he made racist comments toward a reporter while in the NBA.
Calipari’s temper flared in 1997 when he hurled an insult toward columnist Dan Garcia of The Star-Ledger in the parking lot of a local college. During the episode, Calipari called Garcia a “Mexican idiot,” for which he apologized.
When his star recruit at Memphis didn’t take the SATs.
After a three-year stint as an NBA head coach and a one-year stint as an assistant with the Sixers, Calipari came back to college ball in 2000 to become the Memphis head coach. This tenure produced several stars who went on to the NBA, including Shawne Williams, Tyreke Evans, and Chris Douglas-Roberts. But none of these stars shined brighter than Derrick Rose.
Rose led Memphis to its first national championship game in 35 years, as he put himself on a fast track to becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft. But much like Camby’s run more than a decade prior, the 2007-08 Memphis season never happened.
D-Rose gained admission into Memphis with a fraudulent SAT score; somebody took the test for him. Memphis was also charged by the NCAA with giving Rose’s brother, Reggie, free travel and accommodations on several occasions.
When Eric Bledsoe maybe should not have been eligible for Kentucky in 2010.
A bizarre scandal that nearly caused Kentucky to vacate its entire 2009-2010 season revolved around Eric Bledsoe and a grade in his high school Algebra III class. The grade, which was changed from a C to an A, just so happened to bump up his GPA above the NCAA eligibility threshold. Bledsoe denied any wrongdoing, and Calipari—unsurprisingly—was never implicated.
If that sounds a little fishy, that’s because it is. But the NCAA, nor the Birmingham Board of Education that oversaw Bledsoe’s high school transcripts, could prove anything. The Birmingham Board of Ed. as ESPN pointed out, basically told Bledsoe after its ruling, "We think you're lying, but we can't prove it. You're free to go."
When he said "most coaches have an idea" about on-campus NCAA violations.
"All I can tell you is this: If it happens on your campus and it happens with your assistants and those people, you probably have a good idea of what's going on," Calipari said, according to CBS Sports. "It happens back in their hometown, it happens back with their family...there's no way you can know. You just can't know. All I can say is most coaches have an idea if it happened on their campus. You might not be the first to know about it but you eventually hear about it."
Does this mean he knew about Camby and Rose? Who knows.
Case in point: One legendary (and problematic) coach thinks Cal is full of it.
Calipari’s website says that he is a strong advocate for academics: "Much like he did at UMass, when his players graduated at nearly 80 percent, Calipari has stressed academics." Yet just three of Kentucky’s 15 players this year are seniors, and only nine of his recruits have become seniors since he became Kentucky head coach in 2009.
You can argue Calipari isn’t the most controversial college basketball coach of the last 50 years, but then No. 1 has to be Bob Knight. I mean, we’re talking about a guy who threw chairs, choked players, and said publicly that he wishes his old bosses at Indiana were all dead.
And even he thinks Calipari operates on thin ethical ice. He said the following at a Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame fundraiser:
“We’ve gotten into this situation where integrity is really lacking and that’s why I’m glad I’m not coaching. You see we’ve got a coach at Kentucky (John Calipari), who put two schools on probation and he’s still coaching. I really don’t understand that.
“And very few people know this, but a kid can play the first semester as a freshman, pass six hours of anything, and play in the NCAA tournament without ever attending a class in the second semester. I don’t think that’s right.”