http://www.slate.com/id/2248019/pagenum/2

Quote:The Sleaziest Coach in a Sleazy Game
John Calipari and college basketball are a match made a few levels below heaven.
By Charles P. Pierce
Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2010, at 4:24 PM ET
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do not believe that Kentucky is going to win this year's NCAA men's basketball tournament. This is one reason why: I watched them beat the tar out of Tennessee in the SEC tournament, a ridiculous 74-45 blowout during which freshman center DeMarcus Cousins took the opportunity to give head coach John Calipari one of the greatest "Honky, please" looks since the demise of Richard Pryor, and a backup named Daniel Orton was told to absent himself briefly from the proceedings and walked up the tunnel, leaving Kentucky undermanned and the broadcast crew completely baffled. Meanwhile, Calipari was all over starry freshman guard John Wall, who was visibly counting down the seconds until the end of the season, whenever it is. And all this in a game that Kentucky won by 29.

So that's one reason why they're not going to win, even though the team is undeniably talented. (But not as talented as Kansas, to my mind anyway. I think the Jayhawks might be the most complete college basketball teams since the easily loathed Christian Laettner Duke teams of the early 1990s.) In Cousins, Wall, and Eric Bledsoe, Kentucky depends on three freshmen, at least two of whom—Cousins and Wall—likely will be gone for good within the next few weeks. (It's possible that Bledsoe might enter the draft, too, although he probably shouldn't.) By all the available evidence, these two guys have already partly checked out. Their concern for their draft status might be enough to motivate them to play hard in the tournament. But if they do, it won't be because of the motivational genius of John Calipari. He's already distant white noise in their lives.

Here's the other reason: Even if Kentucky wins, historical precedent says that, sooner or later, they won't win. For example, in 1996, a 35-2 University of Massachusetts team coached by John Calipari made it all the way to the Final Four. A year later, because of a tangled scandal involving Marcus Camby, jewelry, and hookers, the NCAA stripped UMass of its tournament victories, forced the school to pay back $151,617 in tournament revenues, and expunged the team's accomplishments from the official record book. Then, in 2008, a 38-2 Memphis team coached by John Calipari made it all the way to the championship game. A year later, because of a tangled scandal involving papier-mâché SAT scores, the NCAA stripped Memphis of its tournament victories, forced the school to pay back more than $500,000 in tournament revenues, and expunged the team's accomplishments from the official record book.

This is awe-inspiring. Two schools, at different times and in different places, both with their greatest seasons erased from the record books, and both of them coached by the same guy. None of college basketball's other historic buccaneers ever pulled this off. Not Jerry Tarkanian at Long Beach and UNLV. Not Norm Ellenberger, the New Mexico coach who came a cropper because he committed recruiting violations over a telephone that already had been tapped by the FBI. Not even the late Dana Kirk, one of Calipari's predecessors at Memphis, whose corruption was so blatant that he actually went to prison. None of these legends have accomplished what John Calipari's programs have.

So there you have it. The 2010 Kentucky Wildcats—perhaps soon d/b/a as Later Vacated.

Anyone who follows college basketball sooner or later develops a kind of ethical dementia. The sport is a perfect example of a functioning underground economy. Players have skills that CBS—to name only the most prominent parasite—values at something over $1 billion a year. Because this is not Soviet Russia, players find ways to get paid for these skills under the table, largely because a preposterous rulebook (and a feast of fat things called the NCAA) works diligently to prevent anyone from getting paid over the table. Since everybody involved in the sport has known this for decades, there's a lot of the old nudge-nudge, wink-wink going on.

Back when I covered the sport full time in the early 1980s, there was a kind of generally accepted low comedy to the corruption. My favorite story is the one about the New York City street agent who got an assistant coach from a prominent school to loan him a car in return for delivering a prospect, whereupon the street agent drove the car two blocks and into a building, whereupon he walked back to the coach, tossed him the keys, and asked him for another car. Whether you think this is a funny story pretty much defines how willing you are to overlook how the college hoops sausage gets made.

But even in this culture, which is pretty much what a dockside saloon in Singapore would be if it had shoe contracts and golf outings, John Calipari always has been notable for the baroque happenings that seem to surround his every move. Coaches who have barbered the rulebook like Edward Scissorhands look upon Calipari with a weird mixture of awe and disdain. When he was but a baby brigand in the employ of the University of Pittsburgh, Calipari's recruiting tactics very nearly incited a general hooley at the Big East's annual meeting.

During his brief, and clamorously unsuccessful, stint coaching the NBA's New Jersey Nets, a job he landed because of that UMass Final Four run that doesn't officially exist any more, Calipari enlivened things by calling a reporter a "Mexican idiot." Then he moved on to Memphis, a university with a proud history of employing coaches whom you would not trust to hang up your coat. The aforementioned Kirk, who died in February, had his 1985 Final Four appearance officially Later Vacated.

Unless the school wins its pending appeal before the NCAA, the Memphis program will have two Later Vacateds in its history, and John Calipari will have two Later Vacateds on his résumé. This was a match made a few levels below heaven.

In 2005, long before the questions arose over who exactly took Derrick Rose's SAT, there was a break-in at the apartment where several members of the Memphis team lived. According to police reports, the items stolen included $3,600 in fake fur coats, $6,000 worth of shoes, and however many throwback jerseys $2,150 will buy you. It is possible that the players in question amassed this bounty on only what they received for books, tuition, room and board, and fees, or out of the largesse of their respective grandmothers. It is also possible that Maggie Gyllenhaal waits for me around the next corner. Then came that great season that doesn't exist any more, and the scandal, and Calipari was off to Kentucky while Memphis took the NCAA sanctions right in the face.

But the man is a master at walking between the raindrops. The argument in his defense is, always, that nobody investigating the scandals at UMass and Memphis ever found anything they could pin directly on John Calipari. It was always the players who betrayed his fundamentally naive trust in their integrity, or the shifty characters around the players who induced them to abuse the good nature of a decent chap who's only trying to play by increasingly complex rules. While Calipari knew Memphis was under investigation before he scurried off to Lexington, the NCAA itself has said that Calipari is not "at risk" in its investigation of the Memphis program. His responsibility for knowing what was going on with his players ended at ... well, it's hard to say where it ended because, by the logic used in this defense, it never really began. What was he supposed to do, anyway? How can a poor man stand such times and live?

No, seriously, that's what people argue.

That's how Calipari wound up at Kentucky, bringing along both Wall and Cousins, the latter of whom had previously committed to Memphis when he was there.

Because nothing ever touches him, Kentucky did everything but lay out a golden carpet between Memphis and Lexington. He's certainly delivered so far. His team is one of two favored to win the tournament, and any basketball fan has to love the way John Wall plays. Very soon, Wall will move on to a more honest professional career, and good for him. Before he does, however, it would be nice if one of our basketball pundits would bring up the whole Later Vacated thing. He wins and then, poof! He's disappeared from history, like a dead pharaoh fallen out of favor or a general who displeased Stalin. And, if Kentucky wins this thing and you picked someone else in your pool, just be patient. Appeals might be pending for a couple of years.

Become a fan of Slate and the Explainer on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.


Charles P. Pierce is a staff writer for the Boston Globe Magazine and a contributing writer for Esquire. His latest book, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, comes out in paperback in June.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2248019/

(03-17-2010 03:25 PM)SF Husky Wrote:  http://www.slate.com/id/2248019/pagenum/2

Quote:The Sleaziest Coach in a Sleazy Game
John Calipari and college basketball are a match made a few levels below heaven.
By Charles P. Pierce
Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2010, at 4:24 PM ET
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do not believe that Kentucky is going to win this year's NCAA men's basketball tournament. This is one reason why: I watched them beat the tar out of Tennessee in the SEC tournament, a ridiculous 74-45 blowout during which freshman center DeMarcus Cousins took the opportunity to give head coach John Calipari one of the greatest "Honky, please" looks since the demise of Richard Pryor, and a backup named Daniel Orton was told to absent himself briefly from the proceedings and walked up the tunnel, leaving Kentucky undermanned and the broadcast crew completely baffled. Meanwhile, Calipari was all over starry freshman guard John Wall, who was visibly counting down the seconds until the end of the season, whenever it is. And all this in a game that Kentucky won by 29.

So that's one reason why they're not going to win, even though the team is undeniably talented. (But not as talented as Kansas, to my mind anyway. I think the Jayhawks might be the most complete college basketball teams since the easily loathed Christian Laettner Duke teams of the early 1990s.) In Cousins, Wall, and Eric Bledsoe, Kentucky depends on three freshmen, at least two of whom—Cousins and Wall—likely will be gone for good within the next few weeks. (It's possible that Bledsoe might enter the draft, too, although he probably shouldn't.) By all the available evidence, these two guys have already partly checked out. Their concern for their draft status might be enough to motivate them to play hard in the tournament. But if they do, it won't be because of the motivational genius of John Calipari. He's already distant white noise in their lives.

Here's the other reason: Even if Kentucky wins, historical precedent says that, sooner or later, they won't win. For example, in 1996, a 35-2 University of Massachusetts team coached by John Calipari made it all the way to the Final Four. A year later, because of a tangled scandal involving Marcus Camby, jewelry, and hookers, the NCAA stripped UMass of its tournament victories, forced the school to pay back $151,617 in tournament revenues, and expunged the team's accomplishments from the official record book. Then, in 2008, a 38-2 Memphis team coached by John Calipari made it all the way to the championship game. A year later, because of a tangled scandal involving papier-mâché SAT scores, the NCAA stripped Memphis of its tournament victories, forced the school to pay back more than $500,000 in tournament revenues, and expunged the team's accomplishments from the official record book.

This is awe-inspiring. Two schools, at different times and in different places, both with their greatest seasons erased from the record books, and both of them coached by the same guy. None of college basketball's other historic buccaneers ever pulled this off. Not Jerry Tarkanian at Long Beach and UNLV. Not Norm Ellenberger, the New Mexico coach who came a cropper because he committed recruiting violations over a telephone that already had been tapped by the FBI. Not even the late Dana Kirk, one of Calipari's predecessors at Memphis, whose corruption was so blatant that he actually went to prison. None of these legends have accomplished what John Calipari's programs have.

So there you have it. The 2010 Kentucky Wildcats—perhaps soon d/b/a as Later Vacated.

Anyone who follows college basketball sooner or later develops a kind of ethical dementia. The sport is a perfect example of a functioning underground economy. Players have skills that CBS—to name only the most prominent parasite—values at something over $1 billion a year. Because this is not Soviet Russia, players find ways to get paid for these skills under the table, largely because a preposterous rulebook (and a feast of fat things called the NCAA) works diligently to prevent anyone from getting paid over the table. Since everybody involved in the sport has known this for decades, there's a lot of the old nudge-nudge, wink-wink going on.

Back when I covered the sport full time in the early 1980s, there was a kind of generally accepted low comedy to the corruption. My favorite story is the one about the New York City street agent who got an assistant coach from a prominent school to loan him a car in return for delivering a prospect, whereupon the street agent drove the car two blocks and into a building, whereupon he walked back to the coach, tossed him the keys, and asked him for another car. Whether you think this is a funny story pretty much defines how willing you are to overlook how the college hoops sausage gets made.

But even in this culture, which is pretty much what a dockside saloon in Singapore would be if it had shoe contracts and golf outings, John Calipari always has been notable for the baroque happenings that seem to surround his every move. Coaches who have barbered the rulebook like Edward Scissorhands look upon Calipari with a weird mixture of awe and disdain. When he was but a baby brigand in the employ of the University of Pittsburgh, Calipari's recruiting tactics very nearly incited a general hooley at the Big East's annual meeting.

During his brief, and clamorously unsuccessful, stint coaching the NBA's New Jersey Nets, a job he landed because of that UMass Final Four run that doesn't officially exist any more, Calipari enlivened things by calling a reporter a "Mexican idiot." Then he moved on to Memphis, a university with a proud history of employing coaches whom you would not trust to hang up your coat. The aforementioned Kirk, who died in February, had his 1985 Final Four appearance officially Later Vacated.

Unless the school wins its pending appeal before the NCAA, the Memphis program will have two Later Vacateds in its history, and John Calipari will have two Later Vacateds on his résumé. This was a match made a few levels below heaven.

In 2005, long before the questions arose over who exactly took Derrick Rose's SAT, there was a break-in at the apartment where several members of the Memphis team lived. According to police reports, the items stolen included $3,600 in fake fur coats, $6,000 worth of shoes, and however many throwback jerseys $2,150 will buy you. It is possible that the players in question amassed this bounty on only what they received for books, tuition, room and board, and fees, or out of the largesse of their respective grandmothers. It is also possible that Maggie Gyllenhaal waits for me around the next corner. Then came that great season that doesn't exist any more, and the scandal, and Calipari was off to Kentucky while Memphis took the NCAA sanctions right in the face.

But the man is a master at walking between the raindrops. The argument in his defense is, always, that nobody investigating the scandals at UMass and Memphis ever found anything they could pin directly on John Calipari. It was always the players who betrayed his fundamentally naive trust in their integrity, or the shifty characters around the players who induced them to abuse the good nature of a decent chap who's only trying to play by increasingly complex rules. While Calipari knew Memphis was under investigation before he scurried off to Lexington, the NCAA itself has said that Calipari is not "at risk" in its investigation of the Memphis program. His responsibility for knowing what was going on with his players ended at ... well, it's hard to say where it ended because, by the logic used in this defense, it never really began. What was he supposed to do, anyway? How can a poor man stand such times and live?

No, seriously, that's what people argue.

That's how Calipari wound up at Kentucky, bringing along both Wall and Cousins, the latter of whom had previously committed to Memphis when he was there.

Because nothing ever touches him, Kentucky did everything but lay out a golden carpet between Memphis and Lexington. He's certainly delivered so far. His team is one of two favored to win the tournament, and any basketball fan has to love the way John Wall plays. Very soon, Wall will move on to a more honest professional career, and good for him. Before he does, however, it would be nice if one of our basketball pundits would bring up the whole Later Vacated thing. He wins and then, poof! He's disappeared from history, like a dead pharaoh fallen out of favor or a general who displeased Stalin. And, if Kentucky wins this thing and you picked someone else in your pool, just be patient. Appeals might be pending for a couple of years.

Become a fan of Slate and the Explainer on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.


Charles P. Pierce is a staff writer for the Boston Globe Magazine and a contributing writer for Esquire. His latest book, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, comes out in paperback in June.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2248019/

The writer is right. Its one thing to have a final four vacated once, but twice is just ridiculous. Memphis leaders should have known better, especially with its experience with slimy coaches in the past.

Calipari is like John Gotti. He's the teflon coach. No sh!t sticks to him, just the program he leaves...

heh i'm sure this article went over well down in lexington

I don't think Charles P. Pierce and Calipari are going to have dinner anytime soon.

But Pierce is 100% correct.

(03-17-2010 08:14 PM)wvucrazed Wrote:  heh i'm sure this article went over well down in lexington

I wouldnt cry for Kentucky. They knew (or should have known) what they're getting

A lot of Memphis fans don't like Cal now. I still love Cal. He's a great coach.

I suppose I could make yet another post describing exactly what happened at UMass and how, based on the circumstances, any reasonable person would conclude how extremely unlikely it was that Calipari would have had anything to do with it, but in another week another idiot will write the exact same article including not even the slightest bit of analysis of the facts of the case beyond the fact that Calipari was there at the time, and readers will continue to shake their heads disapprovingly as if they're privy to some secret information about Calipari that the NCAA's highly compensated investigators apparently missed. "Well of course he must be sleazy" is good enough, no further inquiry is necessary.

(03-17-2010 10:13 PM)LastMinuteman Wrote:  I suppose I could make yet another post describing exactly what happened at UMass and how, based on the circumstances, any reasonable person would conclude how extremely unlikely it was that Calipari would have had anything to do with it, but in another week another idiot will write the exact same article including not even the slightest bit of analysis of the facts of the case beyond the fact that Calipari was there at the time, and readers will continue to shake their heads disapprovingly as if they're privy to some secret information about Calipari that the NCAA's highly compensated investigators apparently missed. "Well of course he must be sleazy" is good enough, no further inquiry is necessary.

I NEVER make commets about grammar or spelling...but was that REALLY just two sentences?

I absolutely love Slate Magazine. For anybody who hates the likes of Colin Cowherd and Jim Rome and is looking for substantive, intelligent sportstalk, I wholeheartedly recommend Slate's sports podcast, Hang Up and Listen. It's Dan Patrick meets This American Life. Great stuff.

(03-17-2010 11:29 PM)CD11 Wrote:  I absolutely love Slate Magazine. For anybody who hates the likes of Colin Cowherd and Jim Rome and is looking for substantive, intelligent sportstalk, I wholeheartedly recommend Slate's sports podcast, Hang Up and Listen. It's Dan Patrick meets This American Life. Great stuff.

Colin Cowherd is a blowhard and is usually wrong. Jim Rome, however, knows he is an entertainer that talks about sports. That is why I like him.

Back on topic. X Coach is a slimeball. We all knew that the hammer would come down at some point but we just hoped that the NCAA wouldn't find anything. Kentucky is up for a world of hurt though. The NCAA is done playing around evidenced by Worldwide Wes getting out of the basketball slave trade and becoming an agent. He knows the NCAA is after him, X Coach, Leon Rose, etc. This will be very ugly for everyone concerned.

Ah ........... the paralells of two Coaches that skirts the edges of propriety and NCAA recruiting legalities at a Big 6 School and the other at a Non Big 6 School.

The first one is told that NCAA probation and penalties are forthcoming. So he leaves early so as not to have his name attached to the penalties and takes a top head coaching job at another Big 6 Conference School where he was previously an Assistant Coach.

Sure enough his former school is placed upon probation but is still allowed to play in the NCAA Tourney. He takes his new school to the Final Four and wins the NCAA Championship.

The second Coach who's at the Non Big 6 Conference School has built an incredible winning program and wins more games in 4 years than any previous team. But one of his prize recruits entrance tests scores is being looked at by the NCAA with disdain even though they'd previously approved it twice.
His team goes to the Final Four Championship game but tragically loses a 9 point lead the last 2 minutes to the team that the first coach left under the cloud of NCAA probation.
The second Coach leaves at the end of the next season also to escape his name being attached to NCAA Probation. He goes to a Big 6 Conference School enticing most of the top rated recruiting class that was either signed or committed to his former school.

Both Coaches took programs to great heights and Final Four Championship games and or Championships and both led their former teams to NCAA probation.

One has won two NCAA BB Championships and one may possibly win this seasons.

Who is Coach number one? Who is Coach number two? Are they both sleazy? Or just the second one because he Coached in a Non Big 6 Conference?

Why is the Non Big 6 Conference School treated any different than the Big 6 Conference Schools?

Are there Sacred Cow programs to the NCAA so that certain sins are overlooked?

Food for thought; consider it honestly without bias.

.

Another article on the salesman: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/wr...n&hpt=Sbin

If Calipari was as dirty as everyone says he is he would have received the Kelvin Sampson treatment by now.

(03-18-2010 06:22 AM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  If Calipari was as dirty as everyone says he is he would have received the Kelvin Sampson treatment by now.

Yeah, its just a huge coincidence that 2 programs that he coached both had final four seasons "later vacated". And he was completly innoscent in both instances, even though he is the only coach to have ever had final four seasons vacated at 2 different programs just after he left the programs. Calipari is obviously better and smarter than Kelvin Sampson at being sleazy.

(03-18-2010 06:44 AM)cuseroc Wrote:  Yeah, its just a huge coincidence that 2 programs that he coached both had final four seasons "later vacated". And he was completly innoscent in both instances, even though he is the only coach to have ever had final four seasons vacated at 2 different programs just after he left the programs. Calipari is obviously better and smarter than Kelvin Sampson at being sleazy.

Exactly. Coach Cal is obviously either the most unlucky coach in the college basketball history - - - trouble just follows him around, poor guy - - - or he's a dirtball sleaze who's thus far been able to wriggle free from everything he's left in his wake.

I suspect it's option #2.

Bob Huggins fans are calling John Calipari a sleaze? Really?

(03-18-2010 08:21 AM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  Bob Huggins fans are calling John Calipari a sleaze? Really?

Which NCAA runs by Huggins teams have been wiped out, again?

He may not be guilty of anything. However he strikes me as the type of person that wants to know and be involved in everything that goes on in his program. A take control type, I'm in charge kind of guy.
It is odd that two programs he was involved with had to forfeit their final 4 appearences and that he left both befor the s*** hit the fan.

Just because you're not found guilty doesnt necesarily mean you're innocent

(03-18-2010 08:23 AM)wvucrazed Wrote:  

(03-18-2010 08:21 AM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  Bob Huggins fans are calling John Calipari a sleaze? Really?

Which NCAA runs by Huggins teams have been wiped out, again?

How many DUIs has John Calipari had? How many school presidents gave John Calipari 24 hours to resign? Who had the nickname "Bob Thuggins" for years? Who was known for his horrible graduation rates?

Calipari is no saint for sure but it's the height of irony to see WVU fans calling him sleazy.