Excellent writing about one of America’s most prominent university figures, the University of Kentucky’s John Calipari. A sample:
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.
… 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 [it was vacated because of rule-breaking], 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.
Those southern sports factories… You can’t keep ’em down…
April 8th, 2014 at 9:01AM
Yes, Calipari is an odious sleazeball.
But is he starving his players like UConn is?
April 8th, 2014 at 10:00AM
tp: LOL.