Adams: Kentucky stage big lure for Calipari

Editor's note: An earlier version of this column had the incorrect salary for John Calipari.

If you want to be optimistic about the economy, forget the stock market. Focus on college basketball.

Alabama just hired Anthony Grant for about $2 million a year to coach its basketball team. If a football school is offering those kind of wages, imagine what a basketball school might do.

Memphis coach John Calipari is about to find out.

Don’t try telling him how tight the job market is. He might have to decide between Memphis and Kentucky. A basketball coach hasn’t had it that good since Roy Williams picked North Carolina over Kansas.

Calipari has averaged 34 victories the last four seasons at Memphis, where he is making $2.35 million a year in base salary. But a donor-funded holdover bonus could net him another $5 million if he stays at Memphis through the 2012-13 season. With that kind of success and money, why leave?

Answer: Ego.

You can win big at Memphis or Kentucky, and you can make big bucks doing it. But if you want recognition commensurate with your paycheck and won-lost record, there’s a big difference in Kentucky blue and Memphis blue.

At Memphis, you can be the toast of the town. At Kentucky, your dominion is statewide. So what does Calipari want to be: mayor or governor?

Kentucky should know by now what it wants. It should hire Calipari for the same reason it shouldn’t have hired Billy Gillispie, who was fired last week after two seasons at Kentucky.

Gillispie is a good coach. So was his predecessor, Tubby Smith. So were Eddie Sutton and Joe B. Hall.

Kentucky needs more than a good coach. It needs a Rick Pitino. It needs someone who can handle coaching in a building that was named after another basketball coach.

Kentucky’s coaching model is Adolph Rupp, dubbed the “Baron of the Bluegrass.” You don’t become a “Baron” by just being a good coach.

Rupp won 82.2 percent of his games for 41 years. His teams were as entertaining as they were successful. Pitino’s teams were the next best thing in Kentucky basketball. They won 81.4 percent of their games while captivating fans with a relentless up-tempo, 3-point attack.

Smith won as many national championships at Kentucky as Pitino did. But he never won over the fans like His Rickness.

Calipari would thrive with the celebrity status afforded the Kentucky basketball coach. He not only has the personality for the job. He has the resume, which extends beyond Memphis. He averaged more than 24 victories per season at Massachusetts of all places. In his last five years there, he averaged 29 victories.

In 17 years as a college head coach, Calipari has averaged 26 victories. That will pass even a Kentucky inspection.

There’s nothing mysterious about Calipari’s success or Kentucky’s recent drop-off. You can attribute both to recruiting. And anyone who can recruit big-time players to Memphis can do the same at Kentucky.

Kentucky’s gain would be the SEC’s gain as well. Like Kentucky, the conference needs more than another good coach. It needs a personality. Tennessee’s Bruce Pearl has provided that, but he needs help.

Look what Calipari vs. Pearl has done for the UT-Memphis rivalry. That’s based on just one game a year. Imagine what they could do with at least two games a season while competing in the same division.

Memphis doesn’t want to think about it. Instead, it is prepared to make Calipari the highest-paid coach in college basketball if he stays, according to a Memphis Commercial Appeal source.

But Kentucky can offer more than money. It can offer one of the biggest stages in college basketball.

Sports editor John Adams may be reached at 865-342-6284 or adamsj@knoxnews.com.

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
Want to use this article? Click here for options!