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(LEXINGTON) – After Kentucky suffered an 80-76 upset to the Oakland Golden Grizzlies in last March’s NCAA Tournament, it was obvious that change needed to be made in Lexington. A growing frustration from fans, loud voices in the media getting louder, and boosters threatening to bolt all were thrown into the pot of suck stew that was John Calipari for the previous five seasons at Kentucky. There’s no need to relive the previous five seasons, but one of the more interesting stories of 2024 was Calipari’s departure from Lexington. So what happened?
Photo: AOL.com
One can’t tell the story without beginning with John Calipari and the University of Kentucky’s contract details. When Calipari threatened to leave Lexington for UCLA in 2019, Mitch Barnhart felt that letting Calipari walk would be an unrecoverable mistake met with fury from the Big Blue Nation. So what did Barnhart do? He gave John Calipari a LIFETIME contract at the University of Kentucky that would have seen him become an “ambassador” for the program (all while collecting a check still) after his days on the sidelines were over. Think the role Roy Williams is currently playing at North Carolina, or the role Joe B. Hall used to play here in Lexington — that was arranged to be John Vincent Calipari. Could Kentucky still have fired Calipari? Absolutely they could have, but they’d have been responsible for signing the $33 million check that would’ve been contractually required upon termination. Money that, quite frankly, the University had but was fearful to spend just to get rid of someone.
A few weeks after the loss to Oakland in Pittsburgh, and John Calipari arrived back in Lexington after immediately departing the NCAA Tournament for his vacation home on the beachside of New Jersey, Coach Cal and Mitch Barnhart sat down for a televised interview with the Big Blue Nation. BBN Tonight and host Keith Farmer sat in Mitch Barnhart’s office and proceeded to tell the fans that the sky was, in fact, not falling and that Calipari would be back for another year at the helm for the Wildcats. The interview changed nothing in the eyes of the true die-hards; it was absolute lip service by two men that obviously had their differences with one another. Well, that was it — all was settled that the Hall-of-Fame Coach, the architect of the “One and Done,” would be running it back.
Photo: WLEX 18 “BBN TONIGHT”
Calipari almost immediately hopped on a private jet and left Lexington again, this time for the Final Four in Phoenix. He would arrive in the desert a few days early, as most college coaches do, to attend the NABC Convention that coincides with the Final Four each season. Calipari also took the opportunity to sit courtside at a Suns game to watch former player-turned-NBA-star Devin Booker (a player he didn’t start at Kentucky, I might add). During this time, University of Arkansas Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek was in town to scout the coaching landscape after Eric Musselman had departed Fayetteville for sunny Southern California a few weeks earlier. Yurachek asked John Tyson — the heir to the Tyson Chicken fortune and major Razorback athletic booster — if he could reach out to his personal friend John Calipari to set up a meeting to discuss his thoughts on the opening in Fayetteville. Tyson obliged, and Yurachek was told to meet John Calipari in his suite in Phoenix. As Yurachek tells it, Calipari spent a notable amount of time gushing about the Arkansas job, saying it was one of the top jobs in the country. After the gushing ended, Yurachek abruptly asked Calipari, “Why not you?”
Photo: ESPN
This is where the story starts to get sloppy. When Calipari signed his lifetime contract with UK, a stipulation was placed that he must inform the powers that be in Lexington if he discusses another head coaching job with a university.
So what should have happened?
What should have happened is Calipari ended the conversation immediately, notified UK that he was talking to Arkansas about the opening, and proceeded without any harm from the Kentucky side. However, we all know that isn’t how it went down.
So what did happen?
Calipari let it leak that he was discussing taking the Arkansas head coaching vacancy. I can’t speak for Cal, but in his mind, I think that he thought this would be a “rallying” cry from the BBN to “run it back.” Calipari returned to Lexington after the news broke, calling a “players-only meeting” at his house on Richmond Road. For everyone paying attention, it felt like this was the “I’m taking another job” talk that is customary for coaches to give when they depart. However, about thirty minutes before the scheduled meeting, it came out that the meeting had been canceled and that Calipari may have been having some second thoughts about departing Lexington for the Pig Pen of Fayetteville. The media — already in position for the now-canceled players’ meeting — then saw Calipari emerge with his dog in a stroller to take it on a walk down one of Lexington’s busiest streets. When approached for comment, he said, “I’m just trying to walk my dog.”
Photo: WKYT
How did it end up going down?
From my understanding, after Calipari completed the dog walk, Mitch Barnhart and a legal team from the University of Kentucky then spoke with Calipari, informing him of his contract violation and that the University would begin its search for a new head basketball coach. It was finally over. The drama that seemed to make time stand still had come to an end — John Calipari was now the head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks, and UK had escaped the nasty buyout. A new era would begin in Kentucky, and as we would find out, Kentucky would get its program back.
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