I am not doing this with you today, Memphis. On the eve of John Calipari’s induction into the Basketball Hall Of Fame it’s time to let go of this bitter, salt-crusted dog bone of a beef y’all have with the guy who dragged the Tiger basketball program into the modern era. Ever since U of Memphis president M. David Rudd tweeted that y’all would take part in a three-school celebration with Kentucky and UMass, the Tiger fanbase has wallowed in the opportunity to revisit its post-Cal scorn -- a vacated Final Four, “stolen” recruits and snow cone machines -- to the point where Rudd backed off the private, big-donor dinner that wasn’t gonna be open to gen pop fans anyway. Way to go.
It’s time for Memphis to embrace John Calipari
Tiger fans need to admit that John Calipari did a lot more good than harm to their basketball program.
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Instead of hanging on to the NCAA’s ruling from six years ago or mis-remembering Calipari’s departure for Lexington in 2009, you’d do better to finally face facts. The substantial contributions Calipari gave the Memphis Tiger men’s basketball program far outweigh any of the wins (and the recruiting class) that Memphis lost.
The Derrick Rose SAT saga has been a well-trod anti-Cal argument since Rose’s test scores were ruled ineligible. Look, the NCAA does what the NCAA does, and Rose’s lone year in college “doesn’t count” and/or “didn’t happen” even though the 2008 National Championship game is still available to stream via the NCAA’s online vault (also available on YouTube) and is currently for sale on DVD through NCAA partners. Whatever. Y’all got so mad about the NCAA taking away its banner benediction that a group of season ticket holders up and sued Calipari, Rose, and Memphis’ athletic director R.C. Johnson for devaluing their purchase and subsequently made Cal and Johnson repay contract bonuses they earned because of the Final Four trip. Rose was strong-armed into a $100K pound of flesh settlement.
That's done. But rather than remembering that Rose and Cal (and Chris Douglas-Roberts) beat a UCLA team that had Russell Westbrook AND Kevin Love AND Darren Collision to get to one of the highest-rated title games of the 2000s, or that Calipari used that run to reconnect the program to Memphis basketball alums who'd been alienated by previous coaches, the rest of us have to hear ONE MORE TIME about the terrible injustice wrought upon Tiger fandom.
Memphians. I love y’all, really. You’re a town that values grit and grind, reveling in an underdog status that rubs off on the athletes who represent y’all and anyone watching from home. So, let’s not forget that Calipari made Memphis an underdog team who could actually compete with the moneyed powerhouses who dominate college basketball. When Calipari took over the program in 2000, the athletic department only took in $2.5 million annually and struggled to fill the basketball arena to one-third of its capacity. The basketball program had the worst graduation rate in the country at zero percent. Z-E-R-O.
By the time Calipari absconded for Kentucky, under the cover of night and with his top-ranked recruiting class in tow, Memphis’ APR was 980 (in the top 20, nationally), donations to the athletic department set and then re-set a school record IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RECESSION, the Tigers were selling out FedEx Forum and the program had an established internship for players with FedEx corporate offices. Calipari brought together local donors to the benefit of both the school and its athletes and set in motion a pipeline for alumni financial support that is directly responsible for the $24 million basketball and football facility that the school will break ground on this month. Perhaps if Memphis embraced the Calipari era, the school would encourage donations from the one-and-done players who attended instead of litigating dollars out of them.
Of late, the good people of Memphis have chosen to chew on Calipari’s recent comments in what locals have taken to calling Tablegate.
“I always wanted to have a job like the other guys. It’s not that I had any disrespect for Massachusetts or Memphis. I loved those places. I loved those jobs. But you were at the little table. You weren’t at the big table. You never got to carve the turkey. You had plastic forks and plates.”
Calipari said that in a press conference about his Hall of Fame selection and it’s become yet another slight for an aggrieved population to go at his neck. Regardless of the word choice, it is undeniable that with its $22.9 million in 2014-15 revenue and status as the winningest Division I program of all time, Kentucky men’s basketball enjoys a decision-making vantage within the NCAA’s hierarchy that smaller, less storied programs do not. But when Calipari was the head coach of then-mid major Memphis, the Tigers always had a legit shot at the Kansases, the UCLAs and the Kentuckys of the college basketball world on the court.
Maybe that’s what the city is really so mad about losing.
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