John Calipari Media Opportunity Quotes - Dec. 2, 2021
UK ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS
MEN’S BASKETBALL
CALIPARI WEEKLY PRESS CONFERENCE
DEC. 2, 2021
MEMORIAL COLISEUM MEDIA ROOM | LEXINGTON, KY.
Head Coach John Calipari
On what he hopes his players can gain by visiting the Freedom Center as a part of the upcoming Unity Series …
“The one thing, you want your team to know and you want all the kids – both black and white – to know about history and that these are things that you should know about our past. Some of the stuff, I think, will be eye-opening, and others you look at progress and what’s been done and where things have been and you start to realize we’ve made great strides, but we’re not close to where we have to be. But thank goodness we’ve stepped up. I think this series is about that. And also playing the SIAC schools for the same reason: Bring light to those schools and what they do and their unique ability to train the future leaders. So, it’s a good thing.”
On if he ever had any interactions with some of the coaches of the historically black colleges and universities in the past like Ben Jobe from Southern when he was first starting in coaching …
“Ben Jobe sent me a great letter – maybe I’ll put it out – when we platooned. He just wanted to remind me that, ‘You weren’t the first to do that. This is how we used to play.’ It’s a letter that I framed. It’s in my office, because when someone of that stature – and it was a complimentary letter – but he did remind that we had done this. So, yes (I have had previous interactions). And “Big House” (Clarence) Gaines. You just think about—we talk about John McLendon, in a different era, those would have been the John Thompsons, the George Ravelings, the John Chaneys. That would have been those coaches in a different era. Again, learning about John McLendon, who was a part of this, will be about positions within the McLendon (Leadership) Initiative. But when you learn, you’re like, wow. To do what he did in the circumstances with the way things were, it’s amazing.”
On what motivates him to get involved with the Unity Series and the McLendon Leadership Initiative to bring about change …
“When you see something that you don’t feel is quite right and you’re in a position to make a difference, it’s probably a sin if you don’t try. And so, I don’t know. It’s kind of like the girl walking along the beach throwing the starfish back in the ocean and there were hundreds of them, and the guy says, ‘Young lady, you can’t—you’re not even going to have an impact. I mean, there are thousands of them.’ And she said, ‘But it impacted that life [points to the starfish]. It’s impacting that life [points to the starfish].’ I think, kind of, people – and it’s not me, it’s us – what we’re doing here, I hope other schools do. What we did with the McLendon (Leadership Initiative) was supposed to only be on our campus until I was convinced that, why don’t you get other coaches. Tommy (Amaker) and I got together to say, OK, let’s put a list together of who we could get and who would do it. The McLendon is up to, I believe, 50 Future Leaders. It started at 30-something. Thirty or 28 of those got jobs and moved on. Got a great email about some other people wanting to jump behind this and make it even bigger, which, you know, I’m excited about it. But all that we’re doing, could we be doing more? Yeah. I always ask the question: Why now and why not 10 years ago? So, when you say, ‘Cal, it’s really nice you’re doing that.’ Your second question: ‘Why didn’t you do this 10 years ago? Why didn’t you do this a long time ago? Why now?’ And it’s a good question. But, we are trying to say—it’s not only men of color, it’s women that need to be more involved. It’s all that. So, you’re basically bringing light to it and educating and having people look and say, wow, you know, you’re right, this is a small step. I’ve been to some places where, you go into a community and you do some stuff and you leave. I had a good fried of mine, Paul Tudor Jones, tell me, ‘Did that make you feel good? You went in and you did something and then you left.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘Great, because you did basically nothing for that community. You did it for yourself.’ So, if you can do something that’s done over a period of time and is sustainable, now you’re doing it for that community. Otherwise, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re going in and, ‘You feel great? Good. You did nothing for the community.’ So, hopefully what we coaches that are involved in the initiative–and that’s across the country now; it’s east to west, north to south. And it’s coach driven. It’s coach funded. We do have now McDonald’s and some other companies jumping in. We’d like to go Division II, Division III. Have athletic departments have an opportunity. Have HBCUs have them some opportunities to bring people in. And then let’s see where it goes in 10 years. Then you’ll know whether—and I’m a guy that does numbers. I try to be as generous as I can be, but I also give and then I ask, ‘Tell me what it did. You want me to give more to your cause; tell me numbers. Give the impact.’ And I would say the same thing with this. Five, 10 years down the road, did the McLendon (Leadership) Initiative have an impact? What we are doing on this Unity scheduling, did it have an impact? What was the impact? Then, you’re not doing it to make yourself feel better.”
On the team’s health …
“We are so beat up and sick, thank goodness we’re not playing. I got the sniffles and I have a little, you know, nasal, chest. I worked out today, just trying to see if maybe that will make me feel better. But we’ve had one with mono, one with strep throat. Probably can’t give all of it, but you have guys (sick). Today’s practice will probably have seven players there and like two managers. I was supposed to go – and you guys and ladies know I travel if I need to go see a kid, I’ll go – I canceled today for the first time in as long as I can remember. Only because I don’t want to get worn out and then maybe catch something more than I have. Now, I would never think that way. I would go sick. I would go coughing. I would just go. But, I think all that we’re going through, you start approaching things a little different. We are sanitizing everything in the path of our team. The lodge, the bathrooms, the common areas, the balls, the weight room. And we’re sick. Then I was asking, ‘Is any other team in here sick? Or are we the only ones sick?’ “
On what he hopes to see the team improve on in the upcoming game against Southern …
“It’s not about the Southern game. The Southern game is going to be a great test because they play hard, they play dribble-drive, they’re going to try and beat us on the bounce. What we have to get better at: how we finish a game. I took guys out the last game. ‘Oh, you’re going to mess around the last five, six minutes? Then you won’t be in.’ This is about us playing against ourselves. The second thing is, we need another post-up guy or two. So, we got this week to find out, is there another action that we can use to get into something that can post? And it doesn’t have to be Oscar (Tshiebwe). Who’s another guy that we can post up? How about we need 3s? How can we do this? I saw a late game situation that we just hadn’t talked about. You’re up three with five seconds to go. Do you foul? You’re up three with five seconds to go. Raise your hand if you foul. You’re not going to foul? You’re fouling? OK, all of you that said that, Syracuse fouled (last night) and Indiana went back and scored on a missed free (throw). Well, what if they have a bad rebounding team? Do you foul? What if they’re a 40% 3-point shooting team? Do you foul? What if they don’t make 3s? Do you foul? Like, what do you call? Do you say, ‘Foul! Foul!’ And then they know you’re fouling and they shoot the ball from half court as you foul, and then they get three free throws! Wait a minute. OK, now you’re at the line and you’re down three and you make the first. Have you worked on missing and what you’re looking to do? We haven’t. So, we got some situations now that we’ll work on. It’s all that kind of stuff. It’s us. How are we playing offensively? How about this one: Oscar’s out. All right, how do we play now? Now how do we play? We had one game after another with a day off and then another day, you know? Now we have a little time. OK, that’s great. Now I got seven guys in practice. So, we have time but no players. The coaches are getting good at this stuff, but the guys aren’t here. So, we got work to do.”
On the status of the Michigan series and if the team will play in London next year …
“I believe so, but I don’t know. And I believe we are.”
On if these hypotheticals keep him up at night and how to solve them with this team …
“The good news is I do have some veterans. And I really like my guards. So, they’re really smart. We’re doing some things on the fly and they’re getting it. Which tells me if we hit it in practice once every two or three days, even if it’s three or four minutes, they’ll have it. They’ll own it. Still got to work on Oscar. I’m watching some of these teams post the ball that all they do is jam it in. That isn’t who he is. But, you got to get a couple of those. So, it’s not on him; that’s on me. I got to figure it out. And here was my statement to the team yesterday: ‘How is Oscar playing for us? For the team? Unbelievable.’ I mean, really. So, if I’m only worried about what he does for us, I leave it like it is. Go get 16 points and 16 rebounds, we’ll be fine. But if I care about him, I got to let him shoot some jump shots, I got to teach him better in the post so he gets some easy baskets. We’ve got to work on him defensively because, if you can’t guard in the pick-and-roll or guard a guard and just leave your feet and go, I’m not helping you. So, it was kind of like what I said about Sahvir (Wheeler). What did I tell him? ‘I know what you’ll do for us. Here’s what we have to do as a player.’ What was one? Disruptive defense. ‘If you play like you played a year ago where you backed off and died every screen and acted like you didn’t care, I’m not helping you. But if you’re disruptive defensively, you’re mixing it up, you’re diving, you’re playing, and our defense starts on you and you elevate things and everyone sees, it helps you too. You have to shoot a floater because you’re going to get shots blocked if you try to keep going. Shoot the floater. You got to add it to your game.’ Third thing I told him was, ‘You don’t have to make every 3; you can’t miss them all. So now, instead of 21%, let’s make it 30, 31, 33.’ Then, ‘Oh, he can make that 3. Oh, he’s got a floater.’ He’s not going to lose his layup, especially when he goes left. He also has it when he goes right. But he’s disruptive, he’s got floaters. Now we’ve helped Sahvir. And you’re trying to say that for all the guys. I’m still trying to figure out Bryce (Hopkins). I think we’re going to do some things this week that I’m going to try with he and Jacob (Toppin) and let’s see if that helps. And this is what happens to us every year. It just takes time until we figure out. And when the kids are doing what they do best, then they build their own confidence. If they’re trying to do stuff–some of it is, ‘I’m going to do what I did in high school.’ Won’t work, sorry. But they’re doing stuff that’s too hard, the minute it goes south, they start shooting airballs. Because their confidence is that thin right now. So, we’re trying to get to where, ‘Here’s where you’re at your best. Do these things here.’ And the same with Daimion (Collins). Same with him.”
On if the 3-point fouling situation against Kansas in the national championship while coach of Memphis has shaped his current philosophy …
“We worked for two months because I saw a game and we worked on it and there was the situation. It was there, and the kid did something to get away from my guard. Instead of fouling him, he was afraid they were going to call an intentional foul, make two, take it out and then you get beat. So, he kind of let him go and he switched out and the whole time he was going. I was yelling the word we used. Everybody knew what we were supposed to be doing. Then they asked me after the game and I basically said, ‘When a coach has a nine-point lead with 2:30 to go, you’re supposed to win the game. So, leave it at that.’ But I did ask the young man, ‘Did you know we were trying to foul?’ ‘Yeah, but here’s why I didn’t.’ Perfect answer. This is on me.”
On if that now affects how he approaches that situation now …
“It does, but it also–are we a great rebounding team? Then you foul. Are you a crappy, soft rebounding team? Then no. We’re playing it out, because let me tell you what else could happen: Make the first, soft, crappy rebounder, they grab it, and you know what the soft, crappy rebounder is going to do? Foul! And the kid is going to make it because he’s so soft! Now you lose!”
On if Sean Woods’ game as a player has translated to his coaching …
“I watched tape today, and he’s coaching them. He’s coaching them with great demeanor. He’s a good guy. He and I go way back. I’m happy he’s got this opportunity, and he’ll grow from here. I mean, I think he’ll have opportunities from Southern to do other jobs, but right now he’s coaching and doing what he’s got to do to help those kids.”
On visiting Coach Joe B. Hall on his birthday …
“Let me tell you the biggest thing: The biggest thing–his sister was there. I met his sister for the first time. Every time I see him, he has a smile on his face. And everybody talks about how rough and tough he was as a coach. Like, he was mean. I swear to you, I’ve never seen him without a smile on his face. Even then. I mean, he’s 93 years old. You guys put him through the ringer and he’s still smiling. And I did say this to him – I teased him – I said, ‘Hey, did you watch the last game, Coach? We played the 1-3-1.’ He looked up at me and he smiled. Then I said, ‘We really didn’t play 1-3-1.’ And he started laughing and his daughters were laughing, but I’m just happy that he’s close enough that I can go see him now and again. I call his daughter because I don’t want to bother him and bust in, but I miss him at practice. You know, when I could come in and see he and Al (Robinson) and the guys there. I haven’t seen John Y. – Gov. (Brown) – hasn’t been in. But yeah, the biggest thing I can tell you is–look, here’s what I’d say: Guys leave a job that they’ve been in and had success. Let’s be real, how much do they really want the next guy to win? I’m just going to be honest. They’ll encourage you to hire somebody that they know they can’t win. I’ve been blessed. Jack Leaman, just like Coach Hall. Coach Leaman was my biggest supporter, my mentor, my psychiatrist. Here’s what he would do: ‘You want to go for coffee?’ That meant he wanted to talk basketball. This was Coach Leaman. And he would not start until I’d say, ‘Coach, what do you think?’ And then he’d just go for 40 minutes. But he’d wait for me to say it. Coach Hall was similar. Coach (Gene) Bartow. Can you imagine? I walk into Memphis and Coach Bartow is there and my biggest cheerleader, and the guy that promoted and helped and was a mentor to me. And then I come here and it’s the same thing (with) Coach Hall. I’ve told you this story. The first practice I went to there were 22 guys. I thought I had a football team. I’m like, who are all these guys? There were 22 of them. I said, ‘Hold on. Hold on.’ He’s sitting there watching me do it. I made all of the walk-ons – like there are 11 of them – go to the side and put their toes on the sideline so I could just see. Then I had the managers on the block and when a kid shot it, I made them yell out his name and say, ‘Good shot, Patrick!’ I was trying to figure out who’s who. I knew Patrick (Patterson) and a couple of the guys, but then it was done, and I go into the room with my hands like this [motions to covering up his face]. ‘Oh my God, what did I do? What have I done?’ And he walks in and puts his hand on my back, and he says, ‘You don’t worry. You are going to be great here. You watch. Don’t worry about one day.’ And that’s what the first thing was that he said to me. I’m just telling you, I’ve done this a long time. It is very unusual for the last coach to want the next one to win. There’s only going to be a few of us that are that way.”
On if he will be one …
“I said a few of us, that way [media laughs].”
