John Calipari Is Third in Command at Memphis

Over the past several days the search for a new head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky has taken several turns.

Much maligned coach of two years Billy Gillespie was let go over the weekend, and immediately names and rumors began to circulate around the sports world as to who Wildcat nation would tab as their guy to lead them back to national prominence.  

Such names as Florida coach Billy Donovan and Xavier coach Sean Miller were thrown out as possibilities. Donovan was lassoed in by Florida, while Miller never appeared to be in the running.  

After several days had gone by with no real front-runner, all of a sudden a name came up that appeared to be a logical fit for the Wildcats: Memphis coach John Calipari.

John Calipari received his first head coaching job in 1988 when he became coach of University of Massachusetts (UMass). Upon arriving to the campus in '88, he immediately changed the face of the program.  

Over his nine seasons at UMass he compiled a 193-71 record including a 91-41 mark in Atlantic 10 play. He was named A-10 Coach of the Year three times, in '92, '93, and '96. He was also named Naismith National Coach of the Year in 1996 after leading UMass to the school's first ever Final Four appearance.  

He helped accelerate the construction of the Mullins Center where the Minutemen currently play basketball and hockey.  He reached out to the greater Boston and New York area to try to expand the fanbase.

When he left for the Nets shortly after the '96 season, Calipari had become the second winningest coach in UMass history.

While at UMass, Calipari had one team with which most will associate his time at the school: the Final Four team of 1996. And most will remember that team for one player in particular: the Naismith player of the year in '96, Marcus Camby.  

However, what most tend to overlook about that team were the allegations that players, with the focus being on Camby, took illegal and improper benefits from school boosters, all the while with Calipari turning his head and pretending he knew nothing of the sort was happening. 

A 1996 article in the Hartford Courant, Camby's hometown newspaper, quotes Camby as saying that he accepted jewelry from an agent, Wesley S. Spears, wishing to represent him.  Only at the time, Camby didn't know that Spears was an agent.  He also admitted to taking $1,000 after the season was over.  

In addition to giving Camby jewelry and $1,000 after the season, Spears also gave his friends up to $300 a week in an alleged attempt to represent Camby after he turned professional.

Camby acknowledged he took the $1,000 after the season, but said he had no idea that his friends were being given cash, plane tickets, and gifts over the past five months.

Regardless of what may or may not have happened, red flags in the form of paying players were starting to pop up around Calipari's first program.  

After a brief stint in the NBA as coach of the New Jersey Nets for three years and being an assistant for two more for the Philadelphia 76ers, Calipari finally landed a head coaching job back where he belonged—the college game.  

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