After beating Ohio State in the Elite Eight last year, Kentucky coach John Calipari was facetiously asked what it felt like to coach in his first Final Four. The question was tongue-in-cheek but still ruffled some feathers of those who support the Wildcats. While Calipari had previously been to the Final Four with Massachusetts and Memphis, both appearances were vacated due to scandals that happened under his watch.
This fact brings up a very basic question: How does the NCAA still allow him to coach?
Known for being a tireless recruiter and vicious competitor on the court, Calipari started off his head coaching career at UMass in 1988. While UMass was not a typical basketball powerhouse, Calipari, with the not inconsiderable help of one Marcus Camby, was able to take the Minutemen to five straight NCAA tournaments. His last season in Amherst was by far his most successful, as the team went 35-2 in the regular season and made it to the 1996 Final Four. Except the NCAA says that his team was never there.
The aforementioned Camby, the best player in college hoops during the 1995-1996 season, was found guilty of taking over $40,000 in illegal benefits while at UMass. Agents supplied him with money, jewelry, rental cars and prostitutes, which he willingly accepted and even requested. The idea was that the agents would throw a little swag his way in hopes that they would be hired to represent him when he made it to the NBA.
After the NCAA uncovered this little arrangement, they stripped UMass of its 1996 tournament victories. Calipari pled ignorance, and people widely accepted his excuse because it was the first time his name had ever been dragged through the mud. Even so, Calipari decided to leave Amherst at the end of the season.
After a failed coaching stint in the NBA, Calipari decided to try his hand at the college game again. This time, Memphis was his destination, and he intended to win there at all costs.
The first scandal Calipari had to withstand was in 2001, his first season as head coach, when he successfully recruited his first star player to Memphis: Dajuan Wagner. In the process, Wagner’s father was able to secure an assistant coaching job at Memphis as part of his son’s commitment, despite lacking a college degree himself. While not technically a violation of the NCAA rules, it was a pretty shady practice.
Things quieted down on the scandal front for a few years, and Calipari was able to win at a pretty steady clip. After two consecutive Elite Eight appearances in 2006 and 2007, the Tigers were poised to get over the quarterfinal hump. Besides returning all five starters from a team that had won 33 games, they welcomed super-freshman Derrick Rose.
The team, led by Rose, ended up winning 38 games en route to an appearance in the national championship game. But after the season, it was discovered that Rose had had a stand-in take the SAT in his name and was retroactively ruled ineligible. Therefore, the entire season was forfeited and the banners taken down.
During the investigation, it was found that teammate Robert Dozier was guilty of the same offense. After scoring a very solid 1260 on his SAT the first time around, the University of Georgia had asked Dozier to retake it due to his heinously low PSAT score. He did and scored a 720, which, according to the Educational Testing Service, was one of the biggest drops in SAT history. Dropping from the ranks of the top 20 percent of test-takers to the bottom five percent raised a red flag for Georgia, but don’t worry: Calipari found a way for him to become a college student.
Accordingly, Dozier enrolled at the Laurinburg Institute, which had become a pipeline for the Memphis basketball program. After he had found a way to become academically eligible with Calipari’s help, Dozier enrolled at Memphis and became a starter on the Final Four team. After the season, the NCAA launched an investigation of the Institute. They concluded that courses, grades and diplomas from the school would not be accepted due to concerns about its academic programs and oversight.
These are just a couple of examples of the kind of program that Calipari runs. Indeed, I didn’t even mention the Tyreke Evans nepotism scandal, which is eerily similar to the Wagner situation. Or how Eric Bledsoe’s GPA jumped from a 1.9 to a 2.5 from his junior to senior year. Or Enes Kanter’s getting paid for playing in Turkey, which, luckily for Calipari, was exposed before Kanter could play at Kentucky. Or … well, you get my point.
Calipari certainly had to be a good salesman to convince Kentucky that scandal wouldn’t blight his program again, but maybe the school just wants to win. Regardless, Calipari will bounce to another job before a new scandal can rock his program, which leaves Kentucky to clean up the mess. Bob Knight, who was also known to tango with the NCAA, says it best: “We’ve gotten into this situation where integrity is really lacking, and that’s why I’m glad I’m not coaching. You see, we’ve got a coach at Kentucky who put two schools on probation and he’s still coaching. I really don’t understand that.”
Me neither, Coach.
Matt Emch is a sophomore in the College. Riding the Pine appears every Friday.
