Will anything change in John Calipari’s final fight?

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — John Calipari looked upon the room and, hitting his audience with a dash of practiced humility, leveled with everyone. “I know people say, ‘He cares more about the kids or getting NBA players than winning,’” he lamented, talking about himself. “You don’t need me to go over what I’ve been able to do coaching-wise, do you?”

Calipari paused. He spread his hands, raised his palms toward the ceiling, and shook his head in disbelief. “I mean, c’mon, how do you say that? Other than, you want to create a narrative that (I) don’t care about winning. Have you ever watched me coach?”

Hard to argue.

Hard, also, to know whom Calipari was talking to or talking about. Who was you? Who was this unnamed target of such incredulity? It certainly wasn’t anyone in the room. In front of Calipari that day sat a collection of local media attending an early October news conference to preview the upcoming Arkansas basketball season — Calipari’s first in Fayetteville. As it goes with new beginnings, the tenor surrounding his arrival was, and remains, overwhelmingly positive. The question that garnered the above abstraction came in the latter part of a 45-minute Q&A. Calipari was asked if he had changed any of his coaching philosophies through the years. He responded by 1) channeling this unidentified critic and 2) saying that, no matter what, he worries only about positively affecting the lives of his players and their families.

“I mean, not at the expense of the kids,” continued Calipari, the tortured hero. “Not now. I’m not changing at this point. I don’t think I can if I wanted to.”

Even after 855 college coaching wins, after taking three schools to the Final Four, after being inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame, after well over $100 million in earnings, Calipari remains incapable of being anything other than the boxer in the corner; his back bouncing off the turnbuckle, hands up, staving off blows, jabbing back, gaining room to operate, then going on the attack, reaching back farther to punch harder. He says that, in his mind, he’s still “Johnny Calipari from Moon Township.” He desperately wants you to see him as he sees himself — as a tough kid from western Pennsylvania who was cunning enough to play some college basketball, industrious enough to talk his way into an early graduate assistant job at Kansas, and smart enough to turn himself into one of the greatest coaches in modern basketball history. This is how he starts every new chapter.

Fifteen years ago, it was Kentucky. The wildest fan base in the country saw him as a savior and welcomed his expensive suits, slick hair and outlaw reputation. But Cal wanted them to know he was one of them. So in his 2009 introduction as the Wildcats’ new head coach, he took time to tell a jam-packed Rupp Arena that his grandfather worked the coal mines of West Virginia and died of black lung at only 58 years old. He told them his grandparents on his mother’s side got by eating dandelion soup. He told them, “I’m not the emperor. That’s not what I want to be. We’re regular people.”

Calipari’s time at Kentucky was perfect, until it wasn’t. For a decade he fulfilled the place’s wildest dreams. An endless flood of talent. A 2012 national championship. A one-and-done model loathed by the upper crust, then implemented by, of all people, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, cementing one of the most brazen tail-between-the-legs concessions in sports history. But everything began to turn about five or six years ago. Erosion. Gradual at first. Then aggressive. The last Final Four appearance was in 2015. The last Elite Eight in 2019. With things turning increasingly noxious, Cal and his Cats lost to No. 15 seed St. Peter’s in the first round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament. Then they went and lost to 14th-seeded Oakland last year. The end.

Calipari took the off-ramp when it came. John Tyson — CEO of Tyson Foods, billionaire heir to a family empire, resident of Northwest Arkansas, Hogs fan — arranged a call last spring between Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek and Calipari. The topic: Who should replace outgoing head coach Eric Musselman? As the story goes, Cal used a portion of the conversation to heap praise on the program, then made some suggestions. Yurachek countered by saying, why not you?

So here is John Vincent Calipari, age 65, starting over again. He was not made available for an interview during a recent visit, but conversations with a variety of longtime coaching contemporaries paint a pretty clear picture. Those who know Calipari, who spoke to him before and after his move from Lexington to Fayetteville, all repeat the same thing. That the man couldn’t stomach feeling minimized in those final years at Kentucky, that he resented being told he’s turned stale, and that, while he often says otherwise, he badly wants to be liked and will cling to grudges both real and perceived.

If there’s a prelude to Calipari’s final chapter, this is it.

“Who’s he fighting now?” Yurachek recently said, repeating a question as he thought on it. “I don’t know that he’s fighting anyone other than the people who say he can’t coach in the tournament, that he can’t coach in the big games, that he can’t get a team back (to the Final Four). All the naysayers that’ve been out there for the last five or six years, who say his time has passed him by — that’s who he’s fighting.”

Oh. So, everyone.

It was a hell of a night in Fayetteville, the kind any athletic director would dream of. On Oct. 25, Kansas, the top-ranked team in the country, was run out of Bud Walton Arena. Sure, the game was a charity exhibition, and sure, the Jayhawks’ All-American center, Hunter Dickinson, didn’t play, but none of that mattered much. The place was packed. The vibes were high. Cal was Cal.

Also, that overhauled Arkansas roster, the one that costs well over $5 million in name, image and likeness compensation for 2024-25, looked awfully good. And the new logos on the court — one for Tyson Foods, one for Walmart — didn’t look too bad, either.

Yurachek sat down after the win and seemed to exhale for the first time. Not for the first time that night, but for the first time in who knows how long. The decision to give Calipari a base five-year contract worth $38.5 million last spring was not a move aimed at the future. It was a hire for the here and now — to survive and thrive in the infancy of the NIL era. No other coach can buy like Cal. No other coach can sell like Cal. Bringing in a force of nature like him means handing over the entire identity of a place. To see it come to life, even in an exhibition, was an affirmation.

“You know, I’m constantly asked, ‘How do you manage Cal?’” Yurachek said that Friday night, before leaning forward in a folding chair and widening his eyes. “But the answer is, you don’t manage Cal. He’s a Hall of Fame coach who’s won 855 games, been to six Final Fours and won a national championship. My job is to give him the tools he needs to be successful.”

This, among other areas, is where things went awry at Kentucky. Calipari wanted his program to get everything he felt it needed and didn’t mind going rogue, whether publicly or privately, to make his demands known. The water ran hot.

At Arkansas, there have been few boundaries. Calipari asked for a Noah Basketball shot-tracking system to be installed in the Hogs’ practice gym and said, while you’re at it, install one in the women’s gym, too. Done and done. He requested that his team travel via two small planes out of Drake Field, the small regional airport a few miles from campus, instead of taking a single charter out of Northwest Arkansas National Airport. Why? So players and staff can drive individually to Drake, instead of busing 40 minutes to XNA. OK, done. And after a few minor preseason injuries, Calipari asked for, as Yurachek puts it, “one of these gravity-free treadmills in the basketball facility.” Sure, done.

And then there’s the matter of travel accommodations. Kentucky stayed at five-star hotels because Calipari wanted his guys to feel like NBA players. It might take some creative maneuvering, but he’ll get the same at Arkansas.

“Well, he likes the team to stay at pretty nice hotels,” Yurachek said. “So, you know, that’s not necessarily permissible under State of Arkansas traveling guidelines, so we’ll have to work through that a little bit, but that’s OK.”

Calipari’s first group is, at least on paper, loaded. His three freshmen were, of course, all McDonald’s All-American selections. Each is a potential pro, but the name to remember is Johnuel “Boogie” Fland, an electric point guard who could take college basketball by storm. From Kentucky, Calipari brought legacy guard D.J. Wagner (son of Dajuan Wagner), 7-foot-2 center Zvonimir Ivišić and potential starting forward Adou Thiero. From the transfer portal, Calipari plucked former Florida Atlantic guard Johnell Davis and All-SEC big man Jonas Aidoo from Tennessee. From the Hogs’ 2023-24 roster, Calipari extended an invite to leading rebounder and third-leading scorer Trevon Brazile.

This, he says, is the plan moving forward — investing in a tight nine-man rotation instead of worrying about feeding minutes and NIL resources to a bloated rotation.

“I feel pretty good,” Calipari said. “Three guards. Three wings. Three bigs.”

This is exactly what Yurachek and Arkansas happily signed up for. Calipari and Rick Pitino are the only coaches to take three programs to the Final Four. At Arkansas, Calipari could become the first to take a fourth. The lone goal, therefore, is winning now. Calipari has said he’s “rented the seat,” and his main objective is “to help 20 or 30 more families.” In Caliparian terms, that means sending 20 or 30 more players to the NBA. Such a target would sound ludicrous from anyone else. But in 32 seasons of college coaching, Calipari has produced 58 NBA Draft picks, including 27 lottery selections. Fifty of those picks came during his 15 years at Kentucky. So, simple math. If Calipari matches or exceeds that clip in Fayetteville, he’ll end up coaching the Hogs for maybe five, six, or seven years.

Meaning, a narrow window.

Meaning, no time, or money, to waste.

Not long ago, a nine-figure renovation of Bud Walton was approved by the University of Arkansas System board of trustees. The 19,368-seat arena, one of the best environments in college basketball, was set for a much-needed modernization. Architects and contractors were chosen. The plan was set. Now? All that can wait. Such an undertaking would distract from what’s really important.

“To go out and raise $150 million (on the Bud Walton renovation), that means we’re taking money out of NIL,” Yurachek said. “So I think (the arena) is gonna stay status quo for a little bit. (Calipari) is comfortable with that. We may redo the locker room at some point in time.”

Maybe. Unless that cash is needed for NIL, too. Arkansas has been aggressive in positioning itself for the revenue-sharing model that’s expected to transform college athletics. Yuracheck recently wrote in an email to Razorback Foundation members that he estimates around $22 million in new annual expenses and an additional $3 million per year to create 75-100 new scholarships. So not only is Arkansas passing on a renovation of Bud Walton, but it’s “re-seating” the arena (rearranging seat locations based on donations) and adding a new 3 percent fee on concessions. And those new corporate logos on the court? In the old days, that new revenue would flow into athletic department coffers. Now the money from Tyson Foods and Walmart, the two multinational corporations headquartered in Northwest Arkansas, is going to NIL.

It can seem overwhelming. The transfer portal. Players openly demanding money. It’s too much for some coaches, especially for some of the old guard.

But Cal? The UMass coach who welcomed freshmen deemed academically ineligible due to the NCAA’s Proposition 48 rule? The Kentucky coach who embraced one-and-dones? Unfazed. His greatest value to Arkansas might, in fact, not be as a coach. It might be as a one-man telethon.

“If anything, we try to pump the brakes on him, not to get him to stop, but to say, ‘Hey, let us set the table for you, and then bring you in for the close,’” Yurachek said. “Because he may come in, and — it’s just the way coaches think, it’s not just him — but he could go ask someone for $125,000. ‘But, Coach, we could get $250,000 from (that donor), if you give us a couple weeks.’ So it’s just kinda pumping the brakes on him a little, just so we don’t leave anything on the table. But we certainly need to use him. He’s our biggest asset in fundraising. He’s amazing at it. Amazing. I mean, he can make a catch on anybody we walk in a room with.”

No one has ever questioned Calipari’s ability to grease a wheel or shake a hand. Questions have come in recent years, though, on the court. Kentucky went 330-77 (81.1 winning percentage) in the first 11 years of his reign, averaging 30 wins per season and regularly advancing in the NCAA Tournament. In the last four years, the Cats went 80-52 (60.1) and never made it out of the first weekend. Critics focused on everything from style of play to misused talent to Cal’s dismissal of modern trends. Last season, his team led the country in 3-point shooting (40.9 percent) and ranked 179th in percentage of 3s taken. Defensively, his teams went from regularly ranking among the best nationally in the glory days to, in recent years, fumbling around the middle of the pack in the SEC. Cat fans grew to obsess constantly over Calipari’s coaching choices.

As it turns out, those concerns never quite made it to Arkansas. Asked about Calipari’s actual coaching, Yurachek sort of cocked an eyebrow and called it “an interesting question.”

“Maybe it’s because of who he was,” Yurachek said, “but I wasn’t as worried about the Xs and Os, or, can the guy coach? I just really trusted his résumé.”

Cal, as they say, is Cal, and that’s good enough. That’s why, 48 hours before the Hogs’ exhibition game against Kansas, Arkansas sophomore Sam Shepherd and a few friends arrived at a clearing next to Bud Walton Arena and hammered a few tent pegs into the grass. First in line. By 10 that night, a few more students appeared. By daylight, about 20 tents. By that afternoon, 75. That’s when Calipari appeared, dripping sweat from a workout, a towel around his neck, to shake hands and pose for pictures.

“He seemed pretty natural. Like a genuine guy,” Shepherd said. “It’s still bizarre that he’s here.”

The next day, a few hours before tipoff, 150 tents zig-zagged in line.

Calipari and his wife, Ellen, previously lived on Richmond Road, right in the heart of Lexington, in a 9,000-square-foot mansion that everyone knew, pointing to as they drove by, about 2 miles from Rupp Arena. The couple sold the house this summer for $3.4 million, per reports. In Fayetteville, they bought a $2.2 million mansion tucked away in a gated community, off the 10th fairway of Blessings Golf Club, about 6 miles north of the University of Arkansas campus. Calipari says it’s been a major adjustment, going from a busy four-lane road to the back of a cul-de-sac. He said this summer that it’s nice walking the dog and not caring if his hair is tousled. “There’s no one back there,” he said.

But Calipari is, at his core, someone who needs to be seen. It’s why he was, once upon a time, so ideal for Kentucky. Someone so good at posturing as both the villain and the victim. Someone who is both the winningest active coach in college basketball and the only one with vacated Final Four appearances at two schools. Someone who wants to fight.

Go all the way back to Massachusetts. Cal, at 29, took over a program coming off 10 straight losing seasons. Within a few years, he was feuding with Atlantic 10 rivals John Chaney and Mike Jarvis, sending shots across state lines to Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun, and turning UMass, of all places, into a national power. Did he do so within the gray areas of decorum? Absolutely. But he won enough to become an NBA head coach. After flaming out with the New Jersey Nets (to his detractors’ delight), he returned Memphis to its past glory, all while navigating a variety of controversies, clashing with local and national media, and taking on everyone from opposing coaches, to league officials, to the NCAA. He regularly complained of all the agendas against him and his program — catnip for his fans, gasoline for his haters. He always left the line between paranoia and plausible open to interpretation.

But there has always been the other side, too. Calipari’s charitable acts, both out in the open and behind the scenes, can fill a few chapters. His list of friends in the coaching fraternity is long and includes most of the biggest names in the game. He is the sitting president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, making him, incredibly, the primary conduit between the organization and the NCAA. He’s long maintained this tricky dexterity. Cal likes the black hat, but also attends Mass daily. He’s a lifelong Catholic.

It’s always worth remembering what he told Sports Illustrated back in 2011: “There are times I get mad and want to strangle somebody, and then I go to Mass and say, ‘Stop me from having this feeling that I want to absolutely punch this guy in the face.’”

That is John Calipari.

All these years later, he doesn’t have much interest in changing. Neither in who he is or how he coaches. No philosophical overhauls are planned at Arkansas. The biggest change, he says, is reserving a couple rotation spots for more experienced transfer portal players, instead of being so reliant on freshmen. But other than that, this will all look very familiar. Calipari’s staff includes assistants Chin Coleman and Chuck Martin, who were with him in those final years in Lexington, and associate head coach Kenny Payne, who previously spent a decade on the staff. His son, Brad Calipari, is the fourth assistant. Bruiser Flint, a close friend since the early 1990s, is special assistant to the head coach. Chris Woolard, who spent 13 seasons at Kentucky and is executive director of the Calipari Foundation, is the Hogs’ general manager. Tyler Ulis, a former Kentucky player, is the staff’s freshest newcomer.

In theory, it’s hard to see why results at Arkansas will be any different than recent results at Kentucky.

Maybe that isn’t so bad. A Cal Truther will bend an elbow and nudge you in the rib cage to offer a reminder that, for all the smoke around how things ended at Kentucky, last year’s Wildcats, despite having seven freshmen, finished in a second-place tie in a loaded SEC. That team posted two of the best regular-season wins in college basketball — at Tennessee and at Auburn.

Everyone essentially agreed the split between Calipari and Kentucky was best for all involved in the end. Back in 2019, when UCLA was sniffing around to fill its vacant head-coaching position, Calipari signed what amounted to a lifetime contract. Major money and rolling extensions. By Calipari choosing to go to Arkansas, he got a fresh start, and Kentucky took millions upon millions of dollars off its books. A highly civilized détente resulted, with Calipari fully endorsing new UK coach Mark Pope, and Pope using every opportunity this preseason to praise Cal’s legacy.

It’s hard, in retrospect, to truly appreciate and understand how improbable it is for a coach of Calipari’s stature and standing to pick up, start over at 65, and decide to pen his end in the unknown. Pitino at St. John’s, Bob Knight at Texas Tech, Jerry Tarkanian at Fresno State — all came under, let’s say, extenuating circumstances.

But this? This is different.

This is the move of a man who’s taken some hits and can’t walk away, a man who will only go out his own way, and is only willing to change so much.

(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; photos: Wesley Hitt / Getty Images)