John Calipari is a Terrible Coach and Horrible Person

Or so says E!SPN.com writer Pat Forde in his column today.

You know, I’ve been mourning the death of the newspaper industry, and I’m worried about what, if anything, will take its place. I love writing, always wanted to be a sportswriter, and appreciate the craft of writing a good story (I realize it’s hard to believe that since I update this blog once in a great never). I’m really worried that as newspapers fall by the wayside, one by one, we’re slipping further and further away from the standards and principles the industry started with, and that not just good journalism, but good storytelling, will die with it. I’m most worried about losing the watchdog that newspapers and media outlets have been and NEED to continue to be. For instance, on NPR Saturday morning, I learned how home builders in Texas have basically paid off the government there to pass laws so that they have zero accountability to home owners. Home builders in that state have almost no bylaws or rules to build homes, and the people who buy them are have no rights or means to recoup any losses or get any problems fix. This is one incident, but it’s one I would have not known about had NPR not done an extensive story on it. If it’d hadn’t been reported that AIG was using its bailout money to pay bonuses to THE PEOPLE WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FINANCIAL CRISIS WE”RE CURRENTLY IN, do you think they’d be getting pressured to return the money? No way.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying all media is great and unbiased. There’s lots and lots and lots of crap out there, and yes for my conservative friends, the majority of the crap comes from the liberal media. But overall, if you have a news outlet you trust, there’s still valuable information to get and good stories to be told. I’m worried that when we lose newspapers, we’ll be moving still further away that.

I also find it interesting that Congress and many Americans are rushing to save the American auto industry from themselves. The Big Three, who through their own arrogance, stubbornness and greed have rendered themselves almost obsolete, are going to get billions of taxpayer dollars to continue making bad decisions. Yet the newspaper industry, who I believe is just as vital to American society, is being allowed to disappear. I’m not defending newspapers, not in the least. They’ve made the same mistakes as the auto industry, believing the public needed them instead of the other way around, and completely, totally, and utterly botched the internet era. First they ignored it, then scoffed at it, and now have tried in vain to copy it, which has only sealed their fate. For the record, I don’t think we should be saving either one of them (I thought this was a free market economy? No?) but I just find it amusing we have two major industries in this country who through greed, arrogance and horrible business plans have caused their own demise and will cost the loss of thousands upon thousands of jobs nationwide, and yet we’re bailing out one but not the other.

Anyway, that brings me back to Mr. Forde who, according to his wikipedia page, wrote for many years for the Courier-Journal in Louisville, KY before joining E!SPN. As a trained and seasoned newspaper journalist, you’d expect to see his writing reflect the integrity and standards by which he was trained in the excellent journalism department at the University of Missouri. Instead, he puts out a totally biased column with no facts to back up his most recent column about the University of Kentucky’s hiring of Memphis coach John Calipari to be the new men’s head basketball coach.

Forde’s column bashes the crap out of “Coach Cal”, equating the hiring to a bad April Fool’s Day joke. He insinuates that Calipari is a cheater and shady character, and that he’s a bad hire because he’s going to add to Kentucky’s scandal-ridden past. His evidence? Not much, really. Yes, Calipari had a 1996 Final Four run with UMass wiped from the books of NCAA history because junior star Marcus Camby accepted gifts from a prospective agent. But as Forde points out, Calipari denied knowledge of the incident, and neither him nor the program were charged with major violations. His other evidence of Calipari’s seediness? Winning. No seriously, winning. He holds the way Calipari has won at Memphis, mostly with one-and-done players and JUCO or prep school transfers, as a serious offense. Apparently Forde prefers the Coach K approach of recruiting clean-cut white kids with little to no NBA futures, winning lots of lots of regular season games, getting high seeds in the tournament, and then flaming out by the Sweet 16 or before. Shame on Calipari for wanting more, and for recruiting the best players instead of the best student athletes to get it.

So according to Pat Forde, Calipari was the wrong hire because of a superstar player taking gifts without his knowledge, and for recruiting incredibly talented players who are in school just to play basketball. You know, because the rest of the 300+ D1 schools hold their basketball teams to Ivy League-like standards of academics and graduation rates. Puh-lease.

It’s obvious Forde doesn’t like Calipari. I don’t know if they’ve had run-ins during Forde’s writing career, if he’s just a big Rick Pitino fan (current Louisville coach, and a guy who has not gotten along with Calipari AT ALL. Probably because they’re a little too much alike), or if he just doesn’t like the way he handles himself, but it’s pretty low to write a column lambasting a guy with no evidence to support it. If he doesn’t like Coach Cal he should just say it, instead of using blog-like hearsay, rumors and zero facts to back up his opinion.

Forde is supposed to be a college sport expert, and yet he fails to grasp the basic and obvious fact that college coaching in football and basketball is not a personality contest- it’s about winning. It always has been. I think it’s insane to question the hire of a man who has won big at two “non BCS” schools in UMass and Memphis, and has never been convicted of a major recruiting violation. This is exactly like Alabama hiring Nick Saban as football coach. There are plenty of people in Baton Rouge and Miami who hate him for leaving their football teams high and dry. There’s plenty of stories and articles quoting people who say he can be, well, the word rhymes with “bassbowl.” He may not be the nicest guy in the world, but you’d probably get hung from city hall in Tuscaloosa if you were caught saying anything bad about Saban today. Whatever you think of the man’s personality, he can recruit, he can coach, and he can win. And isn’t that what big-time college sports is all about?

Calipari is just like Saban. Whatever you think of his personality, he’s won wherever he’s been in college, and he’ll win-and fast- at Kentucky. He’s going to bring the top recruiting class he had at Memphis with him to Lexington, he’ll talk Kentucky’s key guys into returning, and they’ll be back on the national landscape from Day 1. It was absolutely the right move by Kentucky, and when they’re back in the Final Four in three years or less, you won’t hear a peep from Wildcat fans about Calipari’s personality or recruiting tactics. Winning will do that.

So thanks to Forde for restoring my faith in the journalistic integrity he’s supposed to have- or maybe for securing my belief that those ideals are already dead and gone, and the newspaper industry is getting what it deserves.