Coach gets $31.6M contract to rebuild historic program
LEXINGTON, Ky. – John Calipari thought he’d pop up on Kentucky’s radar two years ago when the Wildcats were looking for Tubby Smith’s replacement and Calipari was coming off a 33-win season at Memphis.
He spent a week constantly asking his wife, Ellen, if Kentucky’s number had finally popped up on the caller ID.
“I called my wife every day for six days. ‘Did they call? Did they call?’ ” Calipari said. “Then I kind of figured out: They’re not calling.”
Two years and two days later, Calipari’s phone finally rang.
And the Wildcats paid a hefty price for waiting.
Kentucky made Calipari the nation’s highest-paid coach on Tuesday, awarding him an eight-year, $31.65 million deal and charging him with restoring some of the luster the program lost during Billy Gillispie’s rocky two-year tenure.
It’s a challenge the charismatic and highly successful Calipari plans to meet head on, though he cautioned he’s no miracle worker.
“I’m not the grand pooh-bah,” he told a packed news conference barely 12 hours after signing the contract. “I’m not the emperor. That’s not what I want to be.”
What the Wildcats need him to be is a winner. That’s never been a problem for Calipari, who has won 445 games and guided both Memphis and UMass to the Final Four. He certainly won his first day on the job at UK, washing away the sting of the university’s bitter divorce of Gillispie.