LOUISVILLE, Ky. When he took the knee, John Calipari had to know what was coming.
He has lived in Kentucky, one of America’s reddest states, since 2009. In the November presidential election, Donald Trump won 62 percent of the vote in the state, winning 118 out of 120 counties – the only exceptions being the two largest, Jefferson and Fayette. , home of the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky, respectively. Jefferson is perhaps the only country in the state that is not a majority British fan base, and even here the Big Blue series is substantial.
In other words, it goes without saying that the supporters who follow Calipari’s team passionately are overwhelmingly conservative Republicans. And conservative Republicans are overwhelmingly not in favor of athletes kneeling during the national anthem – especially college athletes. And yet there was Cal at his Kentucky players on one knee before the Wildcats played in Florida on Saturday, three days after the deadly uprising in Washington, DC.
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“It’s just a peaceful way to protest and make people aware of things that have happened recently,” Kentucky Center Olivier Sarr said this week.
Calipari said the players want him to join them, and he did. “I did kneel with them because I supported the guys,” he said, later saying it was “probably not a good time” for the team to kneel.
It was absolutely time to make the statement. Risks and all. Perhaps it was the eternally belligerent Cal who chose a new battle – with his own constituency.
At that moment, a coach whose approval rating dropped after a 1-6 season start – worst for Kentucky in more than a century – took even more on his shoulders. In the authoritarian world of university sports, some coaches would have completely vetoed the idea. Others would have tried to express their players at a charged time. Still others would approve, but not participate.
Cal joined them and placed him on a very short list of university coaches who took a knee before a match during the national anthem. Major athletics programs are so terrified of national anthem controversies that many of them do not even have their players on the track or field when playing the “Star Spangled Banner” – a classic College Sports Inc. (Kentucky actually had its basketball team in the locker room this season when the national anthem is played according to home games, according to The Courier-Journal in Louisville.)
Calipari is there, and his players appreciated it. “I think what was really powerful was doing coach with us,” Sarr said.
It took a few guts. It took Cal to put in place his constant “players first” mantra that involves something other than trying to recruit the next golf talent.
Then came the hysteria. Kentucky blew the Gators by far their best performance of the season, and it barely registered through the setback. Admittedly, there was support, and not all disagreements were over. But some of the sentiments were similar and opposed to the usual fanatical love for basketball in Kentucky.
John Root is the sheriff in Laurel County, where Trump received more than 77 percent of the November vote. He posted a video with jailer Jamie Moseley on Facebook in which they threw British basketball shirts into a burning cylinder. “That’s what I think of the program, Coach, until you can get these guys under control and lead by example,” Root said on the video.
Mike Mitchell is the judge-executive in Knox County, where Trump received 83 percent of the vote. He introduced a resolution calling on the state to essentially repay the university. The preamble to the resolution reads: ‘Call for action to expose the men’s basketball team of the University of Kentucky, and the coaching staff because they did not want to stand during the national anthem of the United States of America. This action has no respect for the veterans who have served our country. ”
While the commonwealth was on fire, Kentucky played its next game Tuesday night. The Wildcats were sent home by Alabama, 85-65, which dropped to 4-7. It was Calipari’s worst loss in Rupp Arena, and the program’s worst since 1988. And now Cal’s exploding from all sides for all things – not winning, offending patriots, and, well, not winning.
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One thing to keep in mind at Calipari: the registered independent can be a political chameleon, depending on what suits his needs. There were photos with Bill Clinton and John Kerry, but also the ultra-conservative former governor of Kentucky, Matt Bevin. He spent a long time with Trump donor and Big Blue amplifier Joe Craft, namesake for the program’s lavish practice facility.
Regardless, he has always been a stubborn defender of his players, especially black players. (Sometimes an enabler.) Whether it is possible to think, whether he is motivated by what he believes is right or as a permanent recruitment position. But as the controversy over the national anthem continued to simmer on Thursday, Cal’s all-caps tweet echoed who he was: ‘I STAND WITH, IN FRONT AND THROUGH MY PLAYERS. ALWAYS HAS AN ALWAYS HALL! “
Some longtime Kentucky observers believe that fans’ reactions to the controversy and the loss are separate – that many of them will still be furious with Calipari, even if his team is 11-0. Others believe that the crushed petrol put petrol on a bonfire by losing. As one fan put it on a message board from Kentucky fans on Thursday: ‘It’s like when you’re in a bad relationship with someone and then every little thing you do bothers you. This is now the relationship between Cal and fans. ”
Is the end of the relationship near? Maybe, but it would be financially unaffordable for the school to end the arrangement. In another classic College Sports Inc. boom, Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart signed a so-called ‘lifetime contract’ from the 60-year-old Calipari in 2019 – a 10-year salary deal worth $ 7.6 million to $ 8.6 million escalates with options to make even more. Cal looked at UCLA and Kentucky responded dramatically.
This is despite the fact that yields have declined over the course of Calipari’s British tenure. When he brought his one-on-one recruiting philosophy to Kentucky and sold it as the way of the future, the rabid fans envisioned a Saban-like dominance of the sport. That did not happen.
There was one national title, in 2012. The last Final Four was in 2015. Since then, the seasons have all followed the same, terrifying rhythm: the Cats will start terribly and then get in shape late.
Kentucky fans, more than any other, want to win every game. It’s hard to give a seasonal bow that includes doses of misery. The fans swear every November and December that they have had enough of Cal’s formula – then they are later softened by significant improvement. But the payout does not include long into the final weekend of the season, given the standards Calipari helped set in the first half of his Lexington tenure.
It started slowly, and then there is the current debacle. Calipari’s staff decisions were fried. His transgression was described as outdated. But the crux of the problem has not changed in years: Cal embraces a constant tassel of youths in an era in which titles are won by more experienced teams. (As one longtime program observer put it on Thursday: “Fans love the one-and-done as long as he goes to the Final Four. It’s been a while.”)
“Get old, stay old,” is the sport’s current mantra. But not in Lexington.
Being the basketball coach of Kentucky is a wonderful task, but a difficult one. Since Adolph Rupp’s 42-year term ended in 1972, there have been six coaches with an average term of eight seasons. Calipari, at year 12, exceeded the average.
Perhaps the national anthem struggle is the struggle he needs to keep himself going. Choosing that fight in the midst of a losing season is a risky strategy – but also a valuable support for its players. Though many of the program’s red state supporters hated it.