John Calipari was sitting in his hotel room in Phoenix on Friday when his close friend John H. Tyson contacted him to discuss an important decision. Mr. Tyson, the billionaire chairman of Tyson Foods Inc. and a longtime major donor to the University of Arkansas, is leaving Eric Musselman for a job at the University of Southern California, according to a person with knowledge of the conversations. He later said he wanted to pick the brain of Kentucky's basketball coach about the direction of Arkansas' coaching search. . Tyson told the Hall of Fame coach that Hunter Yurachek, the athletic director at Arkansas, was also in Phoenix, and the two soon met in Calipari's room.
The night before the Final Four, Yurachek and Calipari talked for nearly an hour about possible candidates to replace Musselman. The University of Arkansas wanted to make a splashy hire and was prepared to spend a lot of money on salaries, NIL, and other support for the basketball program. As they left the room, Yurachek came to a conclusion. Perhaps the perfect candidate is right in front of you.
“Why aren't you? Why aren't you interested?” Yurachek asked Calipari, according to an Arkansas source.
“Well, I don't spend a lot of time on it, but I can tell you a little bit,” Calipari said.
Mr. Calipari left the meeting and his conversation with Mr. Tyson continued.
“Last time we couldn't do this,” Tyson told Calipari about the time the Razorbacks pursued Calipari when he was in Memphis about 17 years ago. “Do you want this? Let's get this done.”
Soon, Calipari's lawyer, Tom Mars (who attended law school in Arkansas), contacted Calipari about the job. The full court press has begun. By Saturday morning, a formal term sheet expressing interest had been sent to Calipari. As negotiations progressed, Calipari committed to ending a 15-year run at Kentucky that included an NCAA championship and three more Final Four appearances. Calipari is one of the few coaches to lead a program to his four Final Fours in five years (2011-2015).
“He has one flaw: He's a very loyal person,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said in a phone interview Tuesday. “Kentucky is not an on-and-off job. What Kentucky coaches and Kentucky basketball mean there…John filled those shoes in a way I promise you this: Someday. Kentucky is going to look back and say we need a John Calipari flag there.”
At the end of the weekend, Calipari and the University of Arkansas were close to reaching an agreement on the terms of his arrival, which would be a game-changer in college basketball. Calipari dominated his one-and-done era with a revolving door of NBA stars in Lexington, but now another program in the right place and at the right time has piqued his interest. I did. Sources close to Calipari say Calipari still regrets turning down the UCLA job in 2019. It was time for him to quit, he now privately admits. But Kentucky signed him to a 10-year, $86 million contract to keep him in Lexington, and the Bruins couldn't match it.
now? Arkansas has put together a great package and Calipari is ready to go.
An industry official who was briefed on the conditions said: The Athletic Calipari signed a five-year contract with Arkansas worth $38.5 million, with the possibility of extending the contract to up to seven years and about $60 million, subject to an appearance in the NCAA Tournament. The deal includes a $1 million signing bonus and other annual bonuses, officials said. The new partnership will include a NIL fund worth “at least” $5 million to $7 million, according to one industry source, and Arkansas officials have indicated they are willing to put any amount of money toward Calipari's NIL needs. ing.
even deeper
TUCKER: John Calipari was leading Kentucky in basketball.And then came Arkansas.
Contact between Calipari's party and Kentucky officials was very limited, and there were no negotiations between the two sides, according to people on both sides. Once Arkansas got involved with him, there was no turning back. Kentucky officials are believed to be working on plans for a practice facility and NIL, but questions have arisen as to where their intentions have gone with Calipari in charge.
Suddenly, Arkansas was back on the map in a big way, pairing a hungry Calipari with all the star power he brings, a top-ranked recruiting class, and a program eager to return to the Final Four for the first time since the war. 1995.
“I've done things like this several times in my career, but the biggest thing I'm trying to create is to bring love between this program and this campus.” Calipari said. The Athletic. “This program is about building a relationship for Northwest Arkansas, this entire state. So what we're recruiting is great kids who want to be involved in the community. As a coach, that means not cheating on your position, staying indoors, and watching the tape. Participate in philanthropy and support across campus and across the state.
“The other thing that needs to change is figuring out our roster. You have to come in now and prepare your NIL. The school will do that for you.” Get out now. You don't have to. I had to go to Kentucky. Here we are now forming a team. I don't mind that because I have to coach a new team every year, but they have to be good kids. If they were only thinking about themselves, we wouldn't hire them and they wouldn't be here.
“What's driving me forward is chasing championships and putting the team in the best position at the end of the year to move forward. Let's do this together.”
The question that's been on everyone's mind for the past 72 hours is why? Why did Calipari leave Kentucky after 15 seasons? Why is he leaving for Arkansas? The terms of his contract provide some answers, but they have a much deeper meaning than that.
The relationship between Calipari and athletic director Mitch Barnhart has been steadily deteriorating, according to multiple sources who witnessed the situation, and they recently appeared on local television together, saying the two are getting along well and moving forward together. What he said he was devoting himself to was essentially a dog and a dog. pony show. That relationship was irreparably broken in August 2022, when Calipari was on an exhibit tour in the Bahamas with his team. He pressed Barnhart about the need for a new practice facility and even raised millions of dollars in pledges from former NBA players to help fund it. But Barnhart remained steadfast, insisting that the then 15-year-old Joe Craft Center only needed updating, not replacing it.
So one afternoon during that trip, Mr. Calipari called several reporters to his hotel suite and spoke freely. After spending a lot of money on other sports at the University of Kentucky, it was now basketball's turn, he said. Words like dynamite were thrown around within the athletic club. “This is a basketball school.”
Football coach Mark Stoops was publicly and privately upset, and Barnhart stood by the football coach — at least that's what Calipari thought, and still thinks. Although Mr. Calipari, still in the Bahamas, was told not to make any further public statements on the matter, and even a well-thought-out apology was not issued, Mr. Stoops and Mr. Barnhart held a joint press conference in Lexington. Calipari's boss didn't hold back either.
“We confirm that we have no rights,” Barnhart said at one point. There's always support in basketball, he said, adding pointedly, “If that's not enough, coaches change a lot in today's world.”
That's when Calipari knew marriage was destined — an analogy Barnhart often uses.
There was fundamental disagreement about what constituted sufficient support for the program. Between butting heads over facilities and feeling handcuffed in the NIL space, where the coach felt like he was raising money alone, Calipari said Kentucky really “has a future.” I started to wonder.
“I know for a fact that Coach Cal didn't feel supported. I don't think he had the support of the school,” former Wildcats star DeMarcus Cousins said. The Athletic. “There's a lot going on behind the scenes right now to adapt to the modern era of college basketball. I don't think there was any support, let alone at the top, especially with what he's done for them. In hindsight, this situation could have been handled with more grace. When you think about the players who came through it, you could say these were the golden days of modern Kentucky basketball.”
“Cal was the perfect coach for any job, especially Kentucky,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. Athletic. “You have to have thicker skin than a whale. It's sad to me what happened. In any organization it starts from the top down. Cal is taken for granted. Talk about a bad year. A bad year for him is the worst year of most people's lives.
“I don't care if it's Michigan State or Kentucky or Duke. If you're not aligned, it's hard to work. There was a disconnect. There are always two sides to every divorce. This new opportunity. will rejuvenate Cal.”
Cousins and John Wall ushered in the Calipari era in 2009, followed by many current NBA superstars including Devin Booker, Karl-Anthony Towns, Julius Randle, Bam Adebayo, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Ta. As Calipari believes, a lot has changed from the first Big Blue Madness 15 years ago to today. For example, sources connected to the program say Calipari and some of his star alumni privately resent the fact that the resources available to Big Blue Madness have been drastically reduced to the point of literal downsizing. It is said that he was
The backlash was clear from Kentucky's perspective: There was diminishing returns from a coach who hadn't reached the Final Four since 2015 and hadn't played in the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament since 2019. Calipari and Barnhart realized they had a flu-like coaching staff that believed they needed more support to achieve big wins, and Barnhart added this to the program under Calipari's watch. Before paying more, I was hoping for an even bigger return on my initial (and huge) investment.
As the end drew near, more and more fans started thinking like Barnhart. Many thought he should spend the big bucks on Calipari's $33 million buyout after losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last month, rather than on a practice facility. Barnhart refused to part with that much money, so their feud would continue for at least another year. An incredibly messy upcoming season was scheduled to take place in Lexington.
But an old friend called me and made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Come to Arkansas and feel loved again, feel supported again, feel like anything is possible again.
![Deeper](https://cdn.theathletic.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,height=128,fit=cover,format=auto/app/uploads/2024/04/07234343/GettyImages-2110643136-1024x683.jpg)
![Deeper](https://cdn.theathletic.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,height=128,fit=cover,format=auto/app/uploads/2024/04/07234343/GettyImages-2110643136-1024x683.jpg)
even deeper
Kentucky's next coach has no limits on wins. So who are the candidates?
“We negotiated for 15 minutes, just me looking at it and saying, this is how it should be, this is what it should be,” Calipari said. “It was just, 'Do you want this?' So that's how it happened. It happened over a total of three days.”
And on Tuesday, Calipari filmed a heartfelt farewell video from his home. There, someone had planted a yard sign that read, “Thank you, Cal.” A few days earlier, someone else had put up a sign with Calipari and Barnhart's faces and the message, “One of us has to go!”
“In recent weeks, we've realized that this program probably needs to hear another voice,” Calipari said in his video.
More than that, Calipari realized he needed another program that would listen intently to his story.
“John brings exactly what he has brought everywhere: being a winner and a competitor,” Burns said. “He's trying to put them in the fight and develop them. He does it faster than anyone who has ever coached this game.”
(Photo illustration: John Bradford/ The Athletic; Photo: Jared C. Tilton/Getty)