LOUISVILLE, Ky. – When he got on his knees, John Calipari had to know what was coming.
He has lived in Kentucky, one of the redest states in America, since 2009. In the November presidential election, Donald Trump won 62% of the vote in the state and won 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 could be the only county in the state that is not a majority fan base in the UK and right here the next Big Blue is considerable.
In other words, it’s clear that fans who are passionate about Calipari’s team are overwhelmingly conservative Republicans. And conservative Republicans are not overwhelmingly in favor of athletes kneeling in protest during the national anthem – especially college athletes. And yet, Cal joined his Kentucky players on one knee before the Wildcats played in Florida on Saturday, three days after the deadly insurgency in Washington, DC.
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“It’s just a peaceful way to protest and raise awareness … about things that have happened recently,” Kentucky center Olivier Sarr said this week.
Calipari said the players want him to join them, so he did. “I knelt with them because I support the boys,” he said, later mistakenly saying that “it probably wasn’t a very good time” for the team to kneel.
It was absolutely time to make the statement. Risks and all that. Maybe it was the eternal Cal fighter who took on a new fight – with his own constituency.
At the time, a coach whose approval rating had already dropped after a 1-6 start to the season – the worst for Kentucky in more than a century – took it even further. In the authoritarian world of college sports, some coaches would have vetoed the idea altogether. Others allegedly tried to persuade their players not to make a statement at a busy time. Others still would have approved it, but would not have participated.
Cal joined them, putting him on a very short list of college coaches who got on their knees during the national anthem before a game. Major athletic programs are so frightened by the controversies of the anthem that many of them don’t even have their players on the field or on the field when they play “Star Spangled Banner” – a classic College Sports Inc. (Kentucky actually had its basketball team in the closet this season, when the anthem is played at home games, according to The Courier-Journal in Louisville.)
Calipari went there and his players appreciated her. “I think what was really strong was the coach doing it with us,” Sarr said.
It took some courage. The horse had to put the constant mantra “first players” into action, involving something other than trying to recruit the next wave of talent.
Then came the hysteria. Kentucky threw the Gators by far the best performance of the season and barely recorded the shot. There was some support, of course, and not all dissent was over. But part of the feeling was equal and opposite to the usual fanatical love for Kentucky basketball.
John Root is the sheriff of Laurel County, where Trump received over 77% of the November vote. He posted a video on Facebook with jailer Jamie Moseley throwing British basketball jerseys into a burning cylinder. “That’s what I think about the program, Coach, until you can get these guys under control and lead by example,” Root said in the video.
Mike Mitchell is the executive judge in Knox County, where Trump received 83% of the vote. He introduced a resolution calling on the state to essentially close the university. The resolution read: “I call for action to denounce the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team and coaching staff for refusing to sit during the United States national anthem. This action has no respect for the veterans who have served our country. ”
As the Commonwealth smoked, Kentucky played its next game on Tuesday night. Wildcats were headed home from Alabama, 85-65, down to 4-7. It was Calipari’s worst loss at Rupp Arena and the worst of the program since 1988. And now Cal gets thrown out for everything – he doesn’t win, he offends the Patriots and, well, he doesn’t win.
Brad McClenny / The Gainesville Sun / USA Today Network
One thing to keep in mind with 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 with former ultra-conservative governor Matt Bevin. Long ago, he fell in love with donor Trump and Big Blue kidnapper Joe Craft, the namesake of the program’s opulent unit of practice.
Regardless, he has always been a tenacious defender of his players, especially black players. (Sometimes a facilitator.) Either he is motivated by what he thinks is right or that a permanent recruitment position is open to assumptions. But as the hymn controversy continued to play out on Thursday, Cal’s capitalized tweet was consistent with who he was: “STAYING WITH, FOR, AND FOR MY PLAYERS. THEY ALWAYS HAVE AND ALWAYS! ”
Some longtime Kentucky observers believe the fans’ reactions to the controversy and losses are separate – that many of them would still be angry at Calipari, even if his team were 11-0. Others believe that kneeling gasoline poured gasoline on a burning fire losing. As one fan said on a Kentucky fan forum on Thursday: “It’s like when you have a bad relationship with someone and then every little thing they do bothers you. This is the Horse / Fan relationship right now. ”
Is it almost the end of the relationship? Maybe, but it would be financially prohibitive for the school to end the arrangement. In another classic flourish of College Sports Inc., Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart awarded Calipari, 60, the so-called “lifetime contract” in 2019 – a 10-year salary contract. which increases from $ 7.6 million to $ 8.6 million with options to do even more. Cal had blinked at UCLA, and Kentucky responded dramatically.
This is despite the fact that yields have declined during Calipari’s tenure in the UK. When he brought his ultimate recruitment philosophy to Kentucky and sold it as the way of the future, angry fans imagined a domination of Saban-type sports. It did not happen.
There was a national title in 2012. The last Final Four was in 2015. Since then, the seasons have tended to all follow the same hectic pace: the cats would start terribly, then round out late.
Kentucky fans, more than anyone else, want to win every game. Giving them a seasonal bow that includes doses of early misery is a hard sell. Every November and December, fans swear they’re tired of Cal’s formula – then they’re mitigated by substantial improvements afterwards. But the reward didn’t include the game for long on the final weekend of the season, given the standards Calipari helped set in the first half of his term at Lexington.
There are slow starts and then there is the current disaster. The decisions of the Calipari staff were fried. His crime has been labeled obsolete. But the essence of the problem has not changed over the years: Cal embraces a constant list, full of youth, in an age when titles are won by more experienced teams. (As a longtime program observer said on Thursday, “Fans like one thing, as long as it goes to the Final Four. It’s been a while.”)
“Get older, stay old”, is the current mantra of sport. But not in Lexington.
Being a basketball coach in Kentucky is a great job, but a hard one. Since the end of Adolph Rupp’s 42-year term in 1972, there have been six coaches with an average term of eight seasons. Calipari, in the 12th year, exceeded the average.
Maybe the anthem’s controversy is the struggle it needs to sustain itself. Choosing that battle in the middle of a losing season is a risky strategy – but also a useful demonstration of support for its players. Even though many of the program’s red state fans hated it.