By LARRY VAUGHT

While he’s an admitted John Calipari fan, there was a time that former Clarion State College coach Joe DeGregorio left Calipari stranded in Philadelphia because he was late for a team bus.
DeGregorio, an ex-Marine who now likes to spend time playing golf with “Johnny” as he calls him, says his team has to travel by vans when it went to play at the time Calipari played for him.
“We were playing Philly Textile, which was  ranked sixth or something in Division II. At our pregame meal, Johnny wasn’t there. So we went to the game without him,” DeGregorio said.
What happened? Where was Calipari? Why was he late?
“He will tell you we had five or six players in a room and he was the last guy in the shower and and a lot of other stuff. We left and that night we sat him out for amount of time after he got to the game,” DeGregorio said.
“We lost that game. John now says to his coaching staff if the top seven players are on our bus, that’s when we leave. It was a lesson he learned from me that was not really the lesson I wanted to teach.
“But seriously, I taught him about being on time. Ninety-nine percent of the time he was on time, too. We were  on a tight (time) budget. We did leave him. He had to get his own breakfast, and then we didn’t play him. I am not saying we lost because Johnny did not start because they had good club and they beat us. But he probably still feels that way to this day.”