By LARRY VAUGHT

Selling the University of Kentucky basketball program must seem easy to John Calipari. After all, if you can make money renting trailers as a college student, convincing recruits to play for the Wildcats couldn’t be that hard.

Joe DeGregorio, Calipari’s coach at Clarion University, fondly remembers the non-basketball side of Calipari.

“John was not just basketball player or student. He was entrepreneur,? said DeGregorio. “I saw that little stinker play about 10 times in high school and he wants to come to Clarion. But they all want to be at a Division I school. John ended up at NC-Wilmnington. We had a better chance of winning a title at Clarion than they did at Wilmington. Finally he realized he wanted to come back to Pennsylvania and I was glad he did.”

By his senior year at Clarion, Calipari was ready to move out of the dorm. He moved into a trailer near campus and began to wonder if he could maybe make money by owning a trailer and renting to other students. The problem was that trailers were too expensive.

“He couldn?t find any he could afford,? DeGregorio said. “But somehow he heard about some trailers over in Frogtown. I don?t remember who told him, but he went to Frogtown, which was about 20 or 25 miles away and found this lady with an old trailer.

“He bought it and then found out she had a couple of more he could afford, so he bought another one with some help from his father. He purchased two used trailers, put them on a lot and rented them to students while he was still a student.”

That let DeGregorio know he was even more special than he originally understood.

“You could then John would be a success no matter what he decided to do. How many students can buy trailers, rent to other students and make money? I can match him with X’s and O’s on coaching, but he is a businessman and salesman,” DeGregorio said. “That’s what makes him special. He can sell his vision for players on how to make them better, and then when they listen he does make them better. That little stinker could always do things nobody else could and now he’s going to be doing that for Kentucky.”

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