By LARRY VAUGHT

John Calipari had a lot of choices he could have made when he picked his director of basketball operations at Kentucky. However, he found a name familiar to Kentucky fans — Martin Newton.

For the past 13 years, Martin Newton was Nike’s college basketball manager after spending the previous 13 working in sales and promotions for Converse. He’s also the son of former UK athletics director C.M. Newton and has worked as a color analyst for the UK TV Network.

Calipari said he couldn’t trust someone 24 or 25 years of age just trying to break into college basketball to have this job.

“He is responsible for everything that is going on in our office. He has my schedule along with my assistant Lunetha (Pryor). They both coordinate where I am and what I am supposed to do. They will text me the night before here is what you have tomorrow.

“You can’t miss the Rotary. You can’t miss Kiwanis. You can’t miss a meeting or breakfast you are supposed to be at. The 25-year-old who went out the night before will say, ‘Coach, I am sorry. I just forgot to tell you.’ No. You can’t forget to tell me. That is the biggest donor we have. I was supposed to be at breakfast. At Kentucky, you can’t do that. At other places you don’t have as much stuff going on.

“Martin comes in with a wealth of knowledge of Kentucky. He lived in Lexington. He knows all the people. He helps me from stubbing my toes, which I have at times. His job is to make sure when I am walking in that I know who is who and he does it. His background in Kentucky has been good for us.”

Newton plans to make changes to Calipari’s TV show. But more importantly, he wants to make sure he finds ways to help keep the coach accessible to UK fans.

“Cal has shown a lot with social networking and accessibility. If you are going to have a program that is about the state and that is what you are going to tout, then you have to be accessible. People have got to be able to touch you and feel you. You can’t put yourself up on a pedestal and have everyone below  you,” Newton said. “A great example was camping out with Big Blue Madness people. He was right there with them. That is the kind of things we are going to do. We want more accessibility where you are out touching the fans and stuff like that.

“We are going to work with Nike and make sure from a uniform and footwear standpoint that we are the most relevant, hip, out of culture team that there is. You have to respect that past because a lot went into building that, but we have to represent the future and what these kids ages 12 to 18 are all about now.”

Don’t look for Newton to tinker with things like pregame introductions. He calls those “small potatoes” and that he’s looking more at the “big picture” items with Calipari.

“How do we continue to make this a strong brand within Kentucky but expand those borders. Just look at the marketing pitch already. Everything is about one world, one big blue nation. We are trying to do stuff in China. We are trying to do stuff in New York, Chicago, LA, Atlanta, Miami and all these markets where Nike and others focus on that Kentucky has kind of forgot about. We have to get in those areas and think outside the box and take different approaches to build that brand in those areas. That’s my job. To help John think outside the box.”

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