By LARRY VAUGHT

Because he played at the University of Kentucky, Mike Pratt knows he has a bias for the Wildcats.

His professional playing career or collegiate coaching career didn’t change his belief that UK was the premier basketball school in the country. Certainly his time working as an analyst for the UK Radio Network didn’t alter that belief.

However, his limited time as an advisor on the search committee that brought John Calipari to Kentucky did enlighten Pratt a bit.

“I found out that you as UK fans think UK can hire anybody it wants, and I sort of felt the same way,” said Pratt said during a talk to the UK Ohio Convention in Middletown, Ohio. “I found out the college basketball world has really changed. We have a great practice facility, Rupp Arena and play on TV all the time, but a lot of schools are on TV, have great practice facilities and play in nice arenas now.

“The playing field has really leveled. And that includes money. Tom Izzo (at Michigan State) makes $3 million (per year). The coach at Pitt makes $2 million. The coach at UCLA $3 million. They don’t want to leave where they are to live in the glass bowl at Kentucky.”

Pratt says no coach with the possible exception of Roy Williams at North Carolina “lives in the glass bowl that is UK basketball” and that impacted the search for a new coach after Billy Gillispie was fired.

“There are a lot of good coaches out there making maybe $1.5 million (per year) that are not in a glass bowl. They think, ‘Do I want to go to Kentucky and double my salary and have everything I do reported on?’ That means a lot to coaches not to be in that glass bowl,” Pratt said.

“Impossible hire”
At times, Pratt felt like president Lee Todd and athletics director Mitch Barnhart were trying to make “an impossible hire” because so many people had different ideas about what the “perfect” coach for UK would be.

“I heard about a million things to look for in the coach,” Pratt laughed and said.

However, Pratt knows UK got the “right guy” in Calipari when he agreed to leave Memphis for Kentucky.

“He relishes living in the huge glass bowl. Two years from now he may change his mind, but today he loves it,” Pratt said. “I’ve always been a Cal fan. He genuinely likes people and in this job that is very important. It’s also why he can recruit so well. Kids like him and know he is a sincere guy.”

Pratt explained how he helped make contact with various people close to different coaches to gauge interest in the UK job. He knew Calipari was ready to make the move when a friend he has working in the NBA called him while scouting players in Europe during the NCAA Tournament.

“We talked over an hour and from that point forward I knew in my heart that Cal was really interested,” Pratt said. “The next day I told that to Mitch.”

Not long after that Pratt, Todd, Barnhart and associate athletics director Rob Mullens flew from Bardstown to Chicago for a 3 1/2-hour meeting with Calipari.

“They laid out how they wanted the basketball program run. Cal listened and then he told them how he did it at Memphis and how he would do it at Kentucky,” Pratt said. “He was the ambassador they didn’t have (with Gillispie).”

Calipari made one statement that excited Pratt.

Kentucky being Kentucky
“He said, ‘Guys, over the last few years when Kentucky came in a gym (to recruit), nobody was afraid. I used to leave when Kentucky came in to recruit. When I walk in as Kentucky’s coach, people are going to walk out and we are going to go back to Kentucky being Kentucky.’ I knew then how much he had done his homework and that he wanted the job even more than I realized,” Pratt said.

What Pratt wouldn’t do is guarantee that UK would win a national championship this season, or any time in the next 10 years.

“Cal understands players win championships. My coach, Adolph Rupp, used to say, ‘Boys, donkeys don’t win the (Kentucky) Derby. Cal knows that,” Pratt said. “In the next five to 10 years here, it’s going to be a lot of fun. We are back in the (championship) conversation and that’s the way it should be at Kentucky.”

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