Kentucky head coach John Calipari addresses the crowd gathered at Big Blue Madness last year at Rupp Arena. (Clay Jackson photo)
By LARRY VAUGHT
It’s easy to understand why the Coaches vs. Cancer is such an important, personal event for UK coach John Calipari and why he will again be participating in today’s game against LSU.
“Here’s what I would say to you: One, you’re put in a position when you’re the coach at Kentucky that you can move people for good or you can stay in your office. I’ve said it many times. They asked me to do this, and I’ve got a lot on my plate, we’ve done a lot of stuff for a lot of different things, but my mother died of cancer,” Calipari said. “Both of my grandmothers had a form of blood ‘cancer,’ and both passed away from cancer.
“It’s something that I look at and I just say, ‘If we can help here at the University of Kentucky, if that makes a difference in that cause, you can text I think ‘2Coach’ – 20022 – and it’s five dollars to cancer. The Big Blue Nation (is) charitable, compassionate, spiritual. They are so many good things. I think that’s why they asked me to do it, to engage the Big Blue Nation. And I think it’s something that is good.”
3 Responses to UK coach John Calipari expects compassionate, charitable UK fans to help with Coaches versus Cancer
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So why does he take his basketball shoes off at the half. Right when they talked about it and showed the LSWho coach with them on, they pan to Cal and he has loafers on. DUH! That is not showing much support.
He said the shoes were uncomfortable. And (my take), he couldn’t stomp as loudly with sneakers as he could with his loafers to get the players’ attention.
I didn’t notice until halfway through the second half. I saw that all the coaches on both teams had white sneakers on and Cal didn’t. I was wondering why. Now I know. It doesn’t seem very “Cal-like” for him to do that.