ESPN NCAA Tournament 2008

Originally Published: April 3, 2008

Calipari fights for respect -- for himself and school

Comment Email Print Share

By Tim Griffin
ESPN.com
Archive

HOUSTON -- Shortly after the biggest victory of his Memphis coaching tenure, John Calipari felt obliged to stop in the middle of his postgame press conference to alter All-American guard Chris Douglas-Roberts' regional championship cap.

[+] Enlarge

Joe Murphy/Getty ImagesJohn Calipari has led his team to three straight 30-win seasons.

When watching Douglas-Roberts' interview on a television monitor after his team dismantled Texas, Calipari wanted his program's image portrayed in a more positive manner than what he saw. So he quietly twisted the bill around for his standout guard's headgear.

"The reason I turned around his hat ... is I get disappointed when these young people are judged how they wear a hat," Calipari said.

"They are judged by a tattoo. If you ask me about my team and said, 'Who has a tattoo?' or 'Who doesn't?' you might not believe this, but I look at their eyes. I don't look at their body that way...

"They are intelligent and they are great kids. But because of our style, it's like, 'Well, they don't have any organization. They just jump, run around and shoot balls.'"

Calipari has been battling that stigma throughout his eight-season coaching tenure with the Tigers. It underscores his fight for respect -- both for himself and his program -- heading into Saturday's semifinal game against UCLA.

The Final Four will highlight three of college basketball's most storied programs. Kansas, UCLA and North Carolina have combined for 17 national titles and 48 Final Four trips (including this postseason). Early Kansas basketball coach James Naismith invented the game. UCLA coach John Wooden set a record with 10 national championships. And North Carolina coach Dean Smith elevated it with two more titles, including one led by the sport's most transcendent recent star, Michael Jordan.

And Calipari will be bringing his hardscrabble program in from the outside. College basketball's "dead-end kids" are 37-1 and need only one more victory to set the single-season record by an NCAA Division I team.

In a sense, three of the sport's blue bloods will be meeting up with the blue-collar group that's crashing the party. These Tigers are more closely linked with predecessors like Jerry Tarkanian's UNLV teams of the early 1990s or Nolan Richardson's "Forty Minutes of Hell" Arkansas squad that also battled for respect outside the sport's hierarchy.

Hidden Truth: Memphis

Did Memphis beef up its statistics against Conference USA opponents? The numbers say the Tigers proved themselves against top-notch competition as well. Andy Glockner

Many pundits presumed Memphis to be the first of the No. 1 seeds to be eliminated in the tournament. Some critics have mocked Memphis' record because of its conference affiliation. The Tigers' free-throw shooting struggles have been a prime topic of conversation most of the season.

"It means a lot for us to get here," Memphis freshman guard Derrick Rose said. "All the stuff we had to fight through just to get people to notice us. We're just little ol' Memphis. We have to make a statement every game to let people know we'll compete no matter what conference we're from or what the name is on our chest."

It's been the same way for their coach, who has become one of the most polarizing persons in his profession because of his brash persona. To some, he's a breath of fresh air who has built a backwater program into a national power on the brink of one of college basketball's most memorable seasons. Others see him as a slick recruiter whose on-court acumen doesn't match his salesmanship skills.

"It's a lot easier from a BCS league," Calipari said. "But we force our way into that talk, and it makes people mad. They write and say things, oh my gosh, it's vicious. I don't know why, but we've got to force our way into that mix of teams."

Calipari says he's older and wiser than when he took Massachusetts to the 1996 Final Four with Marcus Camby. That program flamed out as quickly as it was built, with Calipari leaving for a whopping NBA contract in the wake of reports that Camby violated NCAA rules by accepting cash gifts from sports agents.

From there, Calipari was humbled in the NBA. Despite leading the traditionally struggling New Jersey Nets to the playoffs by his second season, he was dumped after losing 17 of his first 20 games to start the 1998 season.

But that disappointment only steeled him for a second chance. He went back to the NBA as an assistant to his coaching mentor, Larry Brown, and waited for another opportunity.

It means a lot for us to get here. All the stuff we had to fight through just to get people to notice us. We're just little ol' Memphis.

--Memphis guard Derrick Rose

"I've been fired and I know how hard this is," Calipari said. "This is ridiculously hard, and you can never please everybody. And if you listen to the people in the seats, you're going to be sitting with them."

His break happened at Memphis, which was looking for a new direction after Tic Price was let go after the 1999-2000 season.

After Calipari was hired, the Tigers won only one NCAA tournament game in his first five seasons. All of his teams won at least 20 games, but his sixth-place Conference USA finish in 2005 had his critics carping.

As a reminder of those struggles, Calipari keeps 14 "For Sale" signs he said he collected from his front yard after some of the earlier disappointments.

But veteran players like Douglas-Roberts and Joey Dorsey have helped Calipari build a program; he is the first coach since Adolph Rupp to record three straight 30-win seasons.

The new Calipari also has proven to be adaptable. His current team runs a much less structured offense than his Massachusetts teams, although he likes to call the offense "Princeton on Steroids." And his collection of long, springy athletes provides defensive challenges unlike many in college basketball.

But his leadership style hasn't changed much over the years.

"He keeps it real and doesn't sugarcoat anything," Rose said. "If you mess up, he's going to tell you. You have to learn to live with that."

And his tough-love handling of his players occasionally is a challenge for some not used to those ways.

"When I first started playing for him, I couldn't believe how he was talking to us. He curses. He's very sarcastic," Douglas-Roberts said. "But that's just his way of motivating us."

[+] Enlarge

Joe Murphy/Getty ImagesDerrick Rose has learned to live with John Calipari's tough-love approach.

For a diverse group like the Tigers, that style works, Douglas-Roberts said.

"A lot of people can't play for coach Cal, but the types of guys who are at this school, we know we need that to be successful," Douglas-Roberts said. "We need people telling us the truth, because everybody else is always telling us what we want to hear. He's a major factor, not only as a coach but an elder, telling us what we need to do to get better in our lives."

Victories over Texas-Arlington, Mississippi State, Michigan State and Texas have pushed them to San Antonio brimming with confidence. Memphis hasn't trailed in the second half in any of those games and has committed only 20 turnovers in the past three games.

Memphis' run to the Final Four was capped by an impressive victory over Texas in a mammoth football stadium packed with Longhorns enthusiasts. The Tigers reacted by jumping to a quick 10-point lead in the first five minutes and never trailed in a crushing 85-67 victory that was the Longhorns' largest margin of defeat this season.

"They made us play Texas in Texas," Calipari said. "That game we were supposed to lose -- it was played in front of 30,000 Longhorn fans -- and we won.

"The only thing I told our team before the game was, 'This is our time. It doesn't matter what they throw at us. This is our time.'"

The same can be said about their coach, who has similarly waited for his upcoming opportunity, too.

Tim Griffin covers college football and basketball for ESPN.com. He can be reached at espntimgriff@yahoo.com.