LOUISVILLE, Ky. – When he took the knee, John Calipari had to know what was coming.
He has lived in Kentucky, one of America’s reddest states, since 2009. In the November presidential election, Donald Trump captured 62 percent of the vote in the state, winning 118 of the 120 counties – the only exceptions being the two largest, Jefferson and Fayette. , home to the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky, respectively. Jefferson may be the only county in the state that isn’t the majority of UK fans, and even here, Big Blue’s following is significant.
In other words, it goes without saying that the fans who follow Calipari’s team passionately are mostly conservative Republicans. And conservative Republicans are overwhelmingly not for athletes who kneel in protest during the national anthem – especially college athletes. And yet, Cal joined his Kentucky players on one knee before the Wildcats played in Florida on Saturday, three days after the deadly riot in Washington, DC.
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“It’s just a peaceful way to protest and raise awareness of the things that have happened recently,” said Olivier Sarr, Kentucky center, this week.
Calipari said the players wanted him to join them, so he did. “I knelt with them because I support the boys,” he said, later doubting that it was “probably not a very good time” for the team to take a knee.
It was definitely time to make the statement. Risks and all. Perhaps this was the perennially belligerent Cal starting a new battle – with his own constituency.
At the time, a coach whose approval rating had already fallen from a 1-6 start to the season – the worst for Kentucky in more than a century – took even more on his shoulders. In the authoritarian world of college sports, some coaches would have rejected the idea altogether. Others would have tried to stop their players from making a statement at a loaded moment. Still others would have approved but not participated.
Cal joined them, putting him on a very short list of college coaches who have taken a knee before a game during the national anthem. Major athletics shows are so terrified of anthem controversies that many of them don’t even have their players on the pitch or field when the “Star Spangled Banner” is played – a classic College Sports Inc. evasion. (According to The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky even has its basketball team in the locker this season when the national anthem is played at home games.)
Calipari went there and his players appreciated it. “I think it was really powerful that the coach did it with us,” said Sarr.
It took some guts. It took Cal his constant ‘player first’ mantra into action to do anything other than try to recruit the next wave of talent.
Then the hysteria came. Kentucky blew out the Gators with by far their best performance of the season, and it was barely registered by the backlash. There was certainly some support, and not all dissent was exaggerated. But some of the sentiment was right and contrary to the usual fanatic love of basketball in Kentucky.
John Root is the Sheriff in Laurel County, where Trump received more than 77 percent of the vote in November. He posted a video to Facebook with jailor Jamie Moseley in which they threw British basketball jerseys into a burning cylinder. “This is what I think of the program, Coach, until you can get these guys under control and lead by example,” Root said in the video.
Mike Mitchell is the Judge Executive in Knox County, where Trump received 83 percent of the vote. He submitted a resolution calling on the state to essentially defund the university. The resolution introduced: “Call to action to denounce the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team and coaching staff for refusing to stand up during the national anthem of the United States of America. This action lacks respect for the veterans who have served our country. “
While the Commonwealth was fuming, Kentucky played its next game on Tuesday-evening. The Wildcats were routed at home by Alabama, 85-65, and dropped to 4-7. It was Calipari’s worst loss at Rupp Arena, and the program’s worst since 1988. And now Cal is being gunned down for everything – not winning, insulting patriots and, well, not winning.
Brad McClenny / The Gainesville Sun / USA Today Network
One thing to keep in mind with Calipari: the registered independent can be a political chameleon, depending on what suits their needs. There have been photo surgeries with Bill Clinton and John Kerry, as well as with ultra-conservative former Kentucky governor Matt Bevin. He long ago came into contact with Trump donor and Big Blue booster Joe Craft, namesake of the program’s lavish practice facility.
Regardless, he has always been a stubborn defender of his players, especially black players. (Sometimes an enabler.) Whether he is motivated by what he believes is right or as a permanent recruiting stance is open to guesswork. But as the anthem controversy continued to simmer on Thursday, Cal’s all-caps tweet was consistent with who he was: “I STAND WITH, FOR AND THROUGH MY PLAYERS. ALWAYS HAVE AND ALWAYS WILL! “
Some longtime Kentucky observers believe fan reactions to the controversy and loss are separate – that many of them would still be furious with Calipari, even if his team were 11-0. Others believe that the kneeling gasoline is poured onto a bonfire by losing. As one fan put it on a fan message board in Kentucky on Thursday, “This is like when you have a bad relationship with someone and everything they do is disturbing you. That’s the Cal / fans relationship right now. “
Is the end of the relationship near? Maybe, but it would be financially unaffordable for the school to end the scheme. In another classic prime from College Sports Inc. Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart in 2019 gave the then-60-year-old Calipari a so-called “ lifetime contract ” – a 10-year deal with a salary escalating from $ 7.6 million to $ 8.6 million, with options to add even more. to make. Cal had squinted at UCLA and Kentucky reacted dramatically.
This is despite the fact that returns have declined over the course of Calipari’s tenure in the UK. Bringing his one-and-done recruiting philosophy to Kentucky and selling it as the road of the future, the rabid fanbase envisioned a Saban-esque dominance for the sport. It didn’t happen.
There was one national title, in 2012. The last Final Four was in 2015. Since then, the seasons have all followed the same, annoying rhythm: the Cats would start terribly and get in shape late.
Kentucky fans want to win every game more than anyone else. It’s hard to give them a seasonal arc that packs a dose of misery early on. Every November and December, fans swear they’ve had enough of Cal’s formula – and are later softened by substantial improvements. But the pay was far from including playing the final weekend of the season, given the standards Calipari helped set in the first half of his Lexington tenure.
There are slow starts, and then there is the current debacle. The decisions of the Calipari staff are scheduled. His offense is labeled obsolete. But the gist of the problem hasn’t changed in years: Cal embraces a constantly swirling squad of youth in an era where titles are won by more experienced teams. (As one veteran program observer put it on Thursday, “Fans love the one-and-done as long as it gets to the Final Four. It’s been a while.”)
“Get old, stay old” is the current mantra of the sport. But not in Lexington.
Being a basketball coach in Kentucky is a great job, but a tough one. Since Adolph Rupp’s 42-year tenure ended in 1972, there have been six coaches with an average tenure of eight seasons. Calipari has surpassed the average in year 12.
Perhaps the anthem controversy is the fight it needs to keep going. Picking that fight in the middle of a losing season is a risky strategy, but also valuable evidence of support for his players. Even if many of the program’s red-state fans hated it.