Cal Gone: Dead To Memphis

That's the headline that the student paper gave to University of Kentucky Head Coach John Calipari on Wednesday.

Here's some of the greatest hits from a Geoff Calkins column about what Calipari was able to do for not just the University of Memphis, but the town of Memphis also.

"...this will not make it any easier for the Memphis fans who fell hard for Calipari, who thought next season would be the season the Tigers finally won it all.

It will not make it easier for a city that — let’s be honest about it — cares a little bit too much about its college basketball team.

This is not to say that college basketball isn’t important other places. It’s not to suggest that Memphis is uniquely nutty about this stuff.

But have you watched yourselves these last few days? Have you noticed the craziness — even the desperation — of it all?

Every news channel gave itself over to the story. A TV chopper hovered over Calipari’s house.

Early Tuesday morning, this newspaper reported that Calipari had spent exactly eight minutes talking to some old friends at Gibson’s Donuts, on Mt. Moriah.

Within minutes, the television cameras descended on the place.
What sort of donuts did he eat?
Did he look like he was staying or going?
What exactly did he say?

Then the crowd started to gather in front of Calipari’s house. Just random people, taking time off from their lives to plead with a basketball coach to do his job here instead of somewhere else.

Trevor Berryhill, 24, planted himself at Highland and Poplar with a sign.
“I heard he was out driving around,” he said.

So he stood there. At Highland and Poplar. This kind of thing can’t possibly be all about basketball, can it?

And it’s not, of course. It’s about our fragile sense of ourselves. When Calipari was on national television, Memphis was on national television. When Calipari was winning big, Memphis was winning big.

So what if the city had a lousy mayor and an empty Pyramid and a soul-crushing problem with crime? It had a totally kick-butt basketball coach.

And now the basketball coach was leaving. Going to Kentucky. Leaving Memphis with the mayor and The Pyramid and the crime.

Memphis supporters made these exact points to Calipari. They asked him if maybe, possibly, this is where he was meant to be.

Calipari thought about it. He chose to leave anyway. He is, after all, a basketball coach.

So maybe that’s the lesson here. Not to care less about basketball. But to see how nutty it is to let it define who we are.

Calipari is not as saintly as you thought he was a week ago. He’s not as loathsome as you think he is now.

He’s a basketball coach. Just a basketball coach. Tuesday — maybe as a favor to us all — he certainly made that clear."

Here's WREG's team coverage...


And the Memphis AD, RC Johnson, with his full press conference...