WILDCATS

Outsider no more: Calipari in Hall of Fame

Kyle Tucker
@KyleTucker_CJ
The 2015 class of inductee John Calipari, center, reacts as fellow inductees Dick Bavetta, left, and Louis Dampier, right, listen, during a news conference at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame,Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015, in Springfield, Mass.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – John Calipari says a lot of things for effect, but on Thursday he seemed instead affected as he told a crowd at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame: "I never thought I'd be standing up here," having just slid his arms into the official jacket to kick off three days of enshrinement celebration.

While this year's 10 other inductees spoke, Calipari's eyes kept wandering upward, toward the ceiling, where his picture is now alongside all the greats.

"I was looking at the founders of the game," he said. "I had friends of mine who are Hall of Famers that said, 'You're going to get there, up on that stage, and there's going to be an emotion that goes through your body when you realize you're in the fraternity.'"

Thursday's press conference was just a warm-up. Friday night is the official ceremony, where Calipari's primary objectives are to avoid crying and giving a speech so long he gets the hook.

"I'm kind of nervous and excited," he said. "I'm feeling stuff I normally don't feel."

Sullivan | Memphis feels Calipari backlash

Because this is a place he never thought he belonged – or at least that he never believed he'd be accepted. Despite leading Massachusetts, Memphis and Kentucky to the Final Four (the Cats have now been four times in the last five years), Calipari has always seen himself as a party crasher and not an invited guest.

"He never put it explicitly, but it was always pretty clear how much it meant to him to get on what he considered the right side of the rope, and it bothered him that he wasn't accepted, arms wide open, by the establishment," said CBS analyst Gary Parrish, who covered Calipari for the Memphis Commercial Appeal from 2001 to 2006. "He'd always been the UMass coach or the Memphis coach, but he'd never been the Carolina coach or the Kansas coach. And there was a time it didn't look like he would get that opportunity."

The Kentucky job, which Calipari now credits with legitimizing him as a Hall of Famer, came open two years before he actually got it.

"He would've killed for that job. He didn't even get a phone call," said Parrish, who has probably spent more time around Calipari than any reporter. At UK, where he is inundated with media requests, Calipari has built a wall around himself. But back then, he communicated daily with the Tigers' only newspaper beat writer via text message or phone call – or not uncommonly by Parrish interviewing the always-in-a-hurry coach through a shower curtain after practice.

All of that to say: "I know that hurt him on some level when he couldn't even get a phone call from Kentucky when it opened, when Jay Wright got a phone call, and Rick Barnes got a phone call, and obviously Billy Gillispie got a phone call," Parrish said. "I think he thought at that moment he was forever going to be an outsider, and that was always going to bother him."

Cats fill in blank: "John Calipari is ..."

Because to Calipari, it didn't matter if he won 30 games at UMass in 1992 or 35 games – including one against eventual national champion Kentucky – in 1996. It didn't matter if he won at least 33 games each of his final four seasons at Memphis, including a trip to the NCAA title game.

If he didn't do it as coach of a traditional power, "you're not getting the respect you deserve," Calipari said Thursday. "You know the kind of program we had at Memphis? There was a 5-year period we were as good as anyone – maybe in the last 50 years. But we didn't get that kind of respect."

But then, in 2009, after the Gillispie hire proved to be disastrous, the Wildcats finally came calling. When they did, Calipari's career went supersonic. And on that stage, everyone was watching.

"It's just different," he said. "It's got a different ring to it."

Calipari will also have a different ring – in addition to his 2012 national championship jewelry – by the end of this weekend: the ring worn by just five other active Hall of Fame coaches. He has invited nearly everyone he knows to come celebrate the moment.

His expected guest list for the ceremony includes 15 former Memphis players, 20 former Kentucky players (and the current roster), 27 former UMass players – stars Marcus Camby, Derrick Rose, Anthony Davis, John Wall and Karl-Anthony Towns among them – plus 158 other friends, family and staff.

"He told me he looked at the Hall of Fame as 'that thing for those guys.' He never thought that he would be accepted into that company, especially with the controversy he's had for most of his career," said Sporting News columnist Mike DeCourcy, acknowledging Calipari's vacated Final Fours at UMass and Memphis – and the in-your-face style Calipari used to get attention and rub many the wrong way when he was starting out.

'Kentucky changed everything' for Calipari

The coach chose DeCourcy, who he's known since the late 1980s, to write an article about Calipari for the official Hall of Fame program. DeCourcy also wrote an exhaustive, five-part series on his path from underdog to enshrinement for TSN.

"In the time I spent with him to do the program piece, I saw a side of him that I'd never really seen in 30 years," DeCourcy said. "He was genuinely moved by the fact that he was invited in on the first ballot. I don't think giddy is quite on the money, but it wasn't far from that."

Calipari's joy, surprise even, was apparent Thursday as he scanned those photos of James Naismith and John Wooden and Dean Smith with a look of wonder. He's in their club now. The emotion was evident as his eyes welled up while he tried to describe how Camby helped him launch this Hall of Fame career.

"I think it's the ultimate moment for him where he can finally say, 'I've been accepted by the establishment,'" Parrish said. "Like, 'I am Mike Krzyzewski. I am Roy Williams. I am Rick Pitino.' I don't know that he ever expected this, but I know he always wanted it."

Kyle Tucker can be reached at (502) 582-4361. Email him at ktucker@courier-journal.com.