Bio

For the official Coach Calipari biography, we ask that you check out the UK Athletics Site here.

The following was written by David Scott, Senior Sports Content Manager/Editor for CoachCal.com:

He was a rising star in college basketball. I was a green and naive college kid writing for the school newspaper. It was the Fall of 1991 and the coach was coming off his first (of many) 20-win seasons.

Anticipation for the upcoming hoops season was at a fever pitch - a completely new phenomenon for the University of Massachusetts which had just come off its first back-to-back plus-.500 seasons in 13 years.

The night of Midnight Madness arrived and I was assigned to do a quick feature on the event for The Massachusetts Daily Collegian. It wasn't my first story for the student paper - I had helped out on the football beat - but it was definitely the most high profile. My plan for the night was to scope out the scene outside the Curry Hicks Cage, an old barn of a basketball arena where Dr. J once toiled and where the Mass Madness was being held.

I would get quotes from students waiting in line outside for the night's festivities, some "color" of the happening and hopefully a quick quote from the head coach and a player. (If memory serves, it was one of many nights when the coach would provide pizza for the adoring fans who waited in line.)

With a midnight deadline, I would then rush back to the Campus Center basement where the paper's offices were, cull together a 750-word story and then probably pass out from exhaustion, nerves and excitement.

It was my first, real chance at deadline writing and the rush I was getting while scrambling to piece together a feature that would be played prominently on the sports page was a feeling I would thrive on years later. At that time though, I was just hoping not to vomit on my keyboard.

I leafed through my notepad, used all the "money" quotes I had collected and with about 20 minutes to spare, I forwarded the story to an editor, who quickly passed it along for layout.

"Happy with it?" asked the editor after he had put the paper to bed.

"Pretty much," I said. "I think I nailed it."

The next morning, I rushed to the first stack of papers I could find, turned to the back page and smiled a bit at my byline under the headline "Madness at The Cage" (or something to that effect).

The smile lasted about two seconds.

I began reading my own words. Two paragraphs in, the first quote I used was from the young, up-and-coming coach:

"This is the start of what we hope will be a great season and our fans are just incredible," said Jim Calipari.

I read it again. And again. And again. Each time it said "Jim" instead of "John." Each time my heart sank lower and lower.

With most of my writing to that point focused on UMass football, I had mixed up the first names of the football coach - Jim Reid - and the basketball coach - John Calipari.

I wanted to dig a hole and hide in it until the basketball season ended. Or longer.

I rushed to the paper's offices, checked a few more editions to confirm the error had been printed in all the papers and sat crestfallen behind a computer terminal. I knew what I had to do.

I picked up the phone, called the men's basketball office and asked for Coach Calipari. I was put right through.

"Coach, this is David Scott at The Collegian," I stammered.

"Hi David."

"Coach, I have to apologize," I said. "I called you 'Jim' instead of 'John' in my story today. I feel awful."

"That's okay, David," he laughed. "I've been called a lot worse!"

We talked for a few minutes, I apologized about a hundred times more and Coach Calipari continued to tell me to not worry about it.

"You got the last name right," he said. "Hope to see you at practice."

That was my first, true introduction to John Vincent Calipari. In the nearly two decades since, I've probably typed his name - correctly - thousands of times for newspaper stories, magazine articles, blog entries and most recently the book I was fortunate enough to work on with him, "Bounce Back."

We've both come a long way from the early-1990s in Amherst, Massachusetts. Coach has been to two Final Fours, the NBA and the University of Memphis among other places. I forwarded my writing career at various stops including College Sports Magazine, Sports Illustrated for Kids and SPORT Magazine.

Over the years, we have always stayed in touch, even when our respective careers took us in different directions. I was at the press conference when he was introduced in New Jersey and by his side after the Kansas loss in the 2008 title game. I've seen Coach in his absolute best and yes, even during some of his worst times (although it's hard to distinguish those moments with such a positive and inspirational man).

I've watched from afar as his children grew from little peanuts who used to crawl on the floor of The Cage into incredible young adults. I've seen firsthand what a wonderful and supportive wife Ellen has always been.

In essence, I have seen the evolution of the Coach who is now at the helm of YOUR University of Kentucky program. He has gone from the new kid on the block to the wily veteran. He went from "itchy shoes" to "Gucci shoes" and from The Cage to Rupp - but through it all he has never strayed too far from the little boy from Moon Township, Pennsylvania who used to spend his afternoons pretending to be Fran Tarkenton or Ilie Nastase or Arnold Palmer.

He was a dreamer back then and he continues to dream, especially of the new heights Kentucky basketball can rise to. When he says he is humbled to be YOUR coach, you can take him at his word. He feels the history and the responsibility of this job every day and will never stop living to those ideals.

Best of all? No one refers to him as "Jim" anymore.