Never mind the bullocks … UK fans need to cut Calipari a break over HIS website
By Staff
This has officially gotten way out of hand. For some reason lately, it just seems that some UK fans can not be happy for the sake of being happy. There always has to be a little thread to pick at and pull at until a huge, ugly hole has unravelled. For about the last decade, the BBN has been a constant hotbed of turmoil as Tubby Smith’s career and every decision was dissected and broke down. Then came the tumultuous two year reign of Billy Gillispie and the drama reached an epic level, some of it deservedly so. The latest “travesty” is over Calipari’s website, http://www.coachcal.com/ and his decision to charge for some content on the site.
Never mind the fact that 90% of the site is FREE. Like the unceremonious dismissal of Landon Slone a couple of months ago, some UK fans has taken this as their cause to rail against UK and Calipari for whatever reason. “Fans” have flooded Calipari’s Facebook wall and called him greedy, accused him of questioning the fanhood of true fans who do not pay money, and demanding an actual accounting breakdown as to exactly what part of their $4 a month goes to pad Calipari’s pockets.
To be honest, it’s all nonsense.
First, the site is Calipari’s PERSONAL site and is not affiliated with the UKAA. The money that is collected will go to Calipari’s Charities and to offset the cost of the site. I have not seen one account that could prove that Calipari himself is making a dime off this site. The annual rate for the site is $34 a year (with the 15% twitter discount) which breaks down roughly to $2.83 a month. With that membership, you also get a T-shirt and a hat. Sounds like a bargain to me compared to most sites that charge much more for far less.
Secondly, do we really want to spend our time getting that upset over this? For the past two years, fans screamed that Gillispie was aloof, did no care about the fans, did not “get what it meant to be the coach of UK”, and was a horrible malcontent. Now, UK went out and hired, arguably the biggest name coach, and all he has done is transform the program with the number one recruiting class ever. We have a coach that sends out her personal musings via twitter everyday to the Big Blue Nation. We have a coach that loves the fans as much as the fans love UK basketball. We have a coach that sends us pictures of his daughters in bikinis … for free. Do we really want to spoil this honeymoon over $2.83 a month?
I understand that times are tough for a lot of people. And because of that charitable donations are done. Way down. So who can really blame Calipari for trying to help others and come up with new ways to try and do so? This is the same coach that single handily teamed with Papa Johns to raise money for the Kentucky Children’s Hospital and his own foundation. To be honest, I can’t recall the former UK basketball coach doing so much for charities in such a short period of time. Or have a website to interact with the fanbase. Look Calipari is doing his best to do some good. Can we cut the man some slack?
But it’s a free country. If you feel the need to vent about this injustice, sign up for the free portion of his site and direct the anger towards his site and leave messages. Don’t clog up the man’s facebook page with this drama so all the recruits, press, and everyone else has full view to the rantings. Other teams fans are already using this as another reason to bash Calipari and UK fans. I don’t know how many “Looks like the Calipari honeymoon is over now. Look at his facebook” posts I have read already.
In a stage this big, all the eyes are watching UK for any signs of turmoil and this is just feeding the beasts and the haters. And because the Coach is trying to raise money for his charities and do some good.
Is this really that big a deal?
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