After Vitale defending Calipari, is it OK to like Dick again?

I know. He’s loud and arrogant and perhaps the biggest bandwagoner in college basketball. UK fans have had a love/hate relationship with ESPN’s Dick Vitale and I admit, it has been hate the last few years. How dare he jump on the Florida Gators bandwagon in the SEC and then continually dis UK the last few years?

Well, times have changed. The Gators have become a perennial NIT team once again and UK is back on top of the basketball world. And once again, Dicky V is showing UK some love and most importantly, is becoming one of the main voices supporting John Calipari and pointing out the absurdity of the NCAA.

In his latest column on ESPN, Vitale blasts the NCAA clearinghouse, shady AAU programs, and players with “entourages”. Along the way, he offers up undeniable support for UK’s Calipari:

If you are anti-Calipari, you will have your ammunition and you will whack away at him. Whenever you are a high-profile success like Calipari, you are going to take some shots.

When it is all said and done, his days at Kentucky will solve a lot of problems. He will win, win, win in the Bluegrass State.
I recently spoke to Calipari and he is so motivated and fired up to bring success to Lexington. He wants to do it the right way.
Think about this. He has had around 100 players during his days as a Division I head coach. Have any of his players come out and accused him of giving them cash? Have they been given clothes, a car, anything? Has anyone ever said Calipari himself was cheating?

There has never been any complaints in those areas.

That said, this is the second time recently that Vitale has stood on his ESPN soapbox and defended Calipari. So, in the spirit of our soon to be 2000th win, and Coach Cal returning UK to the basketball elite, I am more than willing to extend the olive branch to Vitale and welcome him back to the extended Wildcat family. . Yea, I don’t like the Duke love from him, but it’s all about a new beginning. And that extends to even Dick Vitale.

And the media outrage against the NCAA continues as more and more columnists are highlighting the penalties against Memphis and the NCAA’s lack of attention to the 1999 Duke and Corey Maggette scandal. Here is a sampling of some of the articles being written:

Eric Crawford – “No surprise: NCAA isn’t even-handed“

John Clay – “NCAA teaches Memphis an illogical lesson“

Mike DeCourcy – “NCAA let Rose play so why does Memphis have to pay?”

Brett Blevins – “Conspiracy Theory: The Truth Behind the Memphis Allegations”

Gary Parrish – “Selective enforcement? NCAA failed to admonish Duke”

Parrish of course, has bashed Calipari recently but is torn on this story as it gives him a chance to bash Calipari but he feels a need to stick up for his hometown Tigers. So I have to be fair and highlight him for writing a good article as well as bash him when not. Parrish is a bit fairer than his radio counterpart, the nefarious Geoff Calkins, who really needs some of that stuff Michael Jackson used to relax. Today, the ever increasingly shrill Calkins calls for the head of Memphis AD RC Johnson and of course takes more personal shots at Cal. Find it kind of interesting hypocritical that he bashes Johnson for saying he saw nothing wrong about package deals, but he has yet to castigate wunderkid Josh Pastner for his package deal of the Barton Brothers.

Pot meet Kettle.

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