The Northwest views Calipari as the Grinch who stole Washington's sunshine
By Paul Jordan
I get it. I understand why the Washington fans are upset with Terrence Jones, John Calipari, and everything Kentucky related right now. Years ago, Mark Pope transferred to Kentucky from Washington and won a national title for the Cats. That sore festered for about a decade and a half until this year when the bandaid was yanked off . First it was Enes Kanter who committed to the Huskies and then de-committed in February. Just a month later, Kanter was a Wildcat. Then on April 30, Terrence Jones committed to the Huskies and had immediate misgivings about his choice and then committed to Kentucky on May 19.
So really, I get it. Kentucky is the devil and you hate us. Get in line behind Memphis, Indiana, and the rest of the SEC. Nothing inspires the other schools rage like seeing the Blue and White. Couple that with John Calipari and his well coiffed hairdo and slick suits and you can take hating Kentucky to a new art form. But Washington fans and media have taken this to a whole new level. It’s easy to see that the Huskie fans see John Calipari as the Grinch who stole
Christmas
Enes Kanter, Jones, and even their sunshine, leaving Seattle a gloomy, doomy, rainy mess. Isn’t that Calipari’s fault too?
As we learned in the pre-school sandbox, if you take someone else’s toys, they are going to scream, yell, and throw a tantrum and hold their breath until they pass out. I think this pretty much can describe number one Huskies fan and Terrence Jones stalker “Eddy” who has created the hugely imaginative “Calipari Cheats” twitter account to harass Terrence Jones. As recently as yesterday, Eddy was still sending 140 character messages of hate to Terrence Jones, totally oblivious that Jones more than likely blocked his messages after the first one. Got to admire the “never say die” attitude of his fruitless cause though.
But in the Northwest, the hate does not emanate just from the Twitter psychos. Oregon sports columnist did a lazy recycle of all the old Memphis-hate Calipari pieces and thinks Calipari is the root of all evil and dredges up the talk of vacated Final Fours and wonders if the NCAA will open up a field office on Portland to investigate the Jones recruitment. Really?
It’s really nothing new for Kentucky fans, but you really have to worry how long the media is going to attack Calipari for these commits, and yet still not bat an eyebrow about Coach K’s continued recruitment of Austin Rivers while he was committed to Florida. And what about the howls of protest when it was thought that Josh Selby would end up at Kentucky, yet no words of dissent when Bill Self gets the commit. Or when Washington coach Lorenzo Romar recruited former Maryland Terrapin Terrence Ross. Whaaaa? Hypocritical much?
You would think that Calipari is the first coach ever to accept a de-committed player, yet NCAA football coaches don’t halt their chase of a player at all when a player commits to a school. But when Calipari is involved, it’s a whole different animal. And don’t expect this hate from Washington fans to dissipate anytime soon.
Washington fans have this years Maui Classic circled on their calendar and it will be interesting to see how many Huskie fans travel to vent their displeasure. You know that the organizers are drooling at the possible Husky/Wildcat matchup, which is still going to be a pretty good game. Let’s just call it the Calipari Obsession Tourney and invite Memphis and Louisville to boot. Come on haters, get the poison out.
In the end, you have to feel bad for Lorenzo Romar. He is a good coach and has done a good job building the Husky program. He just happens to have a lot of idiot fans and had the misfortune of butting heads with John Calipari on the recruiting trail … twice. He did end up with Terrence Ross, who is a very nice player, but you have to think he is pretty rundown after this whole fiasco and needs cheering up.
Does he like butter tarts?
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