Ah, the good old fashioned smear campaign. It’s long been a tactic in the political arena. Throw enough mud and lies at the other candidate and hopefully some of it will stick. It’s usually the sign of desperation by the party that launches the smear campaign and unfortunately they are more successful than not, because most people tend to believe the rumors/falsehoods being bandied about rather than actually investigate the charges and make an informed opinion.
And in this summer of 2010, the dreaded smear campaign has found it’s way into the Bluegrass and the detractors of John Calipari have spent most of the summer taking their shots. Fortunately for BBN, most of the potshots have been poorly crafted pieces of crap that fell apart quickly under inspection. And since this is the summer of rumors and innuendo, you can follow the rumors and see that the fanbases of some of Kentucky’s biggest rivals are behind the smears.
The summer of smears started in May with the Terrence Jones affair. While there was no wrong doing in the recruitment of Jones, there was plenty of “he said she said” dissertations aimed at our man Calipari and the nefarious “who called who” debate. In case we forget, many pundits and bloggers of our rival teams took on a false air of superiority and blasted Calipari for supposedly calling Terrence Jones after he “committed” to Washington and accused Cal of all sorts of wrong doings in contacting a committed player. Never mind the fact that during this time Austin Rivers and Coach K were practically holding hands walking up and down the North Carolina beach line admiring the sunset. Not a peep was said about Coach K meddling with River’s commitment to the Florida Gators. Everyone was focused on Calipari calling Jones …. which never happened. Jones had said from the beginning he was the one that made the call …. yet people still accuse Cal of shadiness in that recruitment.
Then over the Memorial Day Weekend came the Pete Thamel New York Times story about Eric Bledsoe’s grades and supposed rent payments made by Bledsoe’s high school coach.. Once again, much ado over nothing, yet Calipari was castigated by the press. A few months later, Thamels story fell apart as most of his “sources” came out and said they were either misquoted or their quotes were taken out of context. And there was the troubling matter of who actually leaked the transcripts to the press. While the mainstream media did not want to touch this story, the hot rumor was that is was linked to Richard Pitino, although that rumor has never been proved either.
The Fourth of July weekend greeted us with the infamous TMZ story about agent contact with several UK players. This story really had no legs and was refuted by noon on the holiday Friday, but it is rumored to have been started by a TMZ staffer from Louisville. Draw your own conclusions.
And now we come to yesterday’s Chicago Sun Times story. Was Michael O’Brien standing up for the hometown DePaul Blue Demons? Or possibly acting as an agent of another school that could possibly be losing out on Anthony Davis? If you recall, shortly after the TMZ story broke, Anthony Davis visited Ohio State and made some comments afterwards about hearing Calipari was “under investigation”. It was clear that someone was filling his head with some untruths.
There is no doubt that all these instances will be used against Calipari by the opposing coaches when they make their recruiting pitches. It’s part of the game. But unfortunately for them, today’s recruits are more media savvy and have learned how to filter through the bilge and get to the truth and Calipari’s recruiting is strong than ever … despite all the smear campaigns against him.
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