How many people has this man helped?Just the picture on the left is evidence enough of the gravy train that John Calipari is leaving in his wake. But there is more, much more, and everyone, including yours truly is riding the wave of the phenomenon that is known as John Calipari.
Let me use myself as an example. 18 months ago I was fairly new to the whole scene of “blogging”. I would read a few websites’ articles, go through the ESPN.com site with a fine tooth comb, leave a few comments here and there when someone wrote something really stupid and call it a day. I have a business to run and a lot of other commitments, so it was just a distraction for me. Something to help me to “keep up” with my Cats.
Then along comes John Calipari. I still remember my days of watching and waiting for him to appear at “The Door”. Over 300,000 of us a day logged into that live webcam image and had our eyes glued to it, in hopes of getting the word on a new coach. After “The Door” I found myself with a whole new group of friends that had the same philosophies, questions, gripes and cheers for the Cats that I did. So what do I do about that? I joined a website and talked until I was blue in the face (no pun intended). The it was suggested to me that instead of putting 4 and 5 paragraph comments after stories I might write one of my own. I tried it. And my ego as well as some of the folks on the website liked it too. Fast forward to today, and I now write articles for 2 sites and my ego has even more fodder for it’s insatiable appetite. And just so’s you all know, this is NOT a paying gig, but a man must have his hobbies.
After a couple of months on the other site, www.aseaofblue.com , a group of us decided that one of our more wittier sayings should be immortalized on a shirt. A local merchant here where I live, makes us a template, and voila’, we start ordering T-shirts. The lady told me she sold about 50 of the shirts, so now she is on board too. In the mean time, my children have me scouring for tickets to go see these new Cats play at Rupp so they can see their “heroes” John Wall and Big Cuz in person. I try my best, but after giving up on tickets (the cheapest I could get a set of 4 for was $500) to see the guys, I asked my girls if it would be OK to go see the Women’s team play at Memorial Coliseum. Since I was the only one of our family that had ever been to Memorial, they all agreed. We buy 8 tickets to a Women’s game (a steal at $40), spend another $200 at the Coliseum and now Coach Matthew Mitchell and his girls are riding too. While we are in Lexington, my girls and their 2 friends each, decide to do a little shopping at the Mall. This dings my CC for about $200.00 and I still don’t know what they got. I go to the bookstore at Lexington Green and spend $10 on coffee and biscotti, buy 2 books on Kentucky Basketball and bingo, the merchants of Lexington are now on board as well.
In the last year, a new Wildcat Wearhouse opened in Somerset, KY. They are of course, right next door to our Somerset Office. Insurance has been down somewhat, so we had to lay off a person that worked for us in both locations, so she applies for work at the new location, someone asks from there about her, we give her a good reference ( which she earned wholeheartedly), and now she is the fulltime manager of that location. She convinces her benefactors that the location would sell more if they got bigger sizes in to fit ( as I call it, A Man) us larger folks, they listen and since that occurred, my wife has bought me 3 new UK shirts. The girls have gotten quite a bit from there as well, almost all of it Calipari, Wall, or Cousins related, so we can add them to the list. At my last estimate my family has spent the better part of $400 in that place including Christmas presents.
Now, even Pete Thamel of the New York Times has gotten into the act. He is selling New York papers hacking on Calipari and Kentucky, so let’s throw them into the pot. Should we add the children of Haiti to the mix? How about the whole country??
As best as I can tell, John Calipari and the Kentucky Wildcats have changed a boatload of lives and even some financial fortunes since Calipari’s arrival last year. Of course the school is benefitting the most from this, as recruits are lining up to play for the new Pied Piper of college basketball, and those $5000 season ticket fees wont hurt anything either. The next time someone decides to take a potshot at Calipari, they might do well to remember that the man has helped a lot of people just by being himself. And no one can fault him for that.
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