It wasn’t a high ranking political official who garnered a great deal of attention during yesterday’s Southern Legislative Conference meeting in Lexington. Instead, all eyes and ears focused on University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari.
Although he covered a lot of topics not related to a round ball in his talk, Calipari also spent time on his program philosophy. “You know, you may look at this and say ‘how in the world do you do this, like change your team every year and you’re okay with it.’ Because it’s great for those kids and those families. And I deal with what ever else happens. Has it hurt the University of Kentucky at all? Asked Calipari.
The UK coach told lawmakers from 15 states the collective salaries of UK players in the NBA the last seven years is almost a billion dollars.
Calipari defended his coaching philosophy with 70 percent of his players getting drafted into professional basketball. The coach says the resulting professional pay helps families dealing with generational poverty ‘breath for the first time.’ ?
