Rick Pitino asked for a favor from Big Blue Nation with John Calipari – the former Kentucky coach now at Arkansas – returning to Rupp Arena this weekend. His request: Do not hoot the coach who led the Wildcats to glory.
“I want you to show the great class you have,” said Pitino in a video Posted on his X account (formerly Twitter). “Twenty-three thousand people who give him a huge standing ovation. Show him what respect and admiration is. I know you have class, I always believed in you.”
Pitino’s advocacy came with the admission that his return to Rupp Arena in 2001 after leaving Kentucky for Louisville “tore me”.
“The most difficult day of my coach career in Louisville was when I had to enter Rupp Arena,” said Pitino. “I tried not to show it, but when I got home, the reception tore me because I love this place so much.”
The reception of Pitino was far from hot when he returned to Rupp as a coat of Cardinals, of course, but in the case of Calipari, it could perhaps be different. The base of fans had tired of Calipari in recent years in Lexington, and a change of decor seemed to have meaning for all the holidays.
“As you all know, I’m not the best friends of John Calipari. I respect him, certainly. But it was a mutual thing,” said Pitino. “Fans wanted a change. John read tea leaves, he needed a change. He didn’t really want to leave. But what did he do for you? He brought the best talent From the history of a university game in America in Lexington.
The question of whether British fans will pay attention to Pitino’s words is another story. Pitino returned to Rupp last year and received a warm welcome, but it was of course withdrawn from his visit with the Wildcats. With the departure of Calipari always raw, fans of Kentucky are not likely to face it even if the split was mutual.
“I guess I’m going to be hue,” Calipari said this week.
“But that is one of them,” he continued. “Turn, you are hué. I did that for so long, I have bazooka holes in my body. So, when you shoot arrows, it doesn’t even touch the skin. It just goes through one of These bazooka holes.
