Friday was a big day for University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari and his three assistants. Along with their trip to the White House to be honored by President Obama for winning this year’s NCAA championship, Calipari and his staff also got new, lucrative contracts.
As the basketball world knows, Obama has made his NCAA basketball bracket choices for four years on ESPN. This year, he put Kentucky in his Final Four picks, but he didn't tap the Wildcats to win it all.
Instead, the president liked North Carolina beating what he called "unbelievably talented" Kentucky in the championship game. But that didn't happen: UNC was knocked out by Kansas.
On April 1, Kentucky defeated Kansas 67-59, winning the title — and really messing up the Obama bracket.
"Congratulations to the Kentucky Wildcats on your eighth national championship," Obama said moments after he entered the East Room, the Wildcats and coach John Calipari on risers behind him and a raucuous crowd of Kentucky fans rocking the crystal chandeliers.
The 2012 Wildcats team, which beat Kansas, 67-59, for the national title on April 2, boarded a plane for Washington at about noon for the 5 p.m. event. Obama called Calipari the day after the team's tournament win to offer congratulations, and said that he looked forward to meeting the team in person at the White House. They received the invitation on Tuesday, while Obama was on an unannounced trip to Afghanistan to sign a security agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The last-minute invitation caused a minor political dust-up: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican and one of the president's biggest adversaries in Congress, was invited to attend but declined. The reason: He'd planned to attend the festivities in the run-up to Saturday's Kentucky Derby, another storied state sports tradition. But the conflict appeared to be more a quirk of the calendar than anything else.
The White House trip caps a whirlwind year for the players, some of whom were not old enough to vote in the last presidential election.
But Obama took note of the young team's talents, saying he expected their success to continue. "Everybody's got to take a good look now, because a whole bunch of these guys are going on to the NBA," he said. "Who knows, one of them might end up here in Washington."
Calipari’s new guaranteed compensation, which increased by $400,000 annually and does not include up to $850,000 in potential bonuses each season, would make him the fourth-highest paid coach in the NBA, according to a March story by Forbes. He would trail only the Celtics’ Doc Rivers ($7 million), the Spurs’ Greg Popovich ($6 million) and the Trail Blazers’ Nate McMillan ($5.5 million).
It goes without saying, then, that Calipari is among the highest-paid coaches in all of college athletics, not just basketball, “and he should be,” UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart said. “My goodness, he’s done a great job of leading our program. He’s been a great ambassador for the university. He means a great deal to us.”
Calipari, who had a 72-112 record as coach of the New Jersey Nets in the late 1990s, is often mentioned when NBA jobs open – most recently the New York Knicks. But Calipari, who has a 102-14 record with the Cats and hasn’t lost a home game in his three seasons in Lexington, has shot down such speculation by saying he has the best job in basketball and wants to finish his career at Kentucky. He has said he’d like to chase UCLA’s record 11 NCAA titles.
Barnhart said he believes him and thinks his current contract, better than most NBA coaches get and with much more job security, will help ensure that. "What I've learned is that if I make the right picks, I look like a genius. But if things go the other way, then a team like Kentucky gets to come to my house and remind me, in person, that I was wrong."
Obama admitted that he didn't pick Kentucky to win the championship in part because three of the five starters were freshmen. "But let's face it, sometimes, talent trumps experience," Obama said. Obama singled out freshman Anthony Davis, who's from the president's hometown of Chicago, and was named the Most Outstanding Player in the 2012 NCAA Tournament. Obama said he'd visited Davis' school as a U.S. senator in Illinois, and teased him about growing eight inches between his sophomore and senior years of high school.
"In fact, he has grown an inch since he got to the White House," Obama said, joking. Obama also noted the accomplishments of Darius Miller, a senior and former Mr. Basketball from Mason County who won a state championship when he was in high school, and now an NCAA trophy. Only one other player, Louisville's Darrell Griffith, has been Kentucky's Mr. Basketball and won a state title and an NCAA championship.
"I'm pretty sure Coach Cal is right that if Darius decides to run for governor he'll do all right in Kentucky," the president said.
Obama gave Calipari credit, too.
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