MEMPHIS, Tenn. — John Calipari walked into the grand lobby here at FedExForum on Tuesday for a press conference to announce the Hoops For St. Jude Tip-off Classic — an exhibition scheduled for next month between the team he now coaches (Arkansas) and the team he used to coach (Memphis) with proceeds benefitting the internationally acclaimed downtown hospital located minutes away.
But it was so much more than just a press conference.
For anybody who understands the history of Calipari in Memphis, or the relationship between Calipari and Memphis since he left for Kentucky in March 2009, it was a sweet scene — one that seemed to represent the official beginning of the end of an awkward existence between two things that seemed like a perfect match for nine remarkable years in the early 2000s, before little more than a logical career-choice took him from “In Cal We Trust” to “Public Enemy No. 1” basically overnight here in the 901.
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Yes, Coach Cal returned to Memphis on Tuesday.
He was greeted warmly and surrounded by old friends.
There was Van Weinberg, the owner of James Davis, a local clothing store where Calipari has continuously shopped even after leaving town. A few feet away was Streets Ministries founder Ken Bennett, a man who never stopped serving as a resource for Calipari even after the run at Memphis ended. Everywhere you looked, there was another familiar face of another prominent Memphian — plus former Tigers who played for Calipari like Shawne Williams, Jeremy Hunt, Billy Richmond and Shawn Taggert.
“It feels like Memphis circa 2008,” noted Kyle Veazey, chief of staff at ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
In many ways, it really did.
“The city of Memphis is a special place,” said Calipari, who remains responsible for some of the most special sports memories this city has ever experienced. In a span of nine seasons, he took a program that had fallen off after the termination of local icon Larry Finch three years earlier and eventually produced the following:
- Five conference championships.
- Four conference tournament championships.
- Four Sweet 16 appearances.
- One Final Four appearance.
The Final Four appearance, of course, came in 2008 — when a starting lineup of Derrick Rose, Antonio Anderson, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Robert Dozier and Joey Dorsey started the season 26-0, brought ESPN’s College GameDay to town for a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup against Bruce Pearl’s Tennessee Vols, and advanced all the way to the title game of the NCAA Tournament, where they were just a missed 3-pointer from Kansas’ Mario Chalmers at the end of regulation away from securing the program’s first national title.
Back then, around these parts, no human was bigger.
This was John Calipari’s city.
But roughly a year after bringing Memphis its first No. 1 ranking in the history of the Associated Press Top 25 poll, and getting the program closer to a national championship than it had ever been, Calipari went to one final Sweet 16 with the Tigers in 2009 and then understandably bounced to UK.
I write “understandably” because his decision was undeniably understandable — if only because you can probably count on one hand the number of people who would pass on Kentucky to remain at Memphis.
And you could maybe do it with zero hands.
So, from the moment Calipari was offered the UK job, it was obvious he would be UK’s next coach. Again, it was always understandable — the type of move that would get him on the other side of the so-called rope in this sport, where he would finally no longer have to constantly punch up as an underdog.
But do you know who couldn’t quite understand it?
Most Memphis fans.
And it didn’t help that while Calipari was advancing to four more Final Fours at Kentucky, winning the national championship in 2012 and generally enhancing his Hall of Fame career, Memphis was more down than up — evidence being how the program has now gone 16 straight seasons without returning to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, a place Calipari took the Tigers four straight years from 2006 to 2009.
Simply put, Tiger fans were just hurt. Nobody likes to be left by someone they love. That’s the long and short of it.
But on this Tuesday in downtown Memphis, whatever hurt feelings might remain certainly seemed outnumbered by smiles and laughs and hugs between friends. Give Memphis athletic director Dr. Ed Scott credit for saying and doing all of the right things to make it happen. Give Memphis coach Penny Hardaway credit for saying and doing all of the right things to make it happen. And give Calipari credit for being open to the opportunity despite the fact that when a previous celebration of his time at Memphis was planned in 2015, the pushback from some fans was so intense that the event was eventually scrapped.
As recently as two years ago, Calipari interviewed with The Daily Memphian and was asked if he thought he’d ever be honored by Memphis. “You’d have to ask them,” he responded flatly.
Now, we have an answer to that question.
John Calipari will indeed be honored by Memphis — specifically on Oct. 27 in an exhibition that will feature dunks and 3-pointers and a result that won’t count. But just because it won’t count, doesn’t mean it won’t matter. Because, absolutely, it will matter how much money the event raises for one of our nation’s most important hospitals that routinely creates miracles for families that need them, and it will matter in the sense that it should let a Naismith Hall of Fame coach and the fans who once adored him collectively move on.
“Nine years,” Calipari told me after he’d taken countless pictures Tuesday and shaken even more hands. “It wasn’t like it was a two-year flip and let’s go. It was nine years.”
Nine years of incredible memories.
Nine years of amazing accomplishments.
Once upon a time, not too long ago, a not insignificant number of Memphis fans might’ve dreamed of John Calipari someday returning to coach against the Tigers only so that they could hiss and spit — but, I think, we’re truly past that now. Perhaps it’s because Calipari is no longer at Kentucky. Maybe it’s because time really does have a way of healing things when enough of it passes.
It’s possibly both.
Either way, it’s now official: Eight Mondays from now, four nights before Halloween, the coach who is responsible for nine years of Memphis Basketball, and the greatest four-year run in school history, will return to FedExForum to coach against the Tigers for the first time since leaving the Tigers.
A few years ago, it seemed unimaginable.
Now, it seems fitting.
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