John Calipari, everybody. What a cat.
The story you may be hearing from all of this is that John Calipari and Mark Stoops are “feuding” because Coach Cal mentioned that Kentucky is a basketball school and Coach Stoops, understandably hyping his program’s progress, said they’re a football school. This is misdirection, a manufactured string of clickbait taking you away from the silliness you actually want to enjoy. The real silly situation is that the whole thing’s happening because Calipari “demanded” a new practice facility. From The Athletic:
“Kentucky’s John Calipari demands new practice facility”
Ok, that’s just the headline. I really enjoyed that headline. I hope you’re enjoying it too. Not “requests,” not “suggests.” “Demands.” And from whom is John Calipari demanding this practice facility? Evidently, he is demanding it from himself.
The article goes on to describe Calipari, in an interview yesterday morning, talking about how his proposed massive practice center (complete with a museum, for the past, and a sports science department, for the future) would be an investment by the state of Kentucky for the state of Kentucky, and how if the state of Kentucky or the university’s boosters won’t pony up, “his 50-some NBA Draft picks who’ve earned more than $2 billion as pros will contribute.” (The Athletic’s words, not Calipari’s.)
First, yes, professional basketball players who went to your school still count as boosters. Just because Anthony Davis is Black doesn’t mean he can’t be a booster. Second, Calipari obviously doesn’t want the school or the state or the school’s “traditional” (old, white) boosters to pay for the facility. He wants to raise the money himself. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have said that this was the fallback plan. Muggers don’t put a gun to your head and say, “Give me your money, or I’ll go get the same amount from my friends.” Mentioning the friends eliminates the leverage, and John Calipari is a good salesman, and good salesmen don’t eliminate their leverage. Cal wants to pay for this himself, to show off how many future pros he’s recruited, to show Kentuckians (many of whom are frustrated with a recent lack of postseason success) how great it is to be John Calipari’s subjects.
Many things make Kentucky basketball great, but you could say John Calipari has the program in its truest form. He’s too sleazy to be a natural fit in a blue-collar state, but his peaks are so high that it would take a multi-year run of legitimately bad teams to get him off his perch. Kentuckians are stuck with him, and it’s because they want exactly him. They demand exactly him. And he demands a practice facility. From himself. To show them why they want him.
(The old one was built in 2007 and evidently leaks, which really fits the Billy Gillispie era it ushered in.)
How Texas Got Arch Manning
Two The Athletic articles in a day? Have I been kidnapped?
Quick inside baseball side quest: One of the sad things about sports media today is that the industry’s legitimate reporters have started thinking their job is more important than it is fun. Another sad thing is that consumers don’t like good writing enough to actually want it, so in an age where print space is limitless (because paper costs money, but you can make a glorified blog post however long you want), editors are dead, so is Sports Illustrated, and you can convince a lot of people you’re giving them “good writing” if you use a serif font and print it in black on a white page.(We, to acknowledge the obvious, benefit from this, but we also at least recognize we need better editing, because we respect you. Better editing’s on our to-do list. Somewhere after resurrecting MilkTime.) The Athletic is the archetype of these two phenomena, and we like a lot of its reporters and it fills a void we want filled but institutionally, it often annoys us. Still, it’s one of the few places you can get any sort of look (even a thin one) at something like how exactly Texas’s quarterback coach, AJ Milwee, landed Arch Manning. Here’s the link, they’re often running promos where you can get a subscription for a dollar a month.
Things that jump out from the article:
- The Manning family “designated [Arch’s high school coach, Nelson Stewart] to run point on Arch’s recruitment.” I’d never thought about this side of college recruiting. Who helps a player navigate all of that? How valuable is someone who’s done this before? Was Arch sent to Isidore Newman because his uncles (and presumably his dad) played there, or because his family thought Stewart would be a good guide through this process? Imagine that being a consideration in your high school decision.
- On days Milwee was allowed to recruit on campus, he would be present on campus for twelve hours, from 7 AM to 7 PM. Milwee often calls Stewart on his drive home from work, even now, with Manning already in the fold.
- Milwee’s 36, went to high school in Alabama, played at then-Division II North Alabama, stayed on as a grad assistant under Terry Bowden, then eventually joined up with Bowden at Akron. When Bowden was fired, Milwee landed a job at Alabama, where he worked with Steve Sarkisian and Butch Jones. Jones hired Milwee away from Alabama to work a higher role at Arkansas State. Sarkisian hired Milwee away from Arkansas State to work at a bigger program in Texas. This is the career path.
There isn’t much more than that—we don’t get to hear who brokered NIL deals, though it’s pointed out that the Manning family must think highly of Milwee as a QB coach—but even just having the focus turned to Milwee is probably important, at least to those who care about college football. One way to answer who’s the next big coach in college football is to look for the best recruiter, and one way to answer who’s the best recruiter is to look at who lands the best recruits. Milwee just landed someone often billed as the biggest recruit in college football history. It isn’t that simple, but Milwee’s probably about to be a decently big deal, kind of like how Brent Venables became a decently big deal at Clemson on his way to becoming a really big deal at Oklahoma. For my part? I’ll keep an eye out for an “AJ M.” on future Stuber Eats deliveries and will attempt to ingratiate us all to him. Stay tuned.
It Was in His Head, in a Sense
It turns out Joe Kelly left yesterday’s game with “lightheadedness,” which is bad but not as bad as most things you can leave a game with? With his teammates yet again failing to pick him up (he wouldn’t say it, but someone has to), the ERA’s back up, this time to 5.84. Independent of his teammates, his FIP did climb slightly above 3.00. Still very good. Can’t forget about how good that FIP is. Don’t let the haters win.
**
Viewing schedule for the weekend:
Friday, 3:00 PM EDT: Burnley @ Watford (ESPN+)
It’s early, but pretty good measuring stick for the lads as they head down to what’s basically London to play the Watfords. (Watford is basically London, right?) Arguably the two best teams in the league. Arguably the league’s de facto championship. The championship of the Championship. What a day.
Other Burnley news: They’re reportedly close to signing Darko Churlinov from Stuttgart, a German club. Another winger. Vincent Kompany does not seem as concerned with finding a goal-scorer as the rest of us are, and I’m going to take that to mean that Burnley’s scoring three goals today.
Friday, 7:10 PM EDT: Tigers @ White Sox (MLB TV)
Saturday, 7:10 PM EDT: Tigers @ White Sox (MLB TV, second screen)
Sunday, 2:10 PM EDT: Tigers @ White Sox (MLB TV, third screen)
One bright side, if Joe Kelly does miss time this weekend, is that there’s no chance of him starting beef with Javy Báez. That’s a positive here.
Saturday, 6:40 PM EDT: Cubs @ Reds (MLB TV)
Sunday, 1:40 PM EDT: Cubs @ Reds (MLB TV)
This is obvious but also WOW does it feel sadder to have the Cubs and Reds playing in August when it isn’t at a picturesque, old-timey ballpark in the middle of cornfields. If they’re measuring game environment in a replacement-level sense…holy cow. The numbers must be nuts on this one.
Friday, 8:30 PM EDT: Packers @ 49ers (NFL Network, second screen)
Will I turn on the Packers’ preseason game tonight? That is very unlikely. But it’s happening!
Sunday, 3:00 PM EDT: Federated Auto Parts 400 – NASCAR Cup Series at Richmond (USA, second screen)
No F1 this weekend, which means we’ve all already won.
