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24 January 2010
As I watched the UK curbstomping of Arkansas yesterday, a game that wasn't as close as the final 31-point margin (how often can you say that), one thought crossed my mind; Is anyone enjoying this season less than Billy Gillispie?
Let's recap for a moment. It's 2007, and you're Gillispie. You're the new coach of the moment, pegged as the next great one after leading Texas A&M to the Sweet 16. You're often described as hard-working, a tireless recruiter and entirely consumed by basketball. You weigh some offers coming in, but eventually decide the lure of Kentucky is too strong to resist. You're taking over one of the premier programs in college basketball, a program starved for a winner after not having visited a Final Four in close to 10 years. You're getting paid handsomely, you're immediately embraced by the state, and you proudly don your blue-and-white, ready to begin establishing your legacy, the legacy you've dreamed about since declaring, as a kid, that you wanted to be a basketball coach.
Except for one thing...the script falls apart here. Turns out, in addition to being obsessed with basketball, you're kind of a jerk too. You blow off speaking engagements around the state, a big time "no-no" for the head man at Kentucky. You fail to embrace the Big Blue Nation, often alienating fans and boosters with your prickly attitude. Rumors abound of your alcoholism, and you're seen around town more than a few times looking less than sober. Oh yeah, and your teams aren't doing much either. You go 40-27 in two years, and your resume includes gems like home losses to Virginia Military Institute and Gardner-Webb. For good measure, you even fail to earn an NCAA berth in your second year, settling for the NIT. To top things off, you're in the middle of a nearly two-year dispute with the university over your contract, since you technically signed a Memorandum of Understanding. There's also rumors of what can be generously described as odd behavior, such as making a player spend a halftime period in a bathroom stall for apparently, not living up to your standards. Yeah, it's safe to say things didn't go according to plan for you at Kentucky.
So two years later, you're gone. Almost as quickly as it started, your tenure at Kentucky is finished. To top things off, you decide to hang around Lexington for a while, emboriled in a legal suit to get your salary that you apparently feel you earned. It was such a stressful time for you that you decided to to pound a few drinks one night and drive home, only to get pulled over, reeking of alcohol and badly slurring your words. Your reasoning? You were just leaving the golf course, having apparently discovered Lexington's only course still open at 3 a.m. Your mug shot is ridiculed endlessly in the next few days.
Now, let's fast forward back to Saturday. There's your former school, crushing another overmatched opponent on their way to a 19-0 record and the likely #1 ranking. There's smiles all around from the players, a few of whom you should recognize, although those smiles might be a new look you haven't seen. There's an energetic, engaging coach sitting in the seat you once sat in, only he seems to be having infinitely more fun than you ever did. There's 24,000+ screaming fans, refusing to leave their seats early even in the midst of a blowout. The dark clouds that seemingly sat on your program now seem to only just be following you, while UK fans are once again enjoying their sunshine.
And perhaps the worst part? It's all because of you. You did this to yourself. You were handed a golden opportunity, and you threw it away. You failed to embrace the public relations portion that comes with the Kentucky job. You took condescending tones with the media, which for a coach who is barely keeping his head above water, comes off as desperate and unnecessarily defensive. You embarrassed players, calling them out regularly after games and routinely throwing them under the bus. It's no wonder your two stars, Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson, were both rumored to be very hesitant to return to the school if you did.
And when you look at UK now, all you have to see is what could have been. If only you had tried to embrace the state, as John Calipari has, then maybe this would be you, enjoying the spoils of coaching a tradition-rich program headed back to the top. If only you had fully understood the importance of UK basketball to people in the state, instead of just referring to it "just another job", then maybe it would be you giving high-fives to Ashley Judd after the game. If you had decided to bond with your players and help them develop instead of treating them as subordinates, then maybe it would be you coaching a team full of future NBA stars. Instead, you're like the guy who got the pretty girl he didn't deserve, treated her poorly, and then now has to watch her become Miss America while on somebody else's arm. It has to hurt.
But the Big Blue Nation has moved on to bigger and better things, and we're enjoying the ride. You're the one whose left to wonder what could have been.
