The basketball season began in normal fashion at the University of Kentucky. An estimated 90 NBA scouts attended Pro Day Practice to see Coach John Calipari’s latest collection of future millionaires.
Another practice was televised nationally by ESPNU for two solid hours.
And then there’s the 35th edition of Big Blue Madness, which packs Rupp Arena and cost at least $300,000 to produce. To put that number in perspective, the eight schools that made each of the NCAA tournaments from 2010-’14 spent an average of $231,000 per year on all recruiting.
Calipari oversaw all this while sometimes wearing a new pair of Nike Air Force 1 sneakers that were adorned with the first names of all 30 of the draft picks that he has delivered to the NBA since taking the job in Lexington in 2009.
In 36 years, Adolph Rupp had 43 players drafted, but only one in the first round (Pat Riley, 1967) and two in the second (Vernon Hatton, 1957, and Cotton Nash, 1964).
But there’s one major difference between the Rupp draftees and the Calipari draftees: A college degree. Almost all Rupp’s players received at least one. So far, only two Calipari draftees have a diploma – Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress.
I find this troubling. I also find myself in a distinct minority of my fellow Kentuckians. So what if UK has sold out academics for the sake of winning? Who cares if the vast majority of Calipari’s 30 draft picks has stayed in school only a year, two at the most?
Not Nike. Not ESPN or the other networks. Not the UK president or the faculty. Not the fan base. Not the state’s media. Not even Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, an erstwhile hard-liner about graduation who has reversed his field and adopted the Calipari model at one of the nation’s finest academic institutions.
So the problem must be with me, and I need to explain myself.
I was born into a Kentucky family where higher education was not valued or even discussed. What you did was get your high school diploma and go to work. That would have been my fate – my father told me I had to start supporting myself at 16 — had it not been for C.M. Newton, who then was the coach at Transylvania College (now University).
Newton, who later became the athletics director at UK after successful coaching tenures at Alabama and Vanderbilt, convinced me that I needed a degree if I wanted to reach my goal of writing for Sports Illustrated. He promised to help me get some tuition money to supplement what I was making at the Lexington Herald-Leader, where I was working full-time.
I decided to give it a shot with no real expectation of ever graduating. But thanks to a lot of supportive professors and friends, I got my degree in 1966, becoming the first college graduate in my family. Two years later, I was headed to New York City to join the SI staff.
If education was sacred to me then, it’s even more so now. When I was in school, Kentucky was plagued by poverty, ignorance, and prejudice. The commonwealth ranked near the bottom in education and most other socio-economic surveys.
I’d like to report that things have gotten better in my lifetime, but that would be a lie. If anything, Kentucky has gone backward. Our tobacco industry has gone up in smoke, and the coal industry is on life support. The commonwealth has one of the most serious drug problems in the nation.
I guess the argument could be made that the success of Calipari’s basketball program is good for the commonwealth because it lifts morale and provides a diversion from stark reality. I can buy that, to a point, but I think the good is negated by how the program demeans the value of education and the importance of getting a degree.
By and large, Calipari recruits good kids. With rare exception, they behave themselves and go to class for the short times they’re in school. They hold up their end of the bargain, and Calipari holds up his. But if any of the players were asked about his major – which used to be a common question – chances are he would look at his interviewer as if he were looney.
I recently was invited to attend a reunion of UK basketball lettermen. It was held in Northern Kentucky, at the home of a Big Blue fan so devoted that he has an entire building on his property that houses nothing but UK memorabilia – autographed balls, jerseys, programs, figurines, photographs, tapes, etc.
Of the lettermen who attended, only Jack Givens, the hero of UK’s 1978 championship win over Duke, played in the NBA, and he didn’t exactly have a stellar career. The others were retired judges, lawyers, businessmen, and educators. It is impossible to know exactly how many former UK players have been role models for kids from Ashland to Paducah.
Maybe some of Calipari’s 30 draft picks will eventually get their degrees, and maybe they won’t. But it’s a sure thing that almost none of them will settle in Kentucky and help the commonwealth address its myriad of problems. They are mercenaries, pure and simple.
But, as I said, I’m in a distinct minority. I still believe that academics are more important than athletics. I still believe that athletes, even the one who play in the pros, need their degrees in order to be leaders and productive citizens when their playing careers are over.
For those of you keeping score at home, UK’s freshman class consists of Bam Adebayo, De’Aaron Fox, Wenyen Gabriel, Sacha Killeya-Jones, and Malik Monk. None of them want to be in Lexington this time next year, although a couple may be if a flaw is detected in their games. That’s why Isaiah Briscoe is back for his sophomore season.
The Wildcats will spend the season at or near the top of the polls. They will win the Southeastern Conference in a breeze. They will probably get one of the No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament, and could advance to the Final Four or even win it all.
I wish them well. I really do. But whatever happens, I won’t feel the same as I did when academics and degrees were more highly valued in the land of the Big Blue.
Billy Reed is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the Transylvania University Hall of Fame. He has been named Kentucky Sports Writer of the Year eight times and has won the Eclipse Award twice. Reed has written about a multitude of sports events for over four decades, but he is perhaps one of media’s most knowledgeable writers on the Kentucky Derby