John Calipari recalls talks with Kelvin Sampson, priest before leaving Kentucky for Arkansas

In March, while in Phoenix for the Final Four, John Calipari found himself facing an interesting decision. He could leave Kentucky, where he spent 15 years of his Hall of Fame career, for Arkansas or stay in Lexington to continue his quest for another national championship.

Ultimately, as the process went along, he chose to head to Fayetteville for the next chapter of his career. It wasn’t the first time the Hogs came calling for Calipari – the school previously made a run at him in 2007 – but he saw an opportunity to start over one last time.

After conversations with donor John Tyson and athletics director Hunter Yurachek, Calipari continued to seek out more feedback about his decision. That led him to call one of his peers in the coaching profession: Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson. During their chat, Sampson pointed out the different landscape in college basketball and how at least some of Calipari’s Kentucky roster could come with him.

“Here was the call that got me to where I said, you know, I need to do this,” Calipari told Jim Rome. “I called Kelvin. Kelvin coached with [Yurachek] at Houston. … He was the AD, and Kelvin swore by him. But I needed more than that. I said, ‘Kelvin, I don’t want to leave a group of kids.’ And he said, ‘What? If you leave, they can leave, they can stay, they can go with you, someone else, they can go pro. It doesn’t matter. It’s different. They’re not penalized.’ And then he said to me, ‘And let me remind you. If you stay, they can leave, they can play for somebody else, they can go pro. This isn’t 10 years ago, eight years ago.’

“That’s when I started thinking, seriously – you know what? I kind of want to do this.”

Then, after speaking with Sampson, Calipari made another call. This time, it was someone outside the basketball world. He got in touch with a friend who’s a priest, and he received a homework assignment that ultimately led him on his current path.

“And I’ll give you the last thing. I called a priest of mine, a friend,” Calipari said. “I said, ‘You know, I’m kind of struggling.’ He said, ‘I’ll tell you what you do. Go on a walk for an hour as though you’re the Kentucky coach. Think about all that you were doing, and then on the way back – an hour – think you’re the Arkansas coach. And it’ll speak to you.’

“And you know what? I did that, and it spoke to me. … Let me go and do this one more time. Let me help 30, 40 more families, let me go do some special things. And it got me charged up, and I said, you know what? I’m going to do it.”

Inside Arkansas’ pursuit of John Calipari

In late March, John Calipari took a trip to Phoenix to watch the Final Four as most coaches around the game do. His Kentucky team suffered yet another early exit in the NCAA Tournament, and the frustration was growing from Big Blue Nation.

However, Calipari made made is way to Arizona planning to stay in Lexington after a vote of confidence form AD Mitch Barnhart. But Tyson wanted to speak with him about the Arkansas opening, which came after Eric Musselman left to replace Andy Enfield at USC. There were plenty of parallels to the conversations 17 years ago, but Yurachek made a strong push.

The plan was to talk about potential names for the job. Then, Yuracheck threw out a big one – Calipari, himself.

“I had no intention of leaving – I didn’t need to leave,” Calipari said. “But I got a call from John Tyson, and you’ve probably heard of Tyson Foods. We’ve been friends for 20, 25 years. And he tried to do this in 2007 when I was in Memphis. … At the time, Coach [Frank] Broyles said, ‘Why not you? If you think this is such a good job, why not you?’ It was a different time – if I left, I had to leave players. If my staff had been hired there, you’d feel a little more comfortable. But you had to leave players. So he called me on Thursday – I was at the Final Four. ‘I need you to meet with our AD tomorrow.’ ‘Sure, I’ll meet with him, but I’m leaving at 1. So he’d better come here at 11 or 11:30 and I’ll have an hour for him.’

“We came and we met. Hunter and I met, he talked about the job, he talked about some candidates. And he said, ‘What about you? If you think this is such a great job, why wouldn’t you have an interest in this?’ And I said, ‘Hunter, we’ve got 15 minutes, and I got to get out of here. I got a plane.’ And he said, ‘Well, listen, I’m not doing anything until you tell me no. So know where it is right now.’ So we left the meeting, we kept talking.”

During his first few months on the job at Arkansas, Calipari made it clear his decision wasn’t because of anything in Kentucky. He reiterated that during his interview with Rome, saying he saw an opportunity in Fayetteville and decided to take the leap.

“Again, I’ve taken the high road,” he said. “This is not about Kentucky. It wasn’t about the fans. Fans – look, I go to a Knick game, if they’re not playing well, second quarter, what’s happening? They’re booing. I mean, that’s fans.

“It’s, alright, is there a tailwind? I felt a tailwind here.”