John Calipari announces Mamba partnership: “We are honored”

Kentucky is officially a Mamba Program, head coach John Calipari announced on 8/24 — better known as #MambaDay.

Calipari announced the Wildcats’ partnership with the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation while celebrating the lives and legacies of the late Kobe and Gigi Bryant. The Hall of Fame coach discussed his relationship with Kobe prior to his tragic passing in January 2020 while also letting Bryant’s wife Vanessa, oldest daughter Natalia and the entire Bryant family know that the Kentucky basketball program was thinking of them today.

“As we celebrate #MambaDay today and honor the legacy of Kobe and Gigi Bryant, I want to let Vanessa, Natalia and the entire Bryant family know that we are thinking of them and that we keep them close to our hearts and in our prayers,” Calipari said. “I had the pleasure of knowing Kobe Bryant and he was everything that people said he was – a brilliant, curious mind who was relentlessly competitive and found greatness on every path he traveled.

“He was also someone with an incredible sense of humor and power to command the room. I’ll never forget walking into the Lakers training room a few years ago after a game in LA and saying hello to Kobe. He spoke up to the entire room and said, “You know, this guy would still be in the NBA if he’d drafted me.” It was funny. And probably true. LOL.”

Kentucky becomes college basketball’s first Mamba Program

Calipari made clear that Kobe’s ‘Mamba Mentality’ is something he pushes the Kentucky basketball program to embrace every year. And now that the Wildcats are partnering with the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation to become college basketball’s first-ever Mamba Program, that’ll only continue.

“Each year, as we try to build our team to chase greatness and be their best version, the things we try to teach them run parallel to what Kobe called ‘Mamba Mentality,'” Calipari said. “His five pillars – Resilience, Fearlessness, Obsessiveness, Relentlessness, Passion – are at the core of what it takes to be great and reflect the very things that made Kobe so special.

“We are honored to continue to partner with the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation to honor the legacy of Kobe and Gigi. As long as I am coaching, my program will celebrate #MambaDay and continue to have a #MambaMentality and #PlayGigisWay.”

As we celebrate #MambaDay today and honor the legacy of Kobe and Gigi Bryant, I want to let Vanessa, Natalia and the entire Bryant family know that we are thinking of them and that we keep them close to our hearts and in our prayers.
 
I had the pleasure of knowing Kobe Bryant… pic.twitter.com/DQV6VDsM4d

— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) August 24, 2023

The Mamba Partnership

KSR broke the news of the Wildcats’ public partnership with the Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation earlier this month, the first of its kind. A process over a year in the making, Vanessa Bryant hand-picked the University of Kentucky as the first Mamba school in partnership with Nike, now finalized.

Though Kentucky is the first, other schools are expected to join the fold over the course of the multi-year rollout.

As a Mamba Program, the Wildcats will wear exclusive Kentucky-themed Kobe sneakers and apparel this season, sources tell KSR. Special uniforms featuring the Mamba logo are also possible in the future.

Kentucky’s history with Mamba and the Bryants

Vanessa Bryant and the Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation first gifted the team Mambacita Kobe 4s ahead of Kentucky’s trip to Toronto for the GLOBL JAM in July. John Calipari also received a personal gift from the Bryant family back in May: his own pair of Mambacitas, along with a Gigi Bryant jersey and Kobe’s book, “The Mamba Mentality: How I Play.”

I just received the most incredible gift from Vanessa and Natalia Bryant.

Happy 17th birthday, Gigi!!

Thinking today of Gigi and all of the lives she touched and continues to touch!!#PlayGigisWay pic.twitter.com/mruCZIFaop

— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) May 1, 2023

Kentucky hosted Natalia Bryant and the family’s organization for the Mamba Skills Academy last October. Held at Memorial Coliseum, the youth basketball camp was free of charge to underserved boys and girls in the community. Players and coaches from the men’s and women’s basketball teams helped run the camp, which featured drill stations and five-on-five battles.

“This is the first partnership with any university,” Kat Conlon, executive director of the Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation, told media in attendance. “Coach Calipari and Kobe Bryant had a very special relationship, so anything we can do with the foundation that continues to tell the stories of Kobe and Gianna Bryant, we are all game for it with the foundation.”

As of today, that partnership is now permanent.