Mark Pope explains Kentucky fans' feelings about John Calipari's return in unaired docuseries clip

Saturday marks two weeks since John Calipari’s return to Rupp Arena. It feels like most fans have moved past Kentucky’s loss to Arkansas (the win over Tennessee certainly helped), but on Monday night, the Razorbacks’ big victory will be featured in the second episode of the VICE docuseries “Calipari: Razor’s Edge.”

The first episode of the series aired this past Monday and chronicled Calipari leaving Lexington for Fayetteville and the first half of the Razorbacks’ season. Mark Pope was interviewed for the series, a clip of which you’ve already seen on KSR in which he talks about the chance meeting he had with Calipari and Tubby Smith at the Final Four just hours before Calipari started talks with Arkansas. KSR was granted access to more unaired footage of Pope’s interviews for the series. One clip in particular perfectly encapsulates Kentucky fans’ conflicting emotions on Calipari’s return, which resulted in a mixture of applause and boos when he took the floor.

“The love and gratitude and connection they have with John Calipari is personal and deep and meaningful,” Pope said of Kentucky fans. “Like, you mark moments in your life by what the Cats did in 2012, right? And then all of that is true. So, there’s that part of Cal walking into the building where it’s just like love, and tears, and gratitude. And there’s also the very real part of like, he left us. How is that possible? How do you explain that? And not only that, but went to a rival in our league in college basketball.

“So, there’s that conflicting feeling of, well, he’s playing on the other team right now and I don’t cheer for the other team. I only cheer for the Cats. It’s loyalty and this was how I was born and raised. It’s also the feel of the dynamics of college basketball, about everything changing so fast. There’s also the loyalty to the program now, so our fans, they care more than any fans that I’ve ever been around anywhere in any sport and that’s why it’s such an honor to be associated with this program. And that’s why it’s so perfectly understandable, there’s all this passion that we don’t exactly know how to direct it right now. So, that’s what it’s going to be right now. It’s going to be mayhem.”

Here’s how it all went down through Steven Peake’s lens. You can get an even closer look when the new episode drops Monday at 10 p.m. ET on VICE.

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Pope on Calipari’s legacy: “He’ll be on the Mt. Rushmore” of Kentucky Basketball

In additional unaired clips, Pope shares his thoughts on Calipari’s legacy at Kentucky. As a former player turned fan turned coach, Pope praises Calipari’s “inexhaustible energy” in turning the program around so quickly following Billy Gillispie’s departure in 2009 and keeping it close to the top for so long.

“There have been these little moments in history, just to keep it interesting, where Kentucky has struggled a little bit, lost its way a little bit. And Cal took over certainly when Kentucky was not living up to the standard that we’ve been accustomed to and he changed that in like minus one second. He walked in the door and ushered in all of the energy and bigness and enthusiasm that followed Coach Cal everywhere he goes and he did an unbelievable job of bringing juice back to the program.”

“To watch Cal year after year after year fight to keep Kentucky at the pinnacle, the most elite level, was incredible. He’s got inexhaustible energy. He’s got so much love for this place. It’s exciting. It’s fun to watch.”

As someone now more than halfway through his first season as Kentucky’s coach, Pope marveled at Calipari’s longevity in Lexington. As Joe B. Hall famously said, this job has a shelf life of about ten years.

“I think Cal’s legacy here is going to be about serving this program and this community incredibly well and bringing all the juice that he had to it. One of the things that Cal has done in the modern era that’s different than the other great coaches who have coached here, is he did it twice as long. There’s this kind of window of seven, eight, nine, ten years that had kind of been the trend, and Cal did it for 15 years at an amazingly high level and gave his whole heart — him and Ellen gave their whole heart to Kentucky and every member of BBN will be forever grateful for that and he’ll be on the Mt. Rushmore of people associated with this program and well-deservedly so.”

Speaking of VICE and former Kentucky coaches, their docuseries on Rick Pitino, “Pitino: Red Storm Rising,” debuted earlier this week. I’ve yet to watch it, but the first episode details how he rebuilt the Kentucky program following Eddie Sutton’s tenure in the late 80s/early 90s. You can watch the entire first episode for free here.