Mark Emmert isn't worth eye contact.After Ohio State defecated on themselves during last week's Final Four loss to Kansas, I almost broke both of my legs trying to leap onto the Kentucky swag-wagon. My reasons were simple: 1) I loathe the entire state of Kentucky, and if their state "university" were to win, there was a chance their "students" would burn the entire state down. 2) I like Anthony Davis. 3) John Calipari is the man.
Yeah, I typed that third one. And you know what the best thing is? Nobody can deny it. John Calipari might as well have scaled the ladder on Monday night with his pants down. If he would have done that, then I would have stood and clapped. This article wouldn't have been written either, because I'd still be standing in the middle of my hovel... clapping.
The NCAA for so long has been the bully -- the ones blustering and grandstanding, the ones screwing kids over -- it was finally nice to watch Mark Emmert take one in the jaw. It's nice to know that for once, there is justice in this world, and justice has been rendered to these streets.
I am so sick, and so tired, of watching Mark Emmert whine and complain about "student-athletes" in a desperate attempt to hold on to his tax shelter. I am so sick, and so tired, of watching these people screw up things like "division one football play-offs." Hell, these people can't even institute a 4-team play-off because it might mess up their long-standing money trees.
If Emmert really thought the one-and-done rule was a "mockery", then he would have said so before he handed John Calipari the trophy. What did he do? He tucked his pink penis between his legs and handed the trophy over to the man who had just owned him. Emmert gave the trophy to a man who basically said Emmert wouldn't have a job much longer. It was probably like having a pornographic dream for John Calipari. Only this time, he actually woke up on a pile of naked women and a glistening pinkie ring fastened around his finger.
But no, the tears did not stop there. Pete Thamel (noted Calipari hater) and Greg Bishop of the New York Times wrote an article which made me think they wrote it with quills dipped in vats of Calipari's haters' tears, their own included.
Neither is David Stern, for that matter.Rarely has a national title seemed to yield so little to celebrate. The starting five for the champion Kentucky Wildcats — a mix of freshmen and sophomores — are expected to enter the N.B.A. draft, and never again play for the college they ever so briefly attended.
See how the mood is set instantly? Can't you almost hear Pete Thamel proof-reading his work in His Very Serious Business Voice? I'm pretty sure this national championship means just as much to Kentucky's fans as any other. What's Thamel and his apprentice's issue here? That athletes are leaving without graduating? No, not really, because then Pete Thamel would have to get mad about a lot more people than just John Calipari's players.
The confetti inside the Louisiana Superdome on Monday night, then, showered a remarkable basketball team, but also fell with a certain joylessness on a college sport many believe has been cynically compromised.
Again, who is observing this "certain joylessness on a college sport" which "many believe has been cynically compromised." I think I have the answer to the first part, because I'm sure it was a tough confetti-pill for Pete Thamel to swallow as he sat courtside on his business' dime. And, who exactly has compromised the system here? John Calipari, for recruiting the best players available to him? His players, for being the best they could be and winning a national title? "A certain joylessness", indeed.
I'm sure Charles Robinson is already scampering around the ashes of Lexington, looking for clues and still calling himself an "investigative journalist". The national media has been waiting to catch Calipari on the big one for years. And now that he's finally gotten over on them, this is what they do. Insinuate that this title was basically worthless because the system has been "compromised." No, there's nothing compromised about the last team standing in a 68-team tournament.
“John Calipari is doing what the system allows him to do,” said David Ridpath, an assistant professor of sport administration at Ohio University. “I guess in that sense, congratulations. Anyone who thinks that this has anything to do with the collegiate or educational model is flat-out wrong.”
Thanks for the observation, Assistant Professor David Ridpath; it's astute observations like that which I've come to expect from most collegiate professors. However, you are the one who is flat-out wrong. I know colleges professors still like to view themselves as Socrates shaping young mines on street corners, but this is the American collegiate model.
Colleges rip students off, just like the NCAA rips-off the student-athletes. Look at Ohio State's extravagant Student Union. They built a 118 million dollar Student Union, then they billed the students for it. Then they raised tuition. Ohio State's next scheme involves a 375 million dollar payment and leased parking garages. Seeing as most of the administration and tenured professors have luxurious "A" parking passes, I wonder whose backs the company paying Ohio State 375 million dollars plans to make its money back on?
Oh, and Assistant Professor David Ridpath, lest you think this is simply happening at Ohio State, it's not. It's going on at all levels of American secondary education, from private universities to community colleges with swelling enrollment.
Let me know when universities stop using sports as a fundraising tool or start returning some of these big checks they're earning on the backs of these stars. How much does the NCAA make off March Madness? Oh, that's right... 11 billion dollars over the next 13 years in TV revenue ALONE. (For comparison, March Madness cost taxpayers in this country 2.7 billion. The NCAA doesn't foot any of that bill, because again, the NCAA doesn't pay taxes.
Louisville Coach Rick Pitino, a longtime Calipari rival whose team lost to Kentucky in the semifinals, said he marveled at the way Calipari operated at Kentucky. But he added: “I couldn’t do it. I can’t say hello and goodbye in seven months. It’s just not me.”
This is quote from Calipari's bitter rival is a gem because Rick Pitino once jizzed after 15 seconds of sex. I'm pretty sure a guy who repeatedly had sex on a restaurant floor wouldn't have a problem telling a kid "hello" and "goobye" in seven months. But then again, if that's all he's telling the kid in those seven months, then maybe Rick Pitino isn't a very good coach after all.
And wasn't Pitino after that Teague kid? The same one who everybody assumes is going pro now that Calipari has led him to greatness? Funny how that works.
Few could argue the on-court benefits of Calipari’s approach. Six of his last seven teams at Memphis and at Kentucky advanced at least to the regional final of the N.C.A.A. tournament, among the final eight teams remaining. The seventh, Memphis in 2009, lost in the regional semifinals. (Two teams that Calipari led to the Final Four — Memphis in 2008 and Massachusetts in 1996 — later had their victories vacated by the N.C.A.A., although Calipari was never implicated in any wrongdoing.)
"Few could argue the on-court benefits of Calipari's approach, but the two writers of this piece are going to try. All of his major victories except the ones leading up to Monday's capstone have been vacated; although sadly, Calipari has never been implicated in ANY wrong doing."
There's their paragraph in half the words, and one which is much more honest to their readers.
Calipari has also had 13 players selected in the first round of the N.B.A. draft, with Derrick Rose and John Wall being selected first over all. Davis, the most outstanding player in this Final Four, is expected to be taken first over all in this summer’s draft.
Gee, John Calipari MUST BE GAMING THE SYSTEM. That, or he's just good at his job, has put produced a litany of successful professional basketball players, and supremely talented, amateur basketball players (the only ones going to the NBA) naturally want to play for him.
Calipari rankled basketball purists when he said that the day in 2010 when five of his players were picked in the draft’s first round ranked among the greatest in the history of the storied Kentucky program.
Who were these "basketball purists" which were "rankled" by Kentucky's 2010 team? If anybody can find me a necromancer to raise ANY of Adolph Rupp's title-winning teams from the grave (including that gasbag of a racist himself), I will pay them all -$32 I have in my bank account right now. The spread to that game would be Kentucky's 2010 team (-40), by the way.
Seriously, I want to know who these rankled basketball purists were. Because then I'll just show them a video of the 2010 title game and see what those same purists have to say about that degradation to their game.
During the Final Four, Calipari mocked the notion that players going to school for just a year undermined the educational mission of the university, invoking the names of famous college dropouts like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
So, Calipari "mocked" the system by pointing out pioneers which weren't produced by the system? He "mocked" it by pointing out fact? These are the words on the types of words on which agendas ride, my friends.
... Over all, the article is a trail of tears which would even make the Cherokee and Seminole tribes shake their head in disbelief. Again, what is the travesty here? That the best, most-talented team finally won the tournament? That's the realest thing to happen to college sports in the last year. Is it because these kids aren't graduating? As if kids aren't fleeing programs across the country without first graduating? As if Derrick Rose would be better off listening to Assistant Professor David Ridpath instead of signing a 95 million dollar extension?
I hope John Calipari stays at Kentucky. (He will fail in the NBA, again.) If Ohio State can't win every title until I die, then I hope it's teams coached by John Calipari. I hope he keeps winning titles until the NCAA is forced to to change the rules to stop him. I certainly wouldn't expect anything less from a bunch of tear-jerking nancies.
The NCAA is dead. All hail King Calipari.
