John Calipari believes every college coach has a hard job

Before NCAA Tournament play started John Calipari explained how “one slip” and the season is over. (Vicky Graff Photo)

Kentucky fans/media often hear John Calipari talk about the pressure of coaching at Kentucky and numerous national college basketball writers/analysts insist he’s the “perfect” coach for UK.

Before last week’s NCAA Tournament opener, Calipari was asked what it meant to try and “live up to the tag of blue blood” in college basketball today.

“Every job in college basketball is really hard. Not just — you make it like you’ve got the hardest job, Cal. Yeah, there are a 100 other jobs that I would say are just as hard, and the coaches deserve people to say, they’ve got hard jobs too,” Calipari said

“Right now even a mid-major, what happens is you build your team, and what happens at the end of the year? Your best players, what? They leave. That is a ridiculously hard job. All coaches, in what we do, there’s an expectation of every job, understanding that Kentucky’s expectations may be higher, but so are everybody else’s.”

Calipari had been under some stress after this 2021 team missed the NCAA Tournament and the 2022 team lost to 15-seed Saint Peter’s in the first round. This year UK was a top five team in  most preseason polls but lost 10 regular-season games and the first game of the SEC Tournament. Then it lost to Kansas State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

“One thing goes wrong and you slip, all of a sudden it becomes doubly hard. Coaching basketball these days is very hard. Rewarding financially and all that. I’m not saying that,” Calipari said before the tournament started.

“My dad was a baggage handler, so don’t think that I don’t understand. But these jobs, they’re hard. Yeah, I’ve got a hard job. I love this job. I love being at Kentucky. I love walking in every arena, and it’s full. Every arena we go to, every game at home we led the nation in attendance. Who wouldn’t want to coach there?”

However, there is a but to that.

“There’s the other side of it. There’s a high expectation, but that’s never scared me. It doesn’t scare me now,” Calipari said. “But, please, understand the coaches are saying thank you for me saying that right now. We all have got hard jobs. They’re hard, and they’re intense, and people, social media has made them even crazier.”

And losing to Kansas State made Kentucky fans even crazier.