Willie Cauley-Stein was impressed with fans on his Midnight Madness visit and it was the same way when he played for La Familia last month. (Vicky Graff Photo)
By LARRY VAUGHT
The first time Willie Cauley-Stein met Kentucky coach John Calipari was when he came to a Kansas high school football game to watch the 7-foot Stein play wide receiver.
“Him (Calipari) and (South Carolina coach) Frank Martin were standing on the sideline. I’ll never forget them standing right off the sideline,” said Cauley-Stein on the “Sons&Daughters” podcast with Shannon Spake. “I crack blocked this kid and our whole side of the stadium was just roaring. I also caught a couple of touchdown passes and Cal was like, ‘Yeah, I want that guy.’ He never even came to a basketball game. It was just that high school football game and then (assistant) coach (Kenny) Payne did the home visit.”
Spake wanted to know what the recruiting pitch was since Cauley-Stein also had Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Florida and Alabama in his final five. Other coaches had told Cauley-Stein all he would get to do if he played for them. Kentucky was different.
“Mine was a lot of you’re not going to get the ball. You’re not going to play all the minutes. You’re not going to be … just a lot of you’re not, you’re not,” Cauley-Stein remembered. “But he was also like, ‘You will play with the best kids in the country every single day in practice and you will probably have a good chance of going to the NBA.’
“I think that you will ‘have a good chance’ sold it for me and I was okay with I won’t be the guy. I won’t get the ball every time down the court. Which is what I wanted. I won’t get to do this. I won’t get to do that. I won’t do that, but I’m going to go to the NBA. Sounds like a pretty good trade.
“Initially I didn’t like it. I went on another couple of visits and it was we’re gonna give you the ball, you’re gonna be the guy, you’re this this and that and then I would just go back to that like Kenny Payne saying, ‘You’re not.'”
That challenge resonated with Cauley-Stein even though he told Spake he was “pretty close” to signing with Alabama until he visited UK for Midnight Madness. He called that a “tipping point” because it was so different from other schools.
“I remember walking in and was a four-star (recruit). At one point I didn’t feel like I belonged here. I was with guys that I’m watching on YouTube and got this big linternet presence already and it wasn’t even like the internet era necessarily yet. I just felt like I don’t belong here,” he said.
He watched Alex Poythress, Archie Goodwin, Nerlens Noel and other UK players get introduced and saw UK fans going crazy. Then he heard fans calling his name and could not believe they knew him already.
“It was like, ‘Oh, they know me. They know who I am. Maybe I do belong.’ I remember how they called out all the NBA guys and they brought them out on the stage and the lights were bright on them and it honestly looked like’ they had just brought out the Avengers in a movie,” he said. “I called my mom immediately right after and told her this is the spot. We got to go here. This is different.”
