The lucrative hiring of John Calipari as Arkansas’ next head coach was quite a spectacle, as the former Kentucky coach was introduced at Bud Walton Arena on Wednesday night to a large crowd that filled nearly the entire East Stand.
“I’ve never received this kind of greeting in this building,” Calipari said. “Actually, you were probably in the building when they kicked me out. [in 2020]. But we won that game. But when I left, you guys were throwing things at me. There was no applause.”
There was loud applause this time when athletic director Hunter Yurachek introduced Calipari, who became the third Hall of Fame basketball coach to lead the Razorbacks, alongside Nolan Richardson and Eddie Sutton.
Coach Cal paid tribute to Richardson, saying he holds him in high regard and even going so far as to say he wouldn’t have accepted the job without his approval.
“He and I talked this morning,” Calipari said. “Hunter will tell you, or John [Tyson], the only thing I asked was if I wanted to know what Coach Richardson thinks about me taking this job. I need to know.
“When I asked Hunter and John, ‘What did Coach Richardson say about me being hired?’ What he said was: ‘a great hire because he cares about the children’. day.”
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Remembering the 90s
Calipari also told a story about a connection to Richardson, who led the Hogs to the 1994 national championship, that he discovered through decorating his office in Lexington.
“They [tweet out] the poster I talked about?” Calipari asked the room. “Isn’t that crazy? I’m at my desk and my assistant says, ‘Did you look back?’ And I looked and it was Nolan Richardson and Corliss. And I thought, ‘This is crazy,’ and I sent it to Coach Richardson.
The poster in question is from the Tipoff Classic in November 1994, when Calipari’s UMASS Minutemen, ranked third in the country, met Richardson’s top-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks.
“Someone was here at the 1994 game in Springfield, [MA]the Hall of Fame game?” Calipari asked the crowd at Bud Walton Arena.
One fan shouted that he had traveled to Massachusetts a long time ago.
“It was UMass and Arkansas the year after they won the national title,” Calipari said. “That year, they went to the championship game. It’s a poster of Coach Richardson. He looked at it and said, ‘That doesn’t look like me’… It really does look like him… By the way, what was the score of that game?’
The same fan then shouted that he forgives Calipari.
Thirty years after the fact, Coach Cal’s story is correct. UMASS achieved a surprising 104-80 victory over the defending national champions, led by Louis Roe’s 34-point night.
Calipari’s innovative “offensive dribble-drive” destroyed Richardson’s press as the Minutemen earned 50 free throw attempts and outscored Arkansas by 20.
On a interview with Graham Bensinger Last year, Calipari said the victory was the proudest on-court achievement of his career and served as the moment he knew he had made it.
“When I was at UMASS and we beat Arkansas, and they were ranked No. 1 in the country and we were trying to break into the scene… it was really satisfying, because you built something out of nothing,” Calipari said.
“I called [Coach Richardson] and I sent him the poster,” Calipari said. “He looks great. He sounded like he always sounded… We talked about the game where he got crushed. He laughed. It just goes to show that anyone can beat anyone in a game. They got their team back, they had 10 [returning] guys. We hit them over the head… He knew what was going on in the game, he talked about it, he talked about his players. I told him he’s always welcome here.”
The two Hall of Fame coaches met again in the Sweet 16 the following season, and Calipari once again got the better of Richardson. The Minutemen won 79-63eventually advancing to the Final Four behind Wooden Award-winning center Marcus Camby.
Hall of Fame Friendship
While Calipari, a fierce competitor, had to criticize Richardson for their past on-court encounters, the newest Head Hog expressed nothing but appreciation for the Razorback legend.
“I think Corey Beck is here,” Calipari said. “Where is Corey? Corey played on that team. Scottie Thurman, ‘The Shot’. It wasn’t just who [Richardson] trained, it’s how he trained and how they changed the game to that point of ‘we’re coming after you, 40 minutes of hell, this is what we’re doing’.
“And the excitement in this building, it was hard to win a game as an opponent here because you knew they were coming for you, here they come. I will tell you that he challenged his children…He challenged them, but he cared.”
Connections are everything in college, and Calipari has made many of them throughout his long career. Having a legend like Richardson in your circle will certainly help win over Arkansas fans, and the presence of another Hall of Fame coach in the program will further elevate the Razorback brand.
Richardson was a regular at Arkansas games when his former assistant, Mike Anderson, was leading the Hogs, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has obviously made going to games in recent years far from easy for the 82-year-old.
With another friend and fellow Hall of Famer now leading the program, the iconic retired coach will likely make the trip to Bud Walton Arena a little more often.
