It’s time for Memphis to embrace John Calipari

Tiger fans need to admit that John Calipari did a lot more good than harm to their basketball program.

I am not doing this with you today, Memphis. On the eve of John Calipari’s induction into the Basketball Hall Of Fame it’s time to let go of this bitter, salt-crusted dog bone of a beef y’all have with the guy who dragged the Tiger basketball program into the modern era. Ever since U of Memphis president M. David Rudd tweeted that y’all would take part in a three-school celebration with Kentucky and UMass, the Tiger fanbase has wallowed in the opportunity to revisit its post-Cal scorn — a vacated Final Four, “stolen” recruits and snow cone machines — to the point where Rudd backed off the private, big-donor dinner that wasn’t gonna be open to gen pop fans anyway. Way to go.

Instead of hanging on to the NCAA’s ruling from six years ago or mis-remembering Calipari’s departure for Lexington in 2009, you’d do better to finally face facts. The substantial contributions Calipari gave the Memphis Tiger men’s basketball program far outweigh any of the wins (and the recruiting class) that Memphis lost.

The Derrick Rose SAT saga has been a well-trod anti-Cal argument since Rose’s test scores were ruled ineligible. Look, the NCAA does what the NCAA does, and Rose’s lone year in college “doesn’t count” and/or “didn’t happen” even though the 2008 National Championship game is still available to stream via the NCAA’s online vault (also available on YouTube) and is currently for sale on DVD through NCAA partners. Whatever. Y’all got so mad about the NCAA taking away its banner benediction that a group of season ticket holders up and sued Calipari, Rose, and Memphis’ athletic director R.C. Johnson for devaluing their purchase and subsequently made Cal and Johnson repay contract bonuses they earned because of the Final Four trip. Rose was strong-armed into a $100K pound of flesh settlement.

That’s done. But rather than remembering that Rose and Cal (and Chris Douglas-Roberts) beat a UCLA team that had Russell Westbrook AND Kevin Love AND Darren Collision to get to one of the highest-rated title games of the 2000s, or that Calipari used that run to reconnect the program to Memphis basketball alums who’d been alienated by previous coaches, the rest of us have to hear ONE MORE TIME about the terrible injustice wrought upon Tiger fandom.