Former UMass basketball coach John Calipari, 'paranoid by design,' started his cautious approach with the Minutemen

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Kentucky men's basketball coach John Calipari is known for his paranoid behavior, which started during his time in Amherst. (The Associated Press)
Nick O'Malley | By Nick O'Malley | The Republican
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on February 10, 2014 at 5:03 PM, updated February 10, 2014 at 5:04 PM

It's been 18 years since John Calipari's departure as head coach of the Massachusetts men's basketball team. Still, the only man to take UMass to the (now-vacated) Final Four still has his presence felt around Amherst.

While he's built a lengthy track record of success at multiple programs, it's ultimately incidents such as the vacated wins that ultimately drive Calipari. A recent feature by the Lexington Herald-Leader's Jerry Tipton looked into Calipari's approach to the game, and how, in many cases, it all boils down to one word: paranoia.

In talking with coaches, players and media members that have worked with Calipari throughout the years, the feature paints a picture of a coach that has accomplished a great deal and made some enemies along the way. The issue, though, is that there may not be as many people out to get Calipari as he may think there are.

"John has a lot of terrific qualities. Anybody who knows him, even his friends, would tell you he is paranoid by design," said Gary Parrish, who covered Calipari during his time at Memphis. "That doesn't mean he hasn't been right about some things. It's just that oftentimes he sees conspiracies when they simply don't exist."

In a sports landscape rife with coaches constantly looking for bulletin material to create "nobody believes in us" or "us-versus-them" mentalities for their teams, Calipari stands out as one who takes it even further. This mindset, though, is nothing new. In fact, it first began to show itself during Calipari's time as the coach of the Minutemen from 1988-1996.

Marty Dobrow, author of "Going Bigtime: The Spectacular Rise of UMass Basketball," discussed Calipari's early challenges with Tipton, focusing on a Boston Globe story that detailed academic underachievement. Calipari would later say he was "personally humiliated" by the incident.

The Globe story was one of the early instances of Calipari's paranoia where the coach's fears came to fruition. But it wouldn't be the last. Of note, Calipari is known to believe that the NCAA and other ratings metrics are conspiring against his teams. When it came to the NCAA vacating wins (and a Final Four appearance) at both UMass and Memphis, he was rate in being worried.

"He was convinced there was a RPI guy and he hated Memphis," Parrish said to Tipton. "You couldn't explain to him that the RPI was a formula. It may be a flawed formula, but it's a formula. John was convinced the guy putting in the numbers was trying to hurt his program."

Today, Calipari is at the helm of a perennial contender at Kentucky. While the program's legacy and resources will help fuel his team's going forward, there is plenty of external pressure for a figure such as Calipari to fuel those cautious tendencies.

While his former prodigee and eventual successor at UMass, Derek Kellogg, hasn't carried on that paranoid legacy, Calipari's time with the Minutemen serves at a reminder that, even though every one may not be out there to get you, it never hurts to be careful.