The helicopter that once swirled overhead had gone back to roost, and the reporters and fans camped outside had given up their vigil when Josh Pastner took a pen and inked his name on a contract. It was 1 o’clock in the morning on March 31, 2009, and John Calipari finally had made up his mind. After nine seasons, one championship game appearance, three Elite Eights and four Sweet 16s, he was leaving Memphis to become the head coach at the University of Kentucky. He’d just signed the deal making him the highest paid coach in college basketball.
There was just one hiccup: He needed a witness to make it official. “I signed it,’’ Pastner says. “If you look at his contract, it’s my name on there. I remember thinking, ‘Whoever follows him (at Memphis), he’s got to be cuckoo.
“I was the cuckoo.’’
He says this now with the incredulity of 13 years of water passing under the bridge. It is funny to look back and consider how it all shook out; how the young assistant who just happened to be in the right place at the right time signed into existence not just his boss’ future that night, but his own. It wasn’t so funny then. “More like a hostage situation,’’ Pastner says. “No one could go anywhere. It was crazy.’’
There had been plenty of painful divorces in men’s college basketball before Calipari and plenty since, but none held a city under its spell quite like this one. It became about more than a coaching change, Calipari’s rejection picking at both the scab of the city’s complicated inferiority complex and its desperate want to compete with basketball’s elite. Calipari slunk out of town like the Grinch slithering around a denuded Christmas tree. He took their civic pride and successes. He plucked away their recruits. And then two months after he left, he bequeathed one final zinger. The NCAA announced an investigation into Derrick Rose’s SAT score and alleged illegal benefits for Rose’s brother. Eventually the city’s banner of accomplishment — the 2008 national runner-up/Final Four run — came down and the school record 38 wins were vacated. It was as if all that Memphis had achieved was an illusion.
Only three coaches in Memphis’ history left on their own accord — Gene Bartow went to Illinois, Calipari and eventually Pastner. That Calipari jilted the Tigers for Kentucky only made the burn sting more. Here sat Memphis, arguably one of the most successful programs of that era — the Tigers won more games in four years than any in previous NCAA history — and yet still was incapable of competing with the Wildcats’ allure. “From euphoria to gloom almost overnight,’’ says Harold Byrd, the founder and vice chairman of Bank of Bartlett and a prominent Memphis supporter. “That’s the only way to describe it.’’
You could argue that Memphis has operated from that pit of rejection ever since, simultaneously feeling as if it needed Calipari to succeed while wanting to prove that both the city and the program are bigger than one man. “Just a reminder fellow basketball fans: we are called the ‘Tigers,’ not the ‘Caliparis,’’’ Darrell Warberg of Millington, Tenn., wrote in a succinct letter to the editor in the Commercial Appeal in April 2009. There is no comparing Kentucky’s success under Calipari to Memphis’ run without him. The Wildcats have a national title and four Final Four appearances, while the Tigers haven’t made it out of the first weekend. (Though there was, no doubt, plenty of Bluff City schadenfreude last March when Kentucky took a first-round bounce at the hands of Saint Peter’s while Memphis pushed Gonzaga to the brink in the second.)
Would the two programs’ roles be reversed had Calipari stayed? Would Kentucky’s banners hang now at Memphis? There’s no sure way to answer that, but it was the tantalizing possibility that the Tigers might soar to even greater heights that made the exit so fascinating. There are two sides to this story, of course, but this one is told by the people who still can’t help but wonder what might have been, the people of Memphis.
Ken Bennett and his wife, Debbie, sat in their seats on the charter flight, waiting for Calipari to come back and chat. Bennett, the executive director of STREETS ministries, first met Calipari when the coach recruited one of his players, Antonio Burks, the two becoming so close that Bennett became the team’s chaplain and a regular on road trips. Every time the Tigers flew home, Calipari would eventually wind his way back to find Bennett to talk. But as the plane covered the space between Arizona, site of the Tigers’ Sweet 16 loss to Missouri, and Memphis, the coach never ventured back to find his good friend.
Hours earlier, before the charter took off, Kentucky announced the end of its bad-fit marriage with Billy Gillispie, setting the rumor mill to percolate with names of Gillispie’s successor. Calipari, passed over for the job when UK went with Gillispie, figured prominently.
“Something’s not right,’’ Bennett told a mutual friend when he got home. The friend suggested Bennett ask Calipari directly. Calipari shrugged off Bennett’s concerns, insisting he was merely disappointed with end to the season. A few hours later, around 10:30 at night, the coach called Bennett back. “Come over,’’ he said. “We need to take a walk.’’ “And that’s when he started to unpack the Kentucky thing,’’ Bennett says.
Technically, Kentucky did not make official overtures until days later, but the way searches go, word has a way of reaching a coach without a formal conversation. There was some irony in that Kentucky turned to Calipari to rescue the Wildcats from the morass. Two years earlier when Mitch Barnhart needed to replace Tubby Smith, Calipari waited anxiously by the phone, sure the Kentucky athletic director would call. He did not — too many asterisks and question marks went the unofficial story. Now, though, the Wildcats needed someone who could not only win but, having learned the hard way with Gillispie, help pitch the Big Blue Nation circus tents again. There is no better carnival barker in all of college hoops, then or now, than Calipari.
His razzamatazz certainly contributed to the resurgence at Memphis, where he took over a proud but stalled program and by sheer force of will (and savvy recruiting) elevated the Tigers to a level not even their most fervent fans could imagine. Before Calipari, Memphis went four years without winning 20 games in a season; under his watch, the Tigers won between 21-38 games each season and for four consecutive years reached the Sweet 16 or better, headlined by the national title game loss to Kansas in 2008.
The success raised some eyebrows and more questions, but Calipari’s us against the world approach played perfectly in the city. When Calipari insisted his program, supported by wealthy boosters and FedEx, was nothing more than a plucky mid-major success story, plenty of people rolled their eyes; in Memphis, they gobbled it up. Tiger pride sits deep in the soul of many Memphisians, their devotion fueled decades earlier by another team that almost had it all. The 1972-73 team, led by local hero Larry Finch, who opted to stay home in a city unnerved by racial unrest after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., lost to UCLA and Bill Walton in the national title game. But it is always imbued with a feeling of disrespect, that no matter the level of the Tigers’ successes, they remained constant beggars at the feast. “We’re the edgy grind here,’’ Bennett says. “People don’t understand us. We have a chip on our shoulder. That’s why Cal fit here.’’
All of which served as the backstory to underscore the pain to the civic pride that Calipari’s exit delivered. Memphis not only lost its coach, but Kentucky came and plucked him away. This was a rebuke. “It was such a major disappointment for everyone because we had been to the mountaintop, to that Mario Chalmers’ shot of winning it all,’’ says Byrd, referencing the Kansas player’s 3-point buzzer-beater that forced overtime in the championship game. “And then Kentucky, they had dismissed John for so long, like it was beneath them, but now they’re coming for your coach. It stung.’’
Once the rumor mill started churning, the would-he-stay-or-would-he-go angst ratcheted up to a near frenzy. TV reporters staked out the parking lot outside of Calipari’s office, hoping to catch him coming or going. One, Fox 13, wound up simply pointing a camera at the back door, live streaming the door online. The door instantaneously became a celebrity. Pre-Instagram and Twitter, it nonetheless gained two Facebook pages devoted to it — “I Watched the Door For Hours’’ and “A Possible Savior for an Entire Program.’’ Savvy athletic department officials took advantage of the free advertising, putting signs on the door with their upcoming baseball and softball schedules.
Calipari dodged the cameras, sneaking out other doors and eluding all of the attention, even as people camped outside of his home. Bennett remembers sneaking Calipari out of his own home for a meeting with Memphis president Shirley Raines, concocting a plan with assistant coach John Robic. ‘We laid the back seat down in his garage and put a blanket over him,’’ Bennett says. “Here we are, three grown men. We felt ridiculous.’’
“Helicopters overhead, people outside,’’ Pastner says. “I’ve never seen anything like it.’’ R.C. Johnson might have been the only person not consumed by the drama. The Memphis athletic director operated from a point grounded in reality, and even as his boosters put together a ninth-hour meeting, Johnson knew there was little anyone could do to keep him. Calipari, with Pastner as his witness, signed the contract that night.
When Barnhart called to ask permission to speak to Calipari, rather than turn the athletic director off, Johnson offered his endorsement. “I said, ‘He will be a perfect fit,’’ says Johnson, long since retired. “If anyone can handle that job, it’s John. I took a lot of heat for that, but it’s Kentucky. It’s a dream job. I understood.’’
The day after Calipari signed the agreement, police officers cordoned off his street to allow him to get to the airport. As Calipari drove through the gates to his driveway, fans chanted, ‘S-T-A-Y’. But he was already gone.
John Calipari and Memphis’ 2008-09 basketball team, his last at the university. (Joe Murphy / Getty Images)
Pastner rolled up to the house in the morning, and was stunned when the owner came to the door to let him in. Johnson ordinarily was turned out neat as a pin, every hair in place, his clothes pressed. Yet here stood Johnson, a five o’clock shadow pushing midnight on a full beard, dressed in a slouchy sweatsuit and looking beleaguered.
He invited Pastner in. Nine years earlier, Johnson made what then read as a daring decision to bring Calipari to Memphis. Though his win/loss record at the college level spoke for itself, Calipari didn’t come to town empty-handed. He toted plenty of baggage — a vacated Final Four at UMass after his star player, Marcus Camby, was accused of taking cash and gifts; and a crash and burn at the NBA level, where a $15 million deal with the New Jersey Nets ended early in his third year. By the time Johnson hired him, Calipari was working as a Sixers assistant, a polarizing figure in college hoops circles who had just as many detractors as fans.
Johnson, of course, wound up looking brilliant when Calipari systematically built Memphis into a juggernaut. But by the time Pastner showed up at his doorstep, Johnson was self-exiled into his house, dealing with a fan base that watched not just the coach head off to Lexington, but what would have been the Tigers’ best recruiting class disperse, too. DeMarcus Cousins, Xavier Henry and Nolan Dennis, all top 100 players, used out-clauses in their national letters of intent to back out of their commitments to Memphis. Cousins followed Calipari to Kentucky, Henry opted for Kansas and Dennis for Baylor. John Wall, who would have gone to Memphis had Calipari remained, instead went with the Wildcats, and though Eric Bledsoe kept the Tigers in his final two, he also opted for the coach instead of the program, choosing Kentucky. For Memphisians, It was one body blow after another.
It didn’t help that the promises of a new coach who would make the city scream “wow” went unfulfilled. People weren’t wrong to think Memphis was a good job. The program had the city under its spell. More than 14,000 fans attended Midnight Madness in October 2008, and that season the Tigers ranked 10th nationally in attendance. Though its conference (Conference USA) didn’t offer the deep pockets of other leagues, Memphis operated almost like Gonzaga does now, backed fully and financially by the university, building a reputation that superseded its conference affiliation.
But Johnson flailed, much to fans’ dismay. “Some people were understandably afraid to follow in John’s footsteps,’’ Byrd says. “And some just got raises.’’ Bruce Pearl (at Tennessee), Mike Anderson (at Missouri) and Leonard Hamiliton (at Florida State) all fielded calls from Johnson … and then signed contract extensions. Tim Floyd (then at USC) and Baylor’s Scott Drew simply chose to stay put. The search lasted just six days, but it was measured in dog years, each rejection only adding salt to the now festering wound.
Pastner was at home packing for Lexington when Johnson called. Considered an up-and-comer in the profession, the 31-year-old had been on staff for just a year and looked forward to adding “Kentucky assistant coach” to his CV. He figured Johnson had finally landed on a head coach, and was hoping to convince Pastner to stick around as a bridge between old staff and new — and more so convince remaining players and recruits not to run out of town, either.
Johnson ushered Pastner into the dining room and asked him if he wanted the job. Assuming he meant an assistant’s position, Pastner declined. Johnson clarified that he was offering the head coaching position.
Johnson insists Pastner was always on the list, though he also concedes that he exhausted several other options prior. He viewed Pastner as a rising star, remembering Calipari using those words when he brought him to his staff.
“The first thing he says to me is, ‘Can I call Calipari?’” Johnson says. “So I hear John giving him a list of things to ask for. I take the phone from him and say, ‘OK, John, what are you an agent now?’” Pastner was, understandably, flummoxed. “I could get fired in a year,’’ he told Calipari. The head coach asked him a simple question. “Why did you come to work for me? To be a head coach, right? Well, here’s your chance.’’ Still dumbfounded, Pastner hung up and agreed to the job. Johnson sketched the details out on a yellow legal sheet. “I’m 31 years old. What am I doing?” Pastner remembers thinking. “This isn’t some sixth-grade coaching job. It’s the winningest program over the last four years, following a guy who was the most famous person in the city. When I went to my car I just sat there. What just happened?”
He was not alone. Anxious fans awaiting news of their big-named coach were less enthused when Johnson unveiled the baby-faced Pastner. Several shared their opinions in the letter to the editor section of the Commercial Appeal. “Josh Pastner? I guess Sarah Palin said no,’’ Mike Hanson wrote. “Nothing against the new coach,’’ Robert Cichon penned. “But we just went back 10 years to the Tic Price era.’’
“I was on the hot seat before I coached a game,’’ Pastner says.
It didn’t work, or at least not as well as it worked under Calipari. Pastner spent a respectable four years at Memphis, taking the Tigers to three NCAA berths in that run. But they never got out of the first weekend, and Pastner moved on to Georgia Tech before he got moved on. A two-year Tubby Smith experiment failed miserably, and with each passing season of diminishing returns the animosity toward Calipari grew.
Plans to honor Calipari for his 2015 Naismith Hall of Fame induction were scuttled amid backlash, then-university president M. David Rudd forced to issue an apology for being so obtuse. “Although I was surprised by the depth and intensity of conviction, passion and distress, it was my responsibility to understand and weigh this in advance,’’ Rudd wrote. In 2017, the NCAA Selection Committee did what the city could not, forcing a reunion when the bracket delivered Kentucky to FedExForum for the regional. There were talks of a public gathering then, too, but they also fizzled. Instead Calipari met privately with friends at a reception at the Peabody Hotel. As for the games, let’s just say North Carolina’s Luke Maye, whose jumper kept the Wildcats from the Final Four, remains popular around town.
Was the vitriol misguided? It was always less about the man and more about the circumstances. Memphis craves a basketball winner, the city one of the few urban spots in America where the college team is still as popular as the pro team in town. That balance only has shifted recently, with the arrival of Ja Morant (this year, the Tigers averaged 14,063 in attendance to 15,775 for the Grizzlies).
Yet it’s also interesting to consider where Memphis sits now. Penny Hardaway is, arguably, an indirect byproduct of everything that happened 13 years ago. Done in by the failed experiments of Pastner and Smith, the city practically hosted a coup to bring back its favorite son. Hardaway was a calculated risk – he had no college coaching experience, having only coached his summer league team and at a local high school. But he was Penny, the kid who grew up in Memphis, starred at Memphis State and understood Memphis. He also had built a reputation with his summer-league team, stocked with local players who just so happened to be some of the best players in the nation. Hardaway offered a direct injection of legitimacy, people presuming rightly that his players would follow him to campus.
He has not yet realized Calipari’s postseason success, but he has won 20-plus games in three consecutive seasons, weathering the storm of prized recruit Emoni Bates with blunt honesty that seemed insanely risky but eventually panned out. Hardaway didn’t cave, Bates didn’t play and the Tigers went to the NCAA Tournament. Anyone who watched the Tigers go toe-to-toe with No. 1 Gonzaga in the second round would be hard-pressed to argue that this was a team that got better — a lot better — as the season went on. (Bates has since transferred to Eastern Michigan.)
Memphis is not back, but it is closer than it’s been since Calipari departed. “Penny is perfect because Penny gets it,’’ Pastner says. “I understood it, but I didn’t have any time to absorb it. It was like, ‘Here’s the key to the deal, good luck. Get it done.’ It was pandemonium, honestly. I look back at it now and I feel like I survived it. That’s the best thing anyone can say who was there. You survived it.’’
(Top illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photos: Joe Murphy, Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
