Well, well, well. It looks like Memphis coach John Calipari is in a bit of hot water. As the Sports Guy would say, WATFO!
Calipari’s a snake. He was a snake at UMass (remember the team GPA that was about the same as their points-per-possession and the whole Marcus Camby scandal) and he still is. I don’t trust the guy with his plastic hair and Armani suits any farther than I could throw him into the Mississippi.
His latest scandal is actually kind of funny. It seems that when some Memphis players left their apartment to go play in an exhibition game, someone decided to relieve them of some of their goods, including eight mink coats. Eight!
At first the police report said that the coats were worth $5,000 each, for a total of $40,000 worth of mink. It turns out that that was a mistake though, as the total of all eight should have been only $5,000 (they turned out to be fake furs. I haven’t seen pics, but I like to think that they were in bright pimp colors). Calipari seems to think that that correction clears everything up. Apparently, he’s ignoring the roughly $30K worth of other stuff that went missing.
Among the stolen goods: $4,000 in custom-made shirts, $6,000 in shoes, $5,000 in pants and $2,150 in throwback jerseys. Damn cuz. Them’s some fine-dressed players, no?
Calipari explains all of that by saying that most of these guys get Pell grants, per diem meal money and nice summer jobs – a total of about $12K a year (I guess they don’t pay taxes down there). Nope John, that doesn’t quite explain it all.
I lived in a fraternity in college with a bunch of spoiled rich boys and no one, NO ONE, had anything near that kind of booty in their rooms. You mean to tell me that a group of college basketball players were living (and dressing) like Tony Montana and we’re supposed to believe it’s all legit? Knickerbocker, please.
You can read all about the story and Coach Calimari’s excuses here (you can register with frog@sportsfrog.com/sportsfrog – a nod to the site where I found the link).
ps. Is this scandal week or what? I can’t wait to see who’s next!