What Role Did Boosters, AD Play In Bringing Hall of Fame Coach To Arkansas?
Yuracek, Tyson, Stephens should be given flowers for landing John Calipari
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- When Arkansas hired coach John Calipari away from his 15-year gig with Kentucky, it sent shockwaves around the country. While certain segments of the fan base grumbled over coaches Razorbacks athletics director Hunter Yurachek said were never offered the job, a Natural State billionaire chicken farmer helped secure the future of Razorbacks basketball.
John Tyson got the ball rolling into Yurachek's court. Tyson was asked to broker a meeting between Calipari and the Arkansas AD following the season in hopes of eventually asking him to consider the job.
"During this process, John [Tyson] served as a conduit," Yurachek said. "He made an initial connection between myself and Coach Cal to talk about this opportunity. Coach Cal and John [Tyson] have been dear friend for years and that personal relationship was an incredible resource to me to better understand Coach Cal and what might attract him to the University of Arkansas."
Yurachek went on to say thatTyson and his family from northwest Arkansas and Warren Stephens and his family from central Arkansas joined forces to put together the financial package needed to lure Calipari to Arkansas. It was an effort Calipari and Yurachek intended to keep quiet because the Kentucky coach didn't want to take away from the teams playing in the FInal Four and championship games.
Despite the effort at radio silence, Fox16 sports director and 103.7 The Buzz afternoon host Wess Moore broke the news Sunday night that Calipari and Arkansas were in the beginning stages of a deal to make him its next head coach. Of course, that report turned into a wildfire of buzz all the way to the national stages within an hour. Yurachek and the Razorbacks were committing to eat with the big kids.
This was the second time around Calipari was given a call by Tyson about Arkansas' basketball coach vacancy. Calipari listened to his close friend and followed through with a meeting between Yurachek and himself.
"I answered the phone and [Tyson] said, 'I need you to talk with my AD," Calipari said.
"Well, I'm in Phoenix [at the Final Four]," Calipari told Tyson.
"[Yurachek] is in Phoenix," Tyson said.
"What?," Calipari replied. " Well, tell him to call me and I'll meet him tomorrow."
Calipari said he and Yurachek met for over an hour and committed to stay in touch. He would contemplate whether to stay at Kentucky or become the Razorbacks' next head coach.
"From that meeting, I left, went west and stayed in touch a little bit," Calipari said. "I just want everyone to know here that I didn't want anything out until after the national championship game that we were even talking because it wasn't fair to those two teams, coaches, players and those programs, but someone leaked it out."
While mulling things over, he decided to seek spiritual guidance on the matter. It was a move that brought Calipari clarity.
"While we were out west, we had a Catholic priest with us," Calipari said. "We had mass one morning in his room and I said to him 'Father, I've got to decide what I'm going to do here. One is Arkansas and the other is Kentucky.' Well, he told me. 'Go for an hour walk and have in your mind that you're the Arkansas coach. Then, on your way back that you're the Kentucky coach. You'll see what moves your heart and what you want to do.
"When I thought about coming to [Arkansas], building this program and making it something special it got me excited."
Following the firing of Stan Heath in 2007, John Calipari was the sitting head coach just over the border in Memphis. The Tigers' just came off a 33-4 season with berth in the Elite Eight.
Unfortunately for then Arkansas athletics director Frank Broyles, the time wasn't right for Calipari to leave. A players' coach as he refers to himself did not want to leave because of his close bond with the team.
"There is a difference now than leaving a job back then," Calipari said. "You had players there that were there to play for you, to be with you, to be groomed for what there future was. If you left, they were stuck there. They couldn't leave, had to play for whoever the coach was, and John [Tyson] got mad at me. I said, 'I'm not leaving these kids.'
"It was Derrick Rose, Antonio Anderson, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Joey Dorsey, Robert Dozier, Shawn Taggart. We had a great group. It wasn't about winning and losing. It was about leaving them."
During the initial meeting in Phoenix last week, Yurachek decided to take a tactical approach. He got Calipari going on and on about how great of a job Arkansas is under the guise of how it should be pitched to other candidates, then dropped the hammer at just the right moment.
"If it's such a great job why don't you want it?" Yurachek asked Calipari. "He kind of sat back in chair and started to think about that. I'm sitting in the presence of a Hall of Fame coach talking about other coaches for my job, and he’s telling me how great a job this is. I’m not doing my job if I don’t ask him if he’s interested, right?"
While there were multiple coaches linked to Arkansas, Yurachek said his coaching searches are a close to the vest process with little to no information getting out from the Arkansas camp. Eight to 10 coaches were approached by Arkansas to gauge varying interest about the job, but only one was offered.
"It’s a very tight, closed search process," Yurachek said. "But I don’t just zero in on one person. I didn’t know for sure [Calipari] was going to take the job, so, I had to keep my search ongoing while he was taking into consideration the opportunity that was in front of him. Only one person was offered the job and he is sitting right next to me."
Yurachek alluded to other coaches contacted to determine if they were legitimate possibilities showed their cards by letting their names get out as part of an agenda to create leverage at their schools.
"I think it's interesting that his name never got out during the search process because he wanted this job in the end," Yurachek said. "He wasn't looking for something else at his institution that he was in."
One of the biggest issues mentioned was the evolution of college basketball and its role in making Calipari feel comfortable leaving Kentucky. Rules allowing players to transfer and the ability to access NIL made this time different than when he was at Memphis. Talking with Houston coach Kelvin Sampson, it was made clear to Calipari that his players have freedom now to make their own decisions.
"I can't leave [Kentucky]," Calipari told Sampson.
"What are you talking about?" Sampson asked. "They can go wherever they want. They can go wherever they want if you stay. They can stay, they can go pro, they can do whatever they want now."
"So I said you know what, I want to be happy with this," Calipari said. "I want to go and say let's do this together. I told Hunter administrations win championships."
As far as a timeline goes for Calipari agreeing to the job, it was within a 3-4 day period.
"My thing to [Yurachek], probably at some point on Sunday was, I feel really good, just give me time," Calipari said. "This is going to play. I think Monday night was when it was done, but it was probably 11 o'clock at night or later. And then Tuesday morning, I did the video and my wife did a video and then we did this."
Of course, Tyson and Calipari's strong bond started it all. Being a spiritual man, Calipari believes everything happens for a purpose. With the Arkansas job open it was finally the perfect opportunity for Tyson to finally bring his friend to Fayetteville.
"I asked him why he even called me," Calipari said. "He told me 'because I didn't want to live with regrets knowing i could call you and get you to meet with Hunter.
"If you believe what I believe, things happen for a reason. You're pushed to areas. There's something that I'm suppose to do here. I don't want my tombstone to have how many wins, Hall of Fame, or national championships. I want it to be about how many lives I've touched, changed and made for positive."
HOG FEED:
• Calipari managed to make himself relatable to Arkansas fans in a single press conference
• Razorbacks baseball completes yet another sweep
• What to expect for the Razorback Spring Game Saturday
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