Entries Tagged 'Coaching staff' ↓

The long speculated addition of Martin Newton to John Calipari’s Kentucky basketball is official.

UK has hired Newton as Director of Basketball Operations.

In response to an open records request, UK provided a copy of Newton’s contract. Newton, the son of former UK Director of Athletics C.M. Newton, signed a two-year contract that will pay him a base salary of $165,000 annually.

The contract includes several incentive bonuses rewarding team achievement on the court and in the classroom.

The bonuses for winning include $2,500 for winning the Southeastern Conference Eastern Division championship, another $2,500 for winning the SEC regular-season title, one month’s salary ($13,750) for the team receiving a bid to the NCAA Tournament and two months’ salary ($27,500) for the team advancing to the Final Four.

The classroom bonuses are $2,500 for an Academic Progress Rat of .950 or better in a year and another $2,500 for a graduation rate of 75 percent or better in a year.

Newton, who had been working for Nike, will also receive four tickets to each home basketball game and two tickets to each home football game.

Former UK standout Scott Padgett spoke to reporters on Wednesday before participating in a celebrity shooting contest at the Tayshaun Prince Basketball Camp in Lexington.

Padgett, who joined John Calipari’s Kentucky staff as a coach in training, noted how happy he was to have a foot in the coaching door. Technically, he will be UK’s assistant strength coach. After telling reporters his title, Padgett playfully flexed a bicep.

While acknowledging that he needs to brush up on his cardio fitness, Padgett spoke of the potential UK has for this coming season. He noted the wealth of talent. Not quite up to the level of 1995-96, which is no insult given UK’s overwhelming superiority that national championship season. But there’s plenty of talent, which the coaches will have to fashion into an effective unit.

Padgett said he’d been thinking of coaching as a career since his junior or senior year of high school. That plan got postponed when he developed into a college star and then enjoyed a productive NBA career.

Padgett cited two coaches as role models for his coaching career. One was Jeff Van Gundy, who coached Padgett with the Houston Rockets. Padgett noted how Van Gundy paid close attention to detail and consistently fashioned effective defenses.

As for offensive minds, Padgett said that he admired Calipari’s dribble-drive approach.

As for the celebrity shooting contest, Padgett and his team of three campers did not win. Prince’s team won. Another participating celebrity was Lexington TV/radio personality Dave Baker.

During an appearance on ESPN’s Outside the Lines program on Friday, columnist Geoff Calkins of the Memphis Commercial Appeal harshly criticized how Kentucky Coach John Calipari does his basketball business.

“John runs programs where scoundrels run the place,” Calkins said.

Calkins and ESPN senior writer Pat Forde noted that Kentucky had fired two coaches — Eddie Sutton in basketball and Hal Mumme in football — despite those men not being named in major violations.

Calipari also appeared on the show. He said that people who know him do not have questions about how he runs his basketball programs.

Earlier this week, it became known that the NCAA had alleged major violations involving academic fraud and improper payment of travel expenses in Calipari’s Memphis program.

Kentucky Coach John Calipari told ESPN’s Outside the Lines that those who have worked with him know about his priorities.

“Everywhere I coached, the fans, the administrations, they know I’m about the school,” he said.

During the introduction to his appearance on ESPN’s Outside the Lines program on Friday, Kentucky Coach John Calipari suggested that success leads to charges of wrong-doing.

“The higher you climb, the more they’re taking shots at you,” he said. “It’s the price you pay for the space you occupy.”

It became public this week that the NCAA sent a notice of allegations of major rules violations to Memphis earlier this year. The allegations involve academic fraud and the improper payment of more than $2,000 in travel expenses for someone associated with a player.

ESPN trumpeting that it will air a “FRESH” interview with Kentucky Coach John Calipari at 3 p.m. on Friday.

“About recruiting practices and facing charges of bending and breaking th . . .”

Rules, presumably.

With UK trying to impose a news blackout, the timing of Calipari’s appearance seems odd. UK says the interview was conducted on Wednesday early afternoon in Destin, Fla.

UK Coach John Calipari just sent out a Twitter message that did not address the swirl of questions surrounding the NCAA investigation into allegations of major violations by his Memphis program.

“Gonna spend the day w/ my son whom I’ve seen for only a day and a h alf over the last 3 wks. Thru 4 chapters of The Shack. It’s a great read,” Calipari tweeted.

Calipari is not named in a notice of allegations the NCAA sent to Memphis. The allegations involve academic fraud and the improper payment of travel expenses for a confidant of a player.

New Kentucky Coach John Calipari pronounced himself invigorated and tired at the end of one of the program’s most successful — and undoubtedly eye-popping — recruiting periods.

On his Twitter, Calipari made two postings Wednesday night, the last evening of the month-long spring signing period. Earlier in the day, he officially reacted to UK signing the nation’s No. 1 prospect, point guard John Wall of Raleigh, N.C.

That signing capped a period in which UK also added big man DeMarcus Cousins, a top five national prospect, top 25 prospect Eric Bledsoe and junior college wing Darnell Dodson.

Those players join top 25 big man Daniel Orton and Kentucky Mr. Basketball Jon Hood in what recruiting services term the nation’s No. 1 class this year and perhaps the No. 1 class in several years.

“It’s been an invigorating seven weeks, but also grueling,” Calipari said in his first Twitter posting. “Feel like I’ve been in a time machine because of what we have gotten done.”

In a posting two minutes later, Calipari added, “I don’t say this very often, but I’m tired. I’m gonna go read a book until I fall asleep, which might be in two minutes.”

Calipari also said he planned a trip to UMass on Thursday.

UK made it official on Tuesday when John Calipari named his full-time assistants.

No surprises.

Rod Strickland joins John Robic and Orlando Antigua as assistants. All three worked on Calipari’s staff at Memphis and were present during UK’s team workouts this spring.

Strickland was a 17-year NBA veteran and two-time All-American at De Paul. Last season he worked for Calipari as the Director of Student-Athlete Development/Manager, a coach-in-training position at Memphis.

A native of New York City, Strickland played for nine NBA teams. He scored more than 14,000 points (13.2 ppg career average) and averaged 7.3 assists.

Robic had worked on Calipari’s staffs at Massachusetts and Memphis.

Antigua, who played for Pittsburgh in the early 1990s, was an assistant for Calipari at Memphis last season.