Biography on John Calipari (Current Kentucky Basketball Coach)

John Calipari was born on February 10, 1959 in Moon Township, PA. He lettered two years at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington before transferring to Clarion University. He then graduated there with a Bachelor's degree in Marketing.

From 1982-85, Calipari was an assistant coach at the University of Kansas. He then went to the University of Pittsburgh as an assistant from 1985-88. After Pittsburgh, he left and went to coach at the Massachusetts minutemen from 1988-96. Then at 1996, he left the minutemen and went to the NBA, for the New Jersey Nets where he was a Executive VP of basketball operations. During the 1999-2000 season, Calipari was an assitant coach at the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers, before moving to his next coaching job at NCAA's Memphis Tigers.

In his first 17 seasons as a college basketball head coach, Calipari's record is 441-139. His college teams have made eleven NCAA tournament appearances, reaching the Sweet Sixteen seven times, the Elite Eight five times, the Final Four two times, and the championship game once, which was at Memphis.

After Billy Gillispie was dismissed as the head coach at UK, Kentucky was in desperate need of a new coach. Not just any coach, but a coach who would restore Kentucky to glory. On On March 30, 2009, multiple sources said that Calipari had agreed to become the next University of Kentucky Men's Basketball coach. At 9:45 a.m. on April 1, 2009 the University of Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart officialy introduced John Calipari as the new coach of the University of Kentucky Wildcats.