John Calipari, Jim Tressel, the media, and some rambling

In case you missed it over the Memorial Day weekend, Brett McMurphy -- one of CBSSports.com's new hires on the college beat -- wrote an excellent piece on John Calipari and what the embattled Kentucky head coach does off the court.

Its a terrific read and really paints Calipari in a light you don't often see. Coach Cal is what you might call a hot-button issue. There doesn't really seem to be many people on the fence. Either you believe that he is a cheat that has illegally recruited his way to two (vacated) Final Fours and a string of top-ranked recruiting classes at Kentucky, where he is making $4 million-a-year, or you believe that he is clean, framed and blamed by the media because they are jealous of his success.

You either hate him or love him, and its not difficult to figure out who in the media can be penciled in on the 'hate' side -- ahem, Pete Thamel and Pat Forde.

Cal added fuel to the fire on Memorial Day, when he took a shot at his haters in the media, tweeting:


The irony of Coach Cal's tweet is that it came on the same day that Jim Tressel, the Ohio State football coach, resigned as SI was getting set to publish an expose on the Buckeye program under Tressel. It is ironic because many fans and media-types alike look at Tressel and Cal as one in the same -- an excellent head coach, a man that contributes to society outside of sport, and a master of plausible deniability, of keeping his name just far enough away from the dirt to avoid being implicated.

Jim Tressel is going to be vilified over the coming days and weeks. The same would happen to Coach Cal if some ambitious investigative reporter were to ever turn up some incriminating evidence.

My question: do they deserve it?

Neither Tressel or Calipari have committed a crime. They aren't kidnapping children or shooting up abortion clinics. They may be hated by those that aren't fans of the Buckeyes or the Wildcats, but does anyone without a rooting interest in sport truly care about either of them enough to 'hate'? At best, these two head coaches are willfully ignorant about what is going on in and around their program. At worst, they turned a blind eye (and facilitated?) student-athletes getting paid for playing a sport that generates eight and nine figure dollar amounts and helped some kids fudge their grades in order to better their lives.

In our world of seemingly random rules imposed by the same institutions now punishing themselves, Cal and Tressel are pariahs because they are/were successful. In the regular world, they are just two people that are trying to get ahead in their profession.

And while the methods that Cal and Tressel use to 'get ahead in their profession' are detestable for the diehards of the sport -- which is what makes these two men 'hated' -- credit needs to be given when credit is due. And Calipari is due credit for the work that he does off the basketball court.

Taking to twitter to incite Big Blue Nation for a lack of media attention for your good deeds is, indeed, a douchey move. But when you use your standing as the head coach of Kentucky's basketball team to, among other things, raise $1.5 million for the earthquake in Haiti, that douchiness gets a pass.