As Kentucky’s players took the court for their first game of the GLOBL JAM last week, a familiar face stood near the team’s bench area, watching over the Wildcats and chatting with UK coaches and staff members.
For a few days, Brad Calipari was back in the Kentucky basketball family.
Starting now, the son of UK Coach John Calipari will be on the other side.
The younger Calipari was officially introduced Monday as the new director of on-court player development for the Vanderbilt men’s basketball team. That means a return to the Southeastern Conference. It also means he’ll get to coach against his dad a few months from now.
Brad Calipari, who turns 27 years old in November, has been in and out of UK’s program over the past several years, and his latest stop will be the next step in his burgeoning career as a basketball coach.
As a high schooler, Calipari played at Lexington Christian Academy before wrapping up at a prep school in Massachusetts and eventually joining UK’s program as a walk-on player — playing for his father — for the 2016-17 season. After three years spent on UK’s campus and in search of more playing time, Calipari graduated early from Kentucky and transferred to Detroit, returning to Lexington as a graduate assistant on his dad’s staff for the 2021-22 season once his playing days were finished.
As a high school player, he showed a “coach’s son” mentality on the court, and early in his UK walk-on days, he acknowledged that he might want to follow in his father’s footsteps once he was done playing the game.
Time spent at UK, Detroit and his return to Lexington as a grad assistant only strengthened those feelings. Over the course of his two stints at Kentucky — and his previous experience of observing his dad and the Wildcats’ program — Calipari soaked in quite a bit about the game and managing the players who play it at the highest level.
He also learned how much dedication it would take to make it long-term in the business.
“You’ve gotta grind, no matter where you are,” Calipari said in an interview with the Herald-Leader in Toronto. “It’s different at all levels, but the same thing is true: it’s a grind, and it’s every day. You can’t take days off with guys. And players develop differently. You have to be able to build relationships with all different types of personalities. Having genuine relationships with them so they trust what you do and how you feel, because you could be the smartest person in the room, and if they don’t trust you — or have a genuine relationship with you — they’re going to be reluctant to listen.
“And I think that’s the biggest thing I took away from all of it. And I’m glad I had the guys ahead of me and the coaches ahead of me that taught me that.”
That experience made for a smoother transition once Calipari’s coaching career began. And his initial time spent on the other end of the basketball spectrum continued to strengthen his desire to make a career of it.
“Seeing guys develop and get better as players, when they’re putting in work in the gym, and then you see their progress in game situations — it’s a different type of feel-good than when you’re playing yourself and you’re playing well,” he said. “So the more I did that, the more I developed the love for that side of it.
“And, as I got older, I knew what I wanted to do. And that was that.”
Brad Calipari’s next move
Between his season spent as a grad assistant at Kentucky and his upcoming opportunity at Vanderbilt, the younger Calipari got an up-close look at just how chaotic the college basketball coaching profession can be.
Last summer, Calipari moved from Lexington to New York, where he was tabbed to be a special assistant to LIU head coach Derek Kellogg, who has longstanding ties to John Calipari and previously served as an assistant under the UK coach at both UMass and Memphis.
Kellogg was instrumental in bringing Brad Calipari to LIU, and the coach’s son was eager to learn more about the game from the longtime family friend and his staff. A few weeks after Calipari moved in, Kellogg was on his way out. LIU parted ways with its head coach in late June, a strange time for such turnover on the college basketball calendar.
“We were just shocked when it happened,” Calipari said.
Luckily for him, Rod Strickland, who had also served as an assistant under John Calipari both at Memphis and Kentucky, was named LIU’s new head coach, a move that at least gave the younger Calipari — in his first job away from home — some familiarity.
That series of events served as its own lesson.
“Your time could be up at any moment,” Calipari said. “You can’t take anything for granted. Because I was up there for three weeks, and they let him go. I just got very lucky that Coach Strickland came in, and we just so happened to know him and had that relationship. But, before that, I was just like, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’”
Once things settled down, Calipari said he transitioned into the role he was originally brought in to perform: training players, improving their games and exploring how and what to teach within the head coach’s system.
Following all of the ill-timed personnel turnover, the team’s on-court results weren’t good. LIU finished with a 3-26 record and ended up 363rd nationally in the final KenPom ratings — dead last among Division I teams. But the season served as a learning experience, and another door of opportunity was about to open.
Years ago, former NBA All-Star Jerry Stackhouse was mentoring top recruit Brandon Ingram, and he sent the teenager to the same basketball trainers — Micah Lancaster and Bryce Stanhope — that Calipari had worked with in high school and early in his college days. Stackhouse was pleased with their teachings at the time, and this offseason, the Vanderbilt head coach reached out to the basketball trainers to see if they had any recommendations of someone who could teach his Commodores in a similar way.
They recommended Calipari, who was approached to see if he’d be interested in the job.
“Of course,” he told them.
Even though his dad and Stackhouse have been rivals for the past few seasons, Brad Calipari said he didn’t have any kind of personal relationship with the Vandy coach until now. He also didn’t know anyone on the program’s current staff, though some mutual friends and acquaintances have made the early stages of the transition an easier one.
Calipari was in Toronto for a few days last week — “Just spending some time with my dad,” he said — before heading to Nashville over the weekend to get started with his new position.
His duties at Vandy will be similar to what he’s done so far in his young coaching career.
“A lot of it will be training guys, workout, skill-development work — just get guys better,” he said.
Calipari has already been breaking down film of the team’s returning players, as well as the Commodores’ incoming bunch. He sees a group with a “very high ceiling” and noted the good work Stackhouse and his staff have already done within the program.
Vandy had finished with an 0-18 record in the SEC the season before Stackhouse was hired, and — after a couple of rebuilding years — he’s led them to the NIT quarterfinals in each of the past two seasons. The Commodores beat Kentucky twice in three meetings last season and finished the campaign as one of the league’s hottest teams, despite dealing with injury issues.
Of course, being at Vandy means Brad Calipari will be on opposite sidelines from John Calipari at least twice — three times, if they meet in the SEC Tournament — next season.
The younger Coach Cal grinned at the thought.
“It’ll be different,” he said. “It’ll be a new feeling.”
The move will also reunite the youngest of the Calipari kids with older sister, Erin Calipari, who is a researcher and professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the university.
That’ll make UK-Vandy games in 2023-24 an opportunity for a family reunion. It’ll also give the Hall of Fame coach’s son a couple of chances for bragging rights at future family dinners.
“He’s really excited for me,” Brad said. “He was happy that I was able to get the opportunity to be at Vanderbilt. And being in Nashville — Erin’s in Nashville — he’s excited about that. I’ll get to see him a couple times a year — three times a year — but I’ll be able to compete against him now.”
Calipari paused, a wide grin coming over his face.
“If I can beat him, I can talk some trash to him a little bit.”
