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June 1, 2009 7:13 PM PDT

Kentucky coach's daughters stir trouble on Facebook

by Chris Matyszczyk
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I wonder about college basketball coaches. It's hard for them to be squeaky clean. Or even vaguely shiny.

So they certainly don't need their daughters' social networking to cause more discombobulation in their attempts to be a cross between Vince Lombardi and Mahatma Gandhi.

You see, I am currently placing my mind beneath the shiny hair of John Calipari, the new basketball coach at the University of Kentucky.

Calipari does seem to make quite a few people tense involuntarily. I am suddenly reminded of a 1994 incident in which Temple coach John Chaney threatened to kill Calipari at a press conference. (I have embedded the video, purely for nostalgia's sake.)

One recent critic appears to be an ESPN.com journalist named Pat Forde. Forde happens to live in Kentucky and tends to drizzle on the Caliparade. For example, when Calipari was hired, Forde asked during his introduction whether the Kentucky athletic director would mention his two trips to the Final Four. Or merely one.

"Because the first one, with Massachusetts in 1996, was officially vacated from the NCAA record books after an agent hooked up star center Marcus Camby with cash and prostitutes," Forde said.

Now Calipari is a fond Twitterer. He tweeted that he thought Forde's criticisms were personal.

But the coach's socially networked stirring is nothing when compared with that of Megan and Erin. These would be his daughters. Both are college students. And both are esteemed Facebookers.

Megan unfortunately used Facebook to reveal who would be Dad's replacement at the University of Memphis, which might not be considered perfect media management.

Indeed, it prompted Dad to be quoted by CBS Sports as saying: "I told them that they have to get off Facebook. This stuff is crazy."

The feisty girls decided not to listen to Dad. In fact, the highly amusing folks at Deadspin have been following Erin Calipari's remarkably literate Facebook postings about ESPN's Forde. They make for stirring digestion.

The dictionary definition post, for example: "To Pat Forde, Pat Fording. Pat Fording (verb): To say or write something with no background or sources. To act like you know something when in fact you do not. 2. To repeat the same story in different words 3 or more times. eg. "You told me that story three times!" "Oh, sorry for Pat Fording that."

Or how about the hair-besmirching post: "Source: "Pat Forde's hair received improper benefits of around $10,000 from Just For Men Hair Club and his hair also had someone take his SAT for him."

Gosh. What will Daddy tweet now? Will he take away their laptops? Will he have them transferred to Oral Roberts? Or will the wise avuncular corpses at the NCAA decide that social networking, even by family members, is a heinous violation?

Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.
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by Jack K1 June 1, 2009 7:46 PM PDT
Do any players Tweet, blog, or Facebook? Or would that reveal too much about the NCAA's educational priorities regarding its meal-tickets? Perhaps schools could hire PR hacks to write for their players in much the same way as various other witless "celebrities". Their equally brainless fans seem not to mind.

The day of Jesse Owens and the gentleman athlete are sadly long gone.
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by Super2online June 1, 2009 8:30 PM PDT
I'm from Memphis where Coach Calipari just left to go to Kentucky. When Kentucky's offer was first reported he stated emphatically he would not leave Memphis. Just two days before he announced he was accepting the Wildcat's offer he swore up and down to a chanel 5 news reporter that he would never leave.

The same reporter followed him to Kentucky to ask him why he lied to the people of Memphis repeatedly. He claimed he had no recollection of that, and when the reporter told him she had it on take he quickly back peddled and claimed he must of said it if you have me on tape saying it.

He quickly went into a face saving ramble about how he's not perfect and he just does the best he can, and that Memphis had offered him more money to stay but he couldn't ignore the opportunity that was being offered to him.

The next day after he announced his departure the newspapers ran his obituary here. Coach Calipari: Dead to Memphis 2009. We have since moved on with a new coach and looking forward to the new season without the lying Calipari to lead us and we are thankful for it.
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Chris Matyszczyk brings a fresh and irreverent perspective to the tech world in his CNET blog, Technically Incorrect. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.

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