2010-11 UK Basketball Feature

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THE OFFICIAL KENTUCKY BASKETBALL YEARBOOK

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GOOD WORKS TEAM Calipari, Wildcats Focused on Community Outreach

By Todd Krise, IMG College

oron Lamb never saw it coming.

Before the University of Kentucky men’s basketball player could sit down, a swarm of Picadome Elementary fourth-graders engulfed the 6-foot-4, 210-pound freshman.

“He just disappeared,” UK media relations assistant director John Hayden recalled.

It was Sept. 16 when the UK athletics department sent out its army of student-athletes to various schools in Fayette County in support of the university’s partnership with God’s Pantry Food Bank.

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The BackPack program, in which Lamb was participating, is designed to meet the needs of hungry children at times when other resources are not available, such as weekends and school vacations.

The Wildcat men’s basketball squad was one of many teams to help fill backpacks with nonperishable nutritious items and hand them to students.

“It always cracks me up when these guys interact with children,” Hayden said. “It’s always interesting to see who the bigger kid is.”

The project coincides with athletics director Mitch Barnhart’s plan of making charity work part of UK student-athletes’ curriculum. Besides God’s Pantry Food Bank, UK athletes have visited children at hospitals, built homes with Habitat for Humanity and compiled nearly 2,400 hours of community service in 2009-10.

Leading the way is John Calipari and his nationally renowned men’s basketball team.

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Samaritan’s Feet photos by Todd Melloh

THE OFFICIAL KENTUCKY BASKETBALL YEARBOOK

“I didn’t put a number on what we should raise beforehand. You just do it to the best of your ability. You explain why it’s important to help and you hope people will respond.”

— John Calipari, on the money raised for the Hoops for Haiti campaign “I think we literally have hundreds of student-athletes that give to the community every day,” Barnhart said, “but because they are not our men’s basketball team, they don’t get the recognition.

“I am thrilled that our men’s basketball team — under the spotlight that they have to attain — are able to do the things that they do.”

HOOPS FOR HAITI The Hoops for Haiti telethon, which took place Jan. 26 on WKYT Channel 27, likely is the largest and most profound charity event Calipari and his team has hatched during the coach’s 18 months in Lexington.

Fourteen days prior, a catastrophic earthquake shook west of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and killed an estimated 230,000 people.

Apparently the quake rattled the whole way to Calipari’s heart because the 51-year-old woke up one morning with the itch to help.

“At 8:30 a.m., I got a call from Cal and he said, ‘We need to do a telethon,’ ” WKYT general manager Wayne Martin remembered. “I said, ‘That’s ironic. We had been in a discussion with the United Way the previous day about what we might do.’ ” Calipari quickly went to work. He began calling everyone from Barnhart to Kentucky governor Steve Beshear to Syracuse men’s basketball coach and friend Jim Boeheim.

Everyone, as expected, wanted to help.

“We did it in about 48 hours,” Calipari said via e-mail. “It was incredible.”

Calipari emceed the four-and-a-half hour event, while his players answered phone calls from celebrities to “Bill down the street” who called to contribute money, said Winn Stephens, the director of development for the Bluegrass Area Red Cross.

Hoops for Haiti raised more than $1.5 million, which is an abnormal amount considering Kentucky ranks 47th in the nation in per capita income.

J O S H H A R R E L L S O N talks with a young girl in Detroit during a foot-washing event the Kentucky men’s bas-

ketball team participated in with the Samaritan’s Feet organization. Players and coaches also gave the children new shoes.

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THE OFFICIAL KENTUCKY BASKETBALL YEARBOOK

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“I think we literally have hundreds of student-athletes that give to the community every day, but because they are not our men’s basketball team, they don’t get the recognition. I am thrilled that our men’s basketball team — under the spotlight that they have to attain — are able to do the things that they do.” — Mitch Barnhart

That amount placed Lexington as the 16th largest contributor of any U.S. city, Stephens said.

“No doubt. Absolutely,” Calipari said when asked if the money raised exceeded his expectations. “I didn’t put a number on what we should raise beforehand. You just do it to the best of your ability. You explain why it’s important to help and you hope people will respond.”

Going another step, Calipari went on a June trip to Port-au-Prince to discuss and view progress.

The 22-year coaching veteran traveled with Martin Newton, UK’s director of basketball operations, Royce Pulliam, the CEO of Global Fitness Holdings and owner of Urban Active Sports Clubs, and a crew from WKYT. “It was a very powerful trip,” Calipari said.

Stephens admitted it is difficult to tell precisely how the $1.5 million was spent. However, he said he believes the money most likely was used during the recovery phase because of how fast Lexington raised the money.

“That involved food, water, shelter and camps with sanitary latrines,” Stephens said.

S A M A R I TA N ’ S F E E T When Calipari was introduced to Manny Ohonme at the 2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four in Indianapolis, the two immediately hit it off.

Calipari was impressed with the organization Ohonme founded called Samaritan’s Feet, which was created in 2003 to help put shoes on the feet of children all around the world. To date, Samaritan’s Feet has handed out nearly three million pairs of shoes in 53 countries.

Like the earthquake in Haiti, that got Calipari thinking: How could the UK men’s basketball team contribute to Samaritan’s Feet?

While the Cats were in Canada for an exhibition showcase from Aug. 15-17, they made a pit stop in Detroit to spend four hours at a local YMCA. There, Calipari, his staff and players washed the feet of students and handed out new shoes.

“That was definitely a humbling event,” junior guard Darius Miller said. “If you had just seen how the kids reacted and how much it meant to them, it made our day and I’m pretty sure it helped them out, too.”

The UK men’s basketball team is not the only notable athletics squad to participate. The NBA’s Detroit Pistons, Memphis Grizzlies, Philadelphia 76ers and Boston Celtics all have taken part at one point.

“It’s a memorable experience for both,” said Todd Melloh, marketing director for Samaritan’s Feet, “because when you think about it, for a lot of these kids, these are their heroes that they watch on TV. I think it shocked the kids to see their heroes doing that.

“It breaks down a lot of economic barriers. It’s a remarkable transformation of someone’s spirit to do that.”

K E N N Y PAY N E hoists a young boy in the air for a shot in Detroit following an outreach event the team did

during their preseason trip to Canada in August.

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C A L I PA R I ’ S M O T I VAT I O N Calipari said he learned how to make a difference in people’s lives while an assistant coach at Kansas and Pittsburgh before taking his first head coaching position at UMass.

“I knew we had to embrace the community,” he said, “and there’s no better way than doing it with each other.”

He brought that philosophy with him to Kentucky.

“This seat I occupy, it’s temporary,” Calipari said. “You cheat the position if you don’t use it do things like Hoops for Haiti.

“You see what it means (to people),” he added. “I get to see just how much we are the Commonwealth’s team.”