Hog Calls : Coaching at alma mater isn’t for everybody
Posted on Monday, February 25, 2008
Listening to Lexington locals gives pause to wonder if John Pelphrey may some day have a decision to make about his old Kentucky home.
Pelphrey at Arkansas and Travis Ford at UMass currently wax the hottest coaching prospects with degrees and pedigrees via the University of Kentucky.
Not that the Wildcats don’t have a coach now. They do, and a good one. Billy Gillispie. The Wildcats’ firstyear man just helped his Kentucky stock with last Saturday’s 63-58 victory in Rupp Arena over first-year coach Pelphrey’s Razorbacks.
However for the long haul, it seems Texan Gillispie and Kentucky maybe risk being mismatched like a rodeo cowboy at the Kentucky Derby.
Mutterings about not fitting in certainly could prove premature, but they don’t bode well for a long, happy marriage of Kentucky blue-bloods and the former coach of Texas-El Paso and Texas A & M.
Perception and reality don’t always intersect, but when it comes to creating a parting, it seems perception can be become the ultimate reality whether valid or not.
Should Gillispie and Kentucky ever part, logic indicates more than ever Kentucky would want one of its own. That would make Pelphrey, the Paintsville, Ky., native with the retired Kentucky jersey, or Ford, the Madisonville, Ky. native also with a played for Rick Pitino Kentucky past, logical choices.
Logic indicates either would bow to their alma mater’s whim considering Kentucky’s exalted basketball tradition.
Certainly the standing ovation afforded Pelphrey pregame Saturday at Rupp indicates the esteem Kentucky holds for its native son now garbed in Razorback red.
However should that day of decision ever come, one wouldn’t be willing just yet to bet the Kentucky horse farm that Pelphrey comes galloping home.
Coaching alma mater isn’t for everybody.
Just look at Arkansas football.
Frank Broyles wisely turned down the offer to succeed his old coach, Bobby Dodd, at Georgia Tech. He stayed on to be an Arkansas icon for 50 years.
Little Rock born former Razorback two-year quarterback Houston Nutt and Helena’s Ken Hatfield, an authentic Razorback folk hero as punt returner / defensive back for Broyles’ 1964 undefeated national champions, returned and succeeded yet fled like they were pursued by a posse.
In his 10 years, Nutt won like no Arkansas football coach had won since the Hogs switched from the Southwest Conference to the SEC. Yet last December he was on a forced march to Ole Miss just after beating national champion LSU in Baton Rouge.
Hatfield, now living back in northwest Arkansas with all fences mended, sports the alltime best Razorback football winning percentage ever for his six seasons. Yet Hatfield felt so at odds that even after two straight SWC championships in 1988 and ‘ 89 he abruptly took the Clemson job sight unseen. Also, Pelphrey could review the last Kentucky coach and somberly realize Wildcats can eat their young. Tubby Smith wasn’t a Kentucky alum, but he was a former Kentucky assistant for Rick Pitino. Smith coached the Wildcats to the 1998 national championship and always conducts himself with class beyond reproach. Yet Smith felt the pressure so building last spring he migrated to Minnesota. Also, Pelphrey knows Arkansas’ monstrous potential. The Razorbacks aren’t Kentucky, but their reputation ranks right up there. Former Arkansas coaches Eddie Sutton and Nolan Richardson saw to that. That means a lot to Pelphrey, signed by Sutton at Kentucky and later a Sutton assistant at Oklahoma State. Firsthand as a Kentucky player for Pitino, Pelphrey saw the explosive impact Richardson’s Razorbacks had upon entering the SEC. He knows for all of Kentucky’s tradition, it’s Arkansas with the fervently louder crowds. While fielding question after question in Lexington about coming home, Pelphrey volunteered this about the place he now calls home and the letdown he feels knowing six seniors will leave Arkansas without ever beating Kentucky. “ I so desperately, ” Pelphrey said, “ want to help these guys have some special, special memories because it’s a privilege to play at Arkansas. Make no mistake about that. ” Pelphrey knows he has something to prove about his privilege to coach at Arkansas. With the 18-7, 7-5 Hogs on the NCAA Tournament bubble, Pelphrey hasn’t yet proven he can get Arkansas to the Big Dance like predecessor Stan Heath did the last two years much less advance them through the first tune which Heath could not. Nevertheless, while Heath was perceived as a nice man recruiting nice talent but too nice to inspire, Pelphrey at Arkansas seems popularly perceived as the fiery man with a plan. It’s an uncommonly nice reality to be perceived well received both where you are and where you have been.
• • • Nate Allen’s Razorback column appears Mondays in The Daily Record. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
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