How long will Calipari coach at UK? Maybe long enough to actually recruit LeBron James’ kids

Two weeks after telling the Lexington Rotary Club he didn’t know “how long I’ll be in this seat” as Kentucky’s basketball coach, John Calipari posted a video on his website Tuesday addressing the retirement question once again.

“As long as I’m healthy, and I’m running down hill, and we’re doing good for players, I’ll feel good about what I do,” Calipari said in a video posting for his occasional mailbag series on CoachCal.com.

Calipari, 58, has said a number of times over the course of his career that he didn’t believe he would coach past the age of 60. “I thought 60 would be the drop date that I would say ‘You know what? I had a good run,’” he said again in Tuesday’s post.

Shortly after Calipari was hired in 2009, the coach said he’d laughed about it with Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James, who Calipari said had told the coach that he wanted his sons to play for him.

“I asked him, ‘How old are your sons?’” Calipari said then when LeBron James Jr. was to set to turn 5 and Bryce Maximus James was nearly 2 years old. They are now 13 and 10.

“I said, ‘He better be a one-and-done,’” Calipari joked at the time about LeBron Jr. “That put me right on the number, and I added it up in my head.”

Calipari’s latest contract extension keeps him at Kentucky through 2024 when the Hall of Famer would be 65. That indeed would keep the coach at UK long enough to potentially recruit LeBron James Jr., who along with Bryce Maximus, got scholarship papers from Calipari when he was born.

In that same 2009 story, Calipari spoke about the retirement conversations he had with his wife, Ellen.

“I want to be with you,” Calipari said his wife had told him. “Your son wants to be with you. You understand that? Stop coaching. We have enough money.”

Calipari, then 50, said he listened. “I will. Sooner than everyone thinks. I’m not a, quote, lifer. I’m not going to be coaching till I’m 70. If I’m coaching in my 60s, something happened.”

On Tuesday, Calipari indicated in his video that factors including being able to coach at a program like Kentucky and, now, being able to coach his son, Brad, have given him a different perspective.

“Probably now, being it took me 20 years to get a job like Kentucky, so I may stay a little bit longer,” Calipari said. “At age 60, I would have been here 10 years. So, I may want to do this longer. I got Brad here. I may want to coach him. He’s doing great, by the way. No one works harder than him. Literally, the monitors show that he’s working harder than any player we have, so I’m proud of him.”

Tuesday’s mailbag post was in response to a question from fan Eric Jones: “Is there a certain age you feel you will not work past? Previously, I believe you said 60. But I feel it will be later now. What say you, Coach?”

“There’s some factors that may keep me in this longer. It ain’t number of wins, it isn’t all the legacy or other things (like) I need to be in the spotlight, I need to be in the center. No. No.” Calipari said in his reply. “It’s am I helping? Can I help? Am I making a difference? If that doesn’t happen, no one will have to tell me. I’ll know myself.”

This story was originally published December 12, 2017 at 1:39 PM with the headline "How long will Calipari coach at UK? Maybe long enough to actually recruit LeBron James’ kids."