‘A disgrace?’ Brad Calipari claps back after Kentucky fan derides his clothing.
In what has become a seemingly never-ending game of whack-a-troll, Brad Calipari on Monday again defended himself against what one fan described as “a disgrace to the team” regarding what he wears on the bench during Kentucky basketball games.
“It’s funny to see how people hate people they don’t know,” the UK redshirt walk-on and head coach’s son posted on Twitter on Monday afternoon. “When you’re raised to treat people the right way (whether you know them or not) it’s crazy to see what’s said. I can’t help but laugh at it. Who’s at fault?”
The comment came in response to a postgame caller into Kentucky Sports Radio on Saturday who complained that Brad Calipari should be forced to wear blue on the bench. The KSR crew followed up on the topic during its Monday show.
“I am totally perplexed to why Coach (John) Calipari lets his son sit on the bench in any color except Kentucky blue,” said the caller, identified as Nancy on Saturday. “To me, it is a disgrace to the team. I know he’s redshirted, but so is Kenny Payne’s son, and he has blue on. And if you watch Brad, he seems very bored and he doesn’t get up and cheer a lot like the other guys do. He just doesn’t seem very interested.”
This season, Brad Calipari typically wears anything but blue team apparel preferring his own style. On Saturday that included a black hooded jacket over a black T-shirt. Whatever he wears always draws praise from his mother, Ellen, who usually posts photos of him from each game on her Instagram account. The KSR caller was less impressed.
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Brad Calipari has clearly heard social media criticism about his bench attire during the season. On Feb. 9 in the game against Mississippi State, he wore a white T-shirt with the words “IN MEMORY OF WHEN I CARED” in a simple block script on the chest under a black jacket in what looked to be a message to the haters.
He followed up Monday’s Twitter message with another post directly mentioning “Nancy” that included an emoji of a pair of champagne glasses clinking in a toast “to Nancy, whoever that is.”
The sideshow comes in the wake of Kentucky’s blowout win over Auburn on Saturday, a No. 4 national ranking and the Cats seemingly playing the best they have all season, even with the temporary loss of starting forward Reid Travis. The incongruence of someone in UK’s fan base focusing on what seemed to be such a trivial detail was not lost on Brad Calipari’s sister Megan, who also chimed in on Twitter.
“We call people like that “the miserables” because even after a 27-point win they can find something to be miserable about. Yes this is for you, Nancy,” Megan Calipari tweeted.
Brad and Megan Calipari each got support from the Twitter community with “likes” in the several hundreds for each of their responses to the “controversy.” Many offered their support.
This story was originally published February 26, 2019 at 2:23 PM.
