Mark Stoops and John Calipari, Kentucky’s two highest-paid coaches, once feuded over the very soul of the university. It was a battle of egos that peaked in 2023, with Calipari’s infamous “this is a basketball school” comment and Stoops’ fiery rebuttal that his program “wasn’t born on third base.”
Calipari had complained that the Joe Craft Center needed upgrades because a leaky roof once stopped practice. Few felt sympathy for a man paid handsomely to win, and winning so little.
Mark Stoops won the PR battle, painting himself as the hardworking builder, the antithesis of the insulated, entitled basketball coach. How ironic, then, that as his own program collapses, Mark Stoops need only look in the mirror to see what he’s slowly becoming.
The feud: ‘Born on third base’
Rewind to 2023: Stoops, coming off 10-3, 8-5, 5-6 (All SEC COVID year), and 10-3 (later vacated due to ineligible players) with a Citrus Bowl victory. He was the king of Lexington. Calipari, meanwhile, was reeling from a historic tournament upset to St. Peter’s, and not going into the second weekend of the tournament since pre-COVID. When Cal slighted the football program, Stoops pounced…