Players First

“You never blame players when you lose. Never! You take responsibility, as a grown man. You take responsibility. You never throw a player under the bus!”

That was John Calipari at his introductory press conference as head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Calipari is best known for guiding Kentucky to a national championship in 2012, but he’s also taken UMass and Memphis to the Final 4, and spent two and a half years as head coach of the New Jersey Nets.

His coaching career has been guided by a single rule: Players First.

Calipari’s philosophy has held firm through the ‘one-and-done’ era of college basketball, and is now living through the NIL and transfer portal era too.

Both of these eras have been marked by pressure to adopt more transactional coaching methods as retribution for the fact that athletes can leave at any stage. Plenty of coaches have already caved, throwing their players under the bus after a loss or calling them uncoachable. But Calipari refuses.

“Players First is mostly a watchword for me, for my assistant coaches, and for everyone else connected with my team,” he writes in his book, aptly titled Players First. “It reminds us what our program is all about and it influences every single thing we do — from recruiting to our style of play to my interactions with the NCAA to the amenities in our facilities and locker room, to a hundred other things.”

It’s a philosophy that can be seen, which means it can be seen when it’s not happening as well. Calipari says he’s willing to make this commitment and be held accountable to it because he feels a responsibility to the families who send their kids to him. “I coach for the names on the backs of the jerseys — not just the front,” he writes.

Your commitment to transformational coaching was never contingent upon having player control. And the edict to help players grow was never contingent upon how long they’re with you. As coaches, we’re called to pour everything into our players whether they’re with us for four days, or four years.

Coach Craft is moving to Substack

• I launched this newsletter two years ago (today!). I chose Beehiiv because of their commitment to simplicity and focus on content, however as they have grown their business they’ve drifted away from their core offering.

• Over the coming weeks, I’ll be shifting my entire back catalogue over to Substack. This move will be completed by June 7.

• You don’t need to do anything, I will be moving the mailing list over once all of the posts have been transitioned.

• If you want, you can head over there now and take a look: https://codyroyle.substack.com/