Coach John Calipari is not one to shrink from controversy. As the coach of current #1 seed Kentucky he is constantly under pressure to recruit the best talent in the land, albeit in legal ways. At his previous position with Memphis he was always being scrutinized for everything from possibly illegal recruiting tactics to poor grades from his “student” athletes but now he is has really opened himself up, but in a good way via Twitter and Facebook.
A recent NYTimes articles highlighted the new phenomenon that is following Coach Cal socially. With over 1,000,000 twitter followers and 138,000 Facebook fans he is now known across the globe and everybody is keeping track. When asked why he is doing he simply states, “If you’re not doing it, you’re behind”. Only in this case his new found fame, not infamy for once, is working to his advantage and he is able to procure lots of support for his various philanthropic endeavors including Hoops For Haiti. The most interesting part is that he is getting loads of help from staffers because he does not even use a computer and barely can work his phone.
One term that I found interesting was the Obama Transparency, i.e. let people in and let them see what you are doing.I think that a lot of people with negative pasts can learn from this. There is always room for redemption and there is no better audience than the blind eyes of millions of twitter users. Does he still need to be careful? Yes. Anything he says or does will show up on there whether he likes it or not. I admire him, though, for doing this for noble and charity purposes.
I just hope that this is not a publicity stunt to help regain his tarnished reputation. The funny thing about him is that the only people that hate him are the schools that he leaves in the middle of their programs being investigated. Another question to ask stems from this, “Does he deserve redemption?” Time will tell? He hurt a lot of universities and fans by his past mistakes with little in the way of apologies from him. He simply fled town and left them to their own demise.
To get back on track, the prominent social networks are a great tool to reach your fans and get support for what you believe in. Be careful though and beware of the “mean and nimble one”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/sports/ncaabasketball/24calipari.html?ref=technology
Chicken Winner's Blog 
An interesting use of the technology. How many of his followers are past players? That would tell us a lot. How does this compare to other coaches? How would you know if this is just a publicity stunt?