Kentucky coach John Calipari said he will reduce the number of walk-on players returning to the team for the upcoming season, according to an announcement on his Web site Friday.
In my 17 years of college coaching, I have very rarely had walk-ons and when I have it’s usually been another student-athlete, who could help us in practice or game situations because of his size, speed or skill level. I find my practices run at optimum performance when there are 12-13 players. Any more than that and we’re not able to accomplish what I want in each practice.
Believe me, I appreciate the work and effort that goes into being a walk-on.
In meeting with the most recent group of walk-ons, we let all of them know how much the UK family appreciated their hard work and dedication to Wildcat basketball. Any of the former walk-ons who want to transfer and try and play elsewhere will have my staff’s full cooperation in helping them.
According to Calipari’s message and a blog post by Chris Diggs at the Courier-Journal in Kentucky, Calipari will not bring back Adam Delph, Matt Schebenske and Dwight Perry, while Mark Krebs might remain with the team as the lone walk-on player.
Calipari arrived as Kentucky’s new coach in spring after leaving Memphis.
The move has generated varying, strong reactions among Wildcat fans.
An anonymous commenter on the Courier-Journal said:
It is Unfortunate for these guys, but the reality of it is that Coach Cal has a much different way on running his practices than BCG. School teachers will tell you that better quality teaching happens with smaller class sizes. And basketball coaching is no different. Calipari has been honest about it since the beginning (“I am not here to babysit anyone”…”My history is of having one walk-on if any”) so I have no problem with it.
I wish these men the best and I hope they cherish their past experience with the program.
jimlowe7 said:
Cal’s practices are NOT conducive to having “bench warmers” and that is all walk-on’s are. There is NO place for sentimentalism when reaching for championships. We should thank these young men for their time given to the program, but Cal will run this program (OR someone else’s) his way. Since I believe he will hang several banners I will support ALL his decisions.
Another anonymous commenter said:
Part of playing at Kentucky is realizing the players whose hard work made the program one of the top if not the top basketball program in the country. You need guys whose passion for Kentucky shows day in and day out REGARDLESS OF TALENT and remind some of the scholarship guys what a PRIVILIGE it is to play basketball at the University of Kentucky. If he Calipari treats UK as if it is a NBA Developmental League, UK won’t be hanging up to many banners. I think Calipari does not truely understand the passion of Kentucky Basketball Fans.
maria offered an indictment of the fans criticizing the move:
All things being equal if these current walk ons had to play if would not make Big blue Nation happy for long.
Yes they would be scrappy but they would not excel.
Just another thing that had to change to actually get to were the fans keep wanting to go.
What do you think? Is it wrong to dismiss hard-working players in the name of competition? Submit a comment below to weigh in.
