Mark Pope: Uniting Kentucky’s Rich History With Its Bright Future
Cameron Mills’ dog urinated inside the home because he was so happy. Following the official announcement on Friday that Mark Pope, his former colleague at Kentucky, will take over as the university’s next head coach, Mills received an inundation of calls and texts. He forgot to take the dog for a walk at that period due to his delirium.
“I can’t get off the phone,” Mills said. “Our boy got the job, and we’re all kind of losing our minds.”
A group text line that Mills and his 1996 national championship team mates have has been very active since John Calipari’s unexpected departure for Arkansas was originally announced a week ago.
“We all knew who we wanted: Rick Pitino or Billy Donovan or Mark Pope,” Mills said. “Obviously, we’re biased. We all got recruited by Donovan, coached by Pitino and played with Pope. But we didn’t think it was realistic for any of them, really. For it to be our boy Pope, everybody is salivating, because everybody that coached him or played with him knows what’s coming.”
More broadly, there will be a return to the rich past and heritage of Kentucky basketball. Despite Calipari’s 15 years of success as the program’s head, the program’s reputation took a little turn while he was in charge. Many fans believed that obtaining NBA Draft selections was more significant to Calipari than flying banners, whether this was true or not—something he insisted wasn’t. Nine years have passed since the last of those was raised to the rafters of Rupp Arena, and an increasing number of people are questioning whether appeasing aspiring professionals should come before the program’s significance to so many people in the state and across generations.
Pope has always worn his affection for his alma mater on his sleeve, so there will be no doubt as to what matters most to him. or beneath his outfit. Because he was too busy coaching his BYU team to travel to Lexington for one of the ’96 team reunions, Pope made a video in which he tore off his dress shirt and jacket to show his complete Kentucky outfit. He then gave an intense rendition of the C-A-T-S chant before concluding with a sincere “I love you guys.”
BREAKING: pic.twitter.com/nBrpx8TFxC
— Steve Pierce (@PostJimmer) April 11, 2024
“How can that not excite you? There is no better person for this than Mark,” said former UK star Wayne Turner, a member of the 1996 and 1998 title teams. “When I walked into work after he got the job, I had a few people hollering at me, ‘Mark Pope! Mark Pope! Mark Pope!’ I was just pumping my fists, like, ‘Let’s go!’ What a great day for the program.”
In the Calipari era, Pitino, his longtime nemesis, was essentially erased at Kentucky. To be fair, he was also the coach of rival Louisville for a lot of that time. But by extension, Pitino’s great teams, from the 1992 Unforgettables to the ’96 Untouchables, the team that breathed life back into a program decimated by NCAA sanctions and the one that officially put the Cats back on top of college basketball, were also minimized.
“It’s nothing against Calipari at all, but I think all of us know what we did in the ’90s was special,” Mills said. “We know why we were able to do it, and his name is Rick Pitino. So now you’ve got a guy coming in here who is from the Pitino tree and, while he’s probably not going to cuss like Coach cusses, he’s going to coach with the same level of intensity and enthusiasm. That’s the way he played, and there’s a whole generation of fans who probably don’t know that about Mark. But the state is about to fall in love with him again.”
The clearest indication yet that Pope’s appointment will restore Kentucky to its former splendor appeared practically instantly upon the statement. Pitino made a video from his St. John’s office wishing his former captain well and promising UK supporters that Pope will “move on to glory.” Pitino said he was so pleased of Pope that he would sign a check to assist fund the Wildcats’ name, image, and likeness group later that day when he called into a Lexington radio show.
“I can guarantee you one thing: Nobody, nobody epitomizes the name Kentucky on the front of the jersey like Mark Pope,” Pitino said in his video. “You have one of the premier young coaches in the game. Relish it, because he will do you proud.”
— Rick Pitino (@RealPitino) April 12, 2024
Some have questioned if the Wildcats should have made a stronger effort to get a more renowned and experienced coach before jumping the gun and hiring Pope now, especially so soon after Calipari’s departure. However, Dan Hurley of Connecticut, Scott Drew of Baylor, and Nate Oats of Alabama all declined. It would have taken significantly longer to find Donovan, Pitino’s protégé and former UK assistant who won two titles at Florida and is currently the coach of the Chicago Bulls, and there was no assurance he would accept the position. In fact, he had declined it twice before.
While the 51-year-old Pope won 68 percent of his games in five years at BYU and 25 games in his fourth season at Utah Valley, he has never won an NCAA Tournament match. Kentucky is not BYU, his admirers point out, and he now has almost limitless money, a blue-blooded brand name behind him, and none of the admittance issues that restricted his recruiting options at his previous destination.
“Hurley’s winning percentage before UConn was 59 percent. Sometimes a great coach just needs the great resources, the great fans, the great tradition of a great program to become a Hall of Fame coach,” Mills said. “I get the people who are questioning the hire, but in a few weeks, in a few months, when they see who he is, he’ll start winning over the doubters pretty quickly. Because this is the guy who outworked everybody, who out-studied everybody, whether we’re talking scouting reports or school. This isn’t the guy you run through a brick wall for; this is the guy you follow after he’s already run through the brick wall for you. He’s the Kool-Aid Man.”
The 1996 team’s starting point guard, Anthony Epps, can still clearly recall two things about Pope. First, that in order to decompress and maintain focus amidst the mayhem that surrounds Kentucky basketball, he and roommate Jeff Sheppard would get on their bicycles and ride ridiculous distances together, sometimes all the way to Frankfort or London, Kentucky, and back. Second, the team turned to Pope for support when other players were down.
“He was so positive and upbeat all the time, and he’d let you know everything was going to be OK. When Pope said that, you believed him,” Epps said. “He was like everybody’s big brother, and now our brother is in the big seat at UK. The way he was always there for us, it’s time for not only his old teammates but the whole Big Blue Nation to get behind him and trust that he’s going to get us back where we want to go. He’ll tell you that Kentucky basketball changed his life, and I can tell you he’s going to coach with so much passion and give everything he can to give back to this place.”
Sheppard, who lived with him during his two years of college, is the only person outside the Pope family who is more excited about his new position. Sheppard observed, “His energy level in a room is almost irritating.” Sheppard projected that the Pope exudes happiness, the term “positive” will be used to describe him the most. His next most valuable quality is an insatiable curiosity, which is understandable for a man who was considered for a Rhodes Scholarship, attended Columbia University for medical school, and then realized he could not get over his infatuation with basketball.
“He’s always looking to grow and learn and master his craft,” stated Sheppard. That is crucial in the current collegiate basketball landscape because the ball is a moving target all the time. What used to function well is no longer the same game. He is, of course, a link to the past, but his constant concern is the future. This is one of the reasons I am confident in his success: he is dedicated to assembling the necessary components around him in order to accomplish this, including assembling players, coaches, administrators, universities, and states. I am eager to assist him with that.
“I don’t know what my role will be. It won’t be on the bench, but I’m ready to do my part from the row right behind the bench, right there supporting him in any way that I can.”
The easiest way, of course, would be to tell his son, national freshman of the year Reed Sheppard, to hold off on the NBA Draft and play one more year at Kentucky for his old roommate. Unfortunately for Pope, Sheppard is a projected top-10 pick, and that’s probably going to prove too hard to pass up. If it were any other player at any other program, there wouldn’t even be a decision to be made.
But, Jeff Sheppard said, “We’re open for everything. Mark and I have had some conversations already, and Reed is still in the process of making that decision. There’s considerable interest right now from the NBA, so we have to listen to that. There’s also considerable interest from the fans at Kentucky, so that makes it hard. That makes it very difficult.”
Although it is still unlikely, Pope does have one advantage. Pope paid a visit to the Sheppard residence while serving as Georgia’s assistant coach during the Bulldogs’ game against Kentucky. Pope advised Reed to never forget who paid his first in-home recruiting visit, even though Reed was only 7 years old at the time and far from a real potential.
They could never have predicted then where they would be now, lifelong ambitions realized at the same location and moment. It is all come full circle for a program, a star player, and its new coach.
“This isn’t just about the ’96 team. This is about all the ex-players — and all the people who were born into Kentucky basketball,” Mills said. “This is, ‘Hey, he’s our guy, and our guy just got the job.’”
Pope posted to the 1996 group chat early in the morning of the official announcement. He informed them that he still needed them at that time. (Many of them intend to attend his public debut at Rupp Arena on Sunday afternoon.) He informed them that his former teammates must support him wholeheartedly for this to succeed. He expressed his eagerness to return home to them.
“The last thing he wrote,” Mills said, “had us ready to run behind him through another brick wall: Let’s do this. That got me. Yeah, we’ve done this before. Let’s do this again.”
(Photo of Mark Pope, center, and Kentucky teammates cheering during the 1996 Midwest Regional final: Jim Mone / AP)