Arkansas HC John Calipari Vows to Retire Before Taking 'Transactional' Approach

Arkansas coach John Calipari, whose one-and-done era at Kentucky saw NBA talent come and go nearly every season, criticized what he is seeing in the name, image and likeness portal era, saying he will not become a "transactional" coach or he "won’t do this anymore."

The 66-year-old Calipari said he welcomes some changes in college athletics more than others after three-plus decades of head coaching.

"I want to help 25 to 30 more families," Calipari said Tuesday at SEC basketball media days. "The only way you do that is to be transformational as a coach. If you’re not, you’re transactional. If I become transactional – ‘I’m going to pay you this to do this and that’ – then I won’t do this anymore. I don’t need to."

A transactional approach has become exceedingly more common – and sometimes mandatory – for programs looking to stay competitive.

Transfer guidelines were softened in 2021, no longer penalizing several-time transfers with the requirement to sit out for a year. NIL was allowed in 2021, allowing students to profit from their celebrity. The $2.8 billion House settlement took effect July 1, allowing schools to directly pay athletes for the first time in history.

Calipari was hired by Arkansas in April 2024, a day after stepping down from the Kentucky program he led to the 2012 NCAA championship. He is the winningest active coach in men’s college basketball and the elite recruiter has seen top players come and go. Still, the modernization of college athletics has become impossible to avoid.

Coach after coach, from Miami’s Jim Larrañaga to Virginia’s Tony Bennett to Villanova’s Jay Wright and others have all walked away from the game in recent years, saying it no longer holds the appeal it once did. Some blamed the