Some people have said John Calipari has a life in politics when he hangs up his whistle. Who says he can’t do both?

Kentucky’s basketball coach put on his political hat Thursday and joined UK President Eli Capilouto in Frankfort to assist in the university’s push for collaboration with the state and funding of significant facility needs on UK’s campus.

Coach Cal, along with Capilouto, spoke to more than 75 Kentucky state legislators about the importance for renovating Kentucky’s aging infrastructure. Capilouto is characterizing the need for facility improvement as a part of his “Kentucky’s Promise” initiative, an effort to continue the university’s ascent among the nation’s best institutions of higher learning.

“Eighty percent of our campus is from the state of Kentucky,” Calipari said Friday during his normal pregame media availability. “Wouldn’t you want to be proud of our campus? We’ve got a lot of work to do here from housing to classrooms, all the things that make it about students first, just like we try to make it about players first. If you want to make it about students first, it’s the same thing.”

Calipari said the days of 60-year-old dorms don’t cut it anymore. Improvements must be made, he said.

“The world is changing,” Calipari said. “You’re talking classrooms that it’s hard to keep chalk on the board (because) they’ve been there so long.”

Capilouto, with Calipari’s support, told lawmakers that UK’s 21st-century faculty members are “working in 19th-century facilities” that are not equipped with the technology and amenities to compete as a world-class research and learning space, according to a release on the University of Kentucky’s official website.

UK is proposing that the state provide a pool of funds that would be more than matched by donor dollar and internal resources for academic and research building needs on campus. The university is also exploring whether to enter into a public/private partnership to renovate and build up to 9,000 residence halls over the next several years.

Calipari supports the rebuilding plan, but “the legislature has to be our friends and know this is the flagship campus and we want to be proud of it, and that means we’re going to have to invest in it.”

“I think it’s a legislature that understands we want to be proud of the flagship campus,” Calipari said. “Let’s be proud of it. They say we have the highest graduation rate, well let’s go even higher. The retention rate, let’s get better students. Our applications went up, the highest number of applications they’ve ever had on the campus last year. I said, ‘Yeah, a Final Four probably helps you, but what keeps that going is when they visit and they see the campus and they say I want to be a part of this.’ ”

Long before his trip to Frankfort, Calipari had been backing the president and the university’s needs for facility improvements. Calipari has said one of the biggest indicators of a campus’ growth is cranes. Without seeing cranes building new facilities, the university isn’t moving forward.

With those words of support in mind, Calipari was invited to Frankfort to deliver his opinion. Although he’s charged with being the basketball coach of the University of Kentucky, Calipari said he’s comfortable stepping out of his normal work shoes to help the institution that employs him.

He said he did similar acts of support in the Massachusetts and Tennessee legislatures in his coaching stops at UMass and Memphis.

“I don’t mind that I’m asked to do that,” Calipari said. “I know that’s part of what I’m supposed to do here as a coach. I know it’s good for all of us.”