It’s normally John Calipari’s teams that hold court at Rupp Arena. On Wednesday morning at the Get Motivated Business Seminar, it was Calipari that held center stage.

Speaking to an estimated crowd of 15,000 people, Coach Cal delivered a riveting speech that captivated everyone in the audience. He had the pro-UK crowd at hello.

“Do you know I love this building and I love being here?” Calipari said in his introduction.

From there forward, the audience hung on to his every word as he reflected on nearly 30 years of coaching to talk about teamwork. Drawing on advice his dad gave him early in his life, Calipari told the crowd that teamwork requires you to keep things in perspective.

“It’s never quite as good as it seems and it’s never quite as bad as it seems,” Calipari said. “Somewhere in the middle falls reality.”

To build teamwork, Calipari touched on several different topics, experiences and anecdotes, many of which evoked laughter from the thousands in attendance.

The first topic he touched on was envisioning success.

“I want my players to dream individually,” Calipari said. “I want them to see themselves as being special, as being standouts. Dreaming makes you feel good, but I need you to dream collectively.”

Calipari said he used to envision playing basketball games in his backyard where he averaged “72 points a game.”

“No one could guard me,” Calipari said.

His mother would call him for dinner and Calipari would obey, but not before a last shot. Naturally, it was the game winner.

“I would go to the corner of the court and shoot it over the corner of the backboard and it would go in at the buzzer,” Calipari said. “I would go in happy and I would be ecstatic. And if missed, ‘I got fouled.’ I would go to the foul line and I would make the first one and the second one. If I missed it, ‘He stepped in too soon. Give me that ball back.’ It’s my dream. It’s going to make me feel good.”

Calipari said to make a team work, everyone has to share a vision. He said his 1995-96 Massachusetts team did that when it started the year 26-0 and went on to the program’s only Final Four.

“It’s so important that they all buy in, which means they all pitch in to make it their vision,” Calipari said.

But buying in doesn’t translate to success, Calipari said. Success also just comes down to good old-fashioned hard work.

“Are you willing to do more than expected?” Calipari said. “As a leader, I have to get players to work to exhaustion.”

For his players, that means working through grueling practices, demanding schedules and unrealistic expectations.

“I’ve got to get a team full of players feeling that I’m exhausted but I love it,” Calipari said.

To illustrate his point, Calipari pointed to what he had on his plate Wednesday. He said he had to make the Get Motivated speech, run his team through practice in the afternoon and then hit the road recruiting that night. What he didn’t tell the crowd is that in between he would meet with Big Blue Madness campers and take care of business at the office.

“When I sit on the bed tonight and put my feet on the ground, I’m going to say, ‘Man, this was a great day,’ ” Calipari said.

Part of working through the exhaustion with his team is convincing them to work for each other. He said that’s the only way a team can work.

“It’s amazing what gets done when no one cares who gets the credit,” Calipari said.

As an example, Calipari said his greatest thrill in coaching came when he was working for Larry Brown at the University of Kansas. Calipari said he worked with a point guard as a sixth assistant and taught him an “inside-out” move and a ball fake that the player picked up on fast, but he told him not to use it in a rivalry game with Kansas State.

What did his player do that night? He used the ball fake anyway, wowing the crowd and scoring the layup. On the way back, the player pointed at Calipari to offer his gratitude.

“Today it puts goosebumps on me,” Calipari said.

To work for each other sometimes requires blind faith, Calipari said. It’s about trusting one another and believing in each other’s word and work.

“When I recruit these players, I do not promise them they’ll start, I do not promise them how many minutes they’ll play, I do not promise them how many shots they’ll make or take,” Calipari said. “I tell them it’s going to be hard. It’s Kentucky. This is the hardest place you can go. But I make commitments about how we’ll work for them, about how we will not hold them back.”

During the process of making a team, Calipari said you’re going to face adversity. He said everybody, no matter what they decide to pursue, is going to get hit in the gut by adversity and knocked to their knees.

“It is not will adversity hit; it’s how will I deal with the adversity that hits,” Calipari said.

Battling adversity was one of the staples of his Final Four team this past year that struggled mightily on the road.

“We couldn’t win a road game,” Calipari said.

Calipari got a call from sports psychologist Bob Rotella and he told him that every team has problems. Rotella said that whichever coach deals with those problems the best will be the last one standing. Through it all, Calipari said he had to stay positive, and in the end, his team was one of the final four standing.

He also encouraged the crowd not to be afraid to ask for help. He talked about Jerry Colangelo’s rise from unemployment to owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Phoenix Suns. Calipari said Colangelo couldn’t have gotten there without the help from a contact he had made in the past. That person just so happened to be Dick Klein, who was starting a pro basketball team in Chicago.

“Successful people love to help other people,” Calipari said.

Before he ended his speech, Calipari said that everyone loves a comeback story. He encouraged everyone in the audience to write their own story.

In doing so, he told them not to forget where they came from. When you reach the pinnacle of success, don’t forget to help others, Calipari said. He hasn’t forgotten that his grandparents, who didn’t speak English, came through Ellis Island.

And now he’s the head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky making speeches that thousands pack arenas to listen to.

“Some people climb the ladder of success and they turn around and they pick up the ladder,” Calipari said. “Special people climb that same ladder of success and they turn around and they pick up the next person. Be special.”