There’s a little more gray in John Calipari’s hair these days, a few more wrinkles that line his face. His hip bothers him from time to time, and though he’d like to tell you he has the same pep in his step, he doesn’t get up and down the basketball court in practice quite like he did at Memphis and Massachusetts.

At 52, even Father Time catches up with Coach Cal.

Entrenched in the coaching business for 30 years can take a toll on a coach, especially one that’s at the top of the game and at the center of the college basketball world. The demands of the job, among other things, are why Calipari says he doesn’t want to coach into his 60s.

And yet through it all, throughout everything he’s weathered, his coaching style, passion for the game and marketing of the program remain as fresh as ever. Maybe he’ll indeed hang it up at the end of his new eight-year deal at Kentucky, but the fire to coach basketball and mold young men is still burning wild in Coach Cal.

“I walked out and I told my wife, ‘This is why I love what I do, that hour,’ ” Calipari said after his first team practices in mid-September.

Clearly, he still lives for basketball.

That’s why at his age, with his success (three Final Fours and more than 500 on-court victories) and with his ability to recruit the best of the best, most would think it’s his way or the highway. Parts of four decades of basketball can create some habits, and by now Calipari could lean back on his track record and say, “This is how I’ve always done it and this is how we’re going to do it.”
 
But that’s just not how Coach Cal operates.

If there is one thing we should have learned about Calipari by now through his social media presence, the creation of events like the Kentucky Combine and his open-door policy with former players, it’s that he’s innovative.

It turns out his coaching is the same way. He’s nothing if not adaptable, constantly altering techniques and philosophy with the changing of the times.

There are a couple of notable examples through the years, but maybe none more career changing than switch to the Dribble Drive Motion Offense.

John Calipari credits the Dribble Drive Motion Offense with reinvigorating his career.

In 2003, Vance Walberg, then the coach at Fresno City College, was in town to watch Calipari’s Memphis team. On the second night during the visit, Calipari took Walberg out to eat and, as he always does with his guests, talked basketball.

It was shaping up to be a normal meal for Calipari when his curiosity got the best of him and he asked what kind of offense he was running.

“You don’t want to know,” Walberg said. “It’s a little bit off the wall.”

Calipari insisted Walberg explain it to him and he was instantly fascinated. Within minutes, the dinner table was a court, salt shakers were baskets and sugar packets were players.

At the time, Calipari was already forming a successful foundation at Memphis and guiding the program to new heights. To change the offense midway through the building process seemed a little crazy.

But Coach Cal is rarely content. 

Over the next few years, Calipari called Walberg hundreds of times and made multiple trips to Fresno to watch his team play. After two years, Calipari was comfortable enough to install the offense – with some variations and adaptations – to his team at Memphis.

Gone was Calipari’s play calling from the bench and running the classic motion offense. Calipari had experienced plenty of success with his old-school approach during his meteoric rise, but he was blown away by the freedom of Walberg’s offense and convinced it would revolutionize the game and “unleash” his players.

He was right. After guiding his UMass team to the Final Four in 1996 with an old-school approach, Calipari led a different style to the 2008 national championship game. The up-tempo, frantic pace has been a major boon in recruiting as players want to put up scoring numbers. He also credits the change with reinvigorating his career.

The offense is one of a number of changes he’s made throughout the course of his career.

During the 2008-09 season, Calipari’s team, fresh off the national championship appearance against Kansas, stumbled early as he tinkered with a young lineup. Curiously, Calipari experimented with Antonio Anderson and Wesley Witherspoon – two players with little lead guard experience – at the point until the team spiraled to a 6-3 start.

At that point, Calipari decided to turn to Tyreke Evans, one of the nation’s top freshmen. Evans had started the season at shooting guard, but Calipari wasn’t afraid to look at himself in the mirror and admit it wasn’t the right fit.

In Evans’ first game at the point, the Tigers won. Then they won again. And they kept winning. With one swift coaching adjustment, Calipari’s team went on to win 27 straight games before losing in the Sweet 16. 

But even after that, Coach Cal didn’t necessarily treat his players differently. He had to come to Kentucky and learn that from the unlikeliest of all people: Josh Harrellson.

Last year, Harrellson transformed himself from a seldom-used afterthought to quite arguably the most important piece of the puzzle in UK’s Final Four. Harrellson’s work ethic changed when he posted some ill-advised comments about Coach Cal on Twitter, which led to a mandatory conditioning program.

Even 30 years into the coaching business, John Calipari said it took Josh Harrellson to come along to teach him that different players have to be coached differently.

“Josh needed to be absolutely pushed, challenged, punished, conditioned, beat down,” Calipari said. “Other guys don’t need it. If you coach every player like that, they transfer. McDonald’s All Americans, you try to do that to (the ones that) are self driven and beat them down, they’re not staying. If that is a McDonald’s All American and it’s Josh, then Josh would still need that. Other players, they need to be pushed in a different way. They’re self motivated.”

Just like John Wall had to be coached differently than DeMarcus Cousins, Harrellson had to be coached differently than Eric Bledsoe.

“Eric Bledsoe needed to be told daily, ‘You don’t understand how good you are. Do you understand how good you are?’ ‘Coach, I’m not that good.’ ‘You’re a pro, kid. You’re going to be putting your name in the draft.’ ‘You’re crazy, coach.’ ‘I’m telling you.’ John Wall, will you tell him how good he is? He has no idea.’ It all depends on who it is,” Calipari said.

It’s only recently that Calipari has learned to approach each player differently. He admits that he has a certain way he likes to run practices. He likes to go hard, be honest with his players and yet maintain a great off-the-court relationship.

He coached Cousins that way, sometimes booting him out of practice or threatening a starting position to motivate him. Bledsoe didn’t work that way. Harrellson, in a way, did.

“It teaches you that all of these players need different things,” Calipari said. “They’re not the same. I don’t like four hour practices and kill guys. Some kids need that. Most do not. Some do. So you’ve got to coach different kids different ways. It’s not that you’re being unfair, it’s just you got to coach them different.”

At the end of the day, almost all of Coach Cal’s players, both former and present, have said that while they may not always like what he says to them, they appreciate his honesty and the fact that he wants the best for them.
 
“What I’ve always tried to do is keep this real,” Calipari said. “You may not like what I’m about to say, but keep it real. We don’t have time to mince words. We don’t have time to mess around and play each other. If you have a problem, come in and see me, talk it through. If I have an issue with you, I’m going to tell you about it. If I have to do it in front of the team, I’m going to do it in front of the team.

“I’m not trying to hurt anybody. My job is to try to get you to be the best you can be so they have peace of mind, so they know there’s nothing more we as a team, me as an individual, could have done.”

Coach Cal’s newest change to get his players better evolved from his recent experience with the Dominican Republic National Team at the Olympics qualifier in South America. The exposure to FIBA basketball opened Calipari’s eyes to different ways to get into the Dribble Drive Motion Offense.

Just like last year’s team, which implemented more handoffs in the offensive sets, this year’s offense could have even more new wrinkles. Based on his personnel and what he picked up from FIBA basketball, Calipari says he may use a pick-and-roll offense more than he ever has in the past. 

“A lot of this stuff I’ll be bringing home and we’ll be messing with to make it even more difficult to guard us,” Calipari said.

Coming from a coach who basically refused to use pick-and-rolls two years ago with John Wall and Co., it shows that if there one thing he’s learned over time, it’s that nothing stays the same when you’re trying to stay on top of the game.

“I’m not afraid to change, nor am I afraid to do things differently,” Calipari said.