1-on-1 | Kentucky’s Mark Pope on landing his dream job, what he looked for in a new roster.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WDRB) — New Kentucky men’s basketball head coach sat down for an one-on-one interview with WDRB Sports Director Tyler Greever on Thursday.
The two discussed Pope’s memorable introductory news conference, how he found out he had a shot at landing his dream job, why he is keeping national championship expectations and the leap of faith he took to even get into the coaching business.
Below is a lightly-edited transcript of their conversation. You can watch the full thing at the bottom of the page.
Tyler Greever: “Mark, I really appreciate you taking some time to talk with us. I got to take you back to your introductory news conference because I’ll be honest: I have never seen a crowd like that for an introductory news conference. You know BBN as well as anybody. When you step off that bus like you did back in 1996, and you see that crowd and hear it, what is the first thing that comes to mind?”
Mark Pope: “The first thing is like, ‘I’m home.’ And immediately following that, the overwhelming feeling ever since is that press conference didn’t really have anything to do with me at all. It had to do everything with BBN. I think the cathartic part of that was it had been a super stressful week for BBN. It hadn’t happened in 15 years. You think about it: It’s been 15 years, a whole generation, since there was a coaching change. And it never happened in a social media age. There’s never been a coaching change in a social media age, with all the power and impact of that. And so, I think after a tumultuous week, it was super cathartic for BBN being in that arena for themselves and for each other. So, they could look around from the 50th row in the lower bowl across the room and see the 30th row in the upper deck, and be able to say, ‘These are my guys, we’re still here, and we still love this.’ That’s why Kentucky basketball is different than any other sports program.”
Greever: “You have worked your way up through the ranks to a great job at BYU before coming over here. But you’re someone who strikes me as UK being on your mind for a long time as maybe a destination or a possibility. Do you remember if you could pinpoint like, ‘Man, I kind of want to get back to Kentucky?’ I don’t know if as the head coach or as a coach, but did you ever want to do that?”
Pope: “Yeah, I mean, Kentucky is the job. This is the pinnacle of of coaching in every level, actually. But you don’t think it’s going to happen. You don’t get this opportunity. Nobody gets this opportunity. No one gets to coach Kentucky. And so, its kind of like the definition of coaching. You think about it: The greatest job in all of basketball is coaching Kentucky. And then, you kind of go down the road and you think about all these great jobs that are afterward, then mid-tier jobs. But you just don’t think you’re getting a chance to do the best job ever.”
Greever: “So, you’re going through the process of expressing interest. Mitch is interviewing guys. At what point in there did it click for you that said, ‘Wow, I think actually have a real shot at getting my dream,’?”
Pope: “So, it was really interesting because I mean, I don’t know how much time you have, I could tell you the whole story.”
Greever: “Oh yeah, go ahead.”
Pope: “Saturday morning (of the Men’s Final Four, April 6) I’m in the lounge. I see John Calipari and Tubby Smith. I went over and fanboyed. Both of those guys have been so generous to me and both are Hall of Fame coaches. So, I went and talked to them and actually took a picture, okay? And I think none of us had any suspicion that anything was in the wind. And then 24 hours later, everything’s in the wind and there’s all this upheaval about what might happen or might not happen. And then probably 24 hours after that, there was seventh party kind of feelers, but not really legit. Then it became I’m just seeing everything you guys are seeing. And so it seemed like that Scott (Drew) was going to take the job and it made a lot of sense. I’m still kind of wondering if there would be some space. And then, a pivotal moment for me was Wednesday night. ‘Okay, this is great. This is awesome. I’m a fan. I love Scott, he’s gonna kill it here. It’s gonna be great.’ Then, Thursday morning, I woke up to a text where I was like, ‘Whoa, hey, my winds might be changing. Wow.’ And then after that, it was a matter of hours. And then we’re here. That’s how this profession works and certainly how it works here in Kentucky.”
Greever: “How would you describe the process from that point to now because as you mentioned, the social media age makes everything feel longer than it is. It hasn’t been that long of a time and you’ve had to build a whole roster. I would imagine ‘hectic’ comes to mind. Pat Kelsey said it was been a whirlwind for him at Louisville. I imagine you’re similar.”
Pope: “I would say it’s somewhere in nirvana or basketball heaven, a dream come true or whatever. The list is endless. It’s the most fun, exciting list of all time. And it’s the most challenging list of all time. There’s no way that you can possibly get to everything you need to get to in a 24-hour period. It’s what you live for. I’m telling you, I’ve loved every single second. And there’s been moments where I’m like, ‘Wow, that just went really bad,’ and moments where it’s like, ‘Yes, this is supposed to happen.’ Those have happened in quiet and private, and they’ve happened publicly. And every single one of them is why I love this job and why it’s brilliant. I just have this desire that we can all take this journey together because this is our program. This is the state-owned team, like everyone in this state. And everyone in BBN has an ownership share in this team. It means so much to every single one of us. And I’m talking about all of us. I wish we could be all in the room when those disaster moments happen and those incredibly inspiring moments happen because that’s what BBN deserves, man. It’s the best thing ever.”
Greever: “You have built an impressive roster in this offseason and we probably don’t have time to go over each guy. But if they all share a trait or a characteristic that you were kind of looking for to bond this team, what would that be?”
Pope: “I think all these guys have a sense of what Kentucky basketball is. More importantly, I think all these guys have a really high ceiling about being able to learn and understand what Kentucky basketball is. I think all these guys have a sense of this deep-set desire to chase this impossible goal of winning a championship and hanging a banner. And I think all these guys have a really high sense of understanding what that entails more and more and more. So, those are 30,000-foot views of our guys, but those are super important parts of what our guys are. And none of our guys are at their ceiling right now in terms of of knowing those things, but I think they’re close. And I also think all of our guys are hungry. I think that they’re hungry to go prove to the world that they could be more than maybe what people think they are right now. And I did that too. So, big picture things, I like the DNA of this team a lot.”
Greever: “You understand the expectations here better than anybody. You’ve been a part of putting one of those (banners) up as well. But embracing that I believe is something you and Pat (Kelsey) have done from the jump when a lot of coaches might have been like, ‘Hold on, it might take time to build this.’ Why was that so important to you to kind of get out in front of that and say, ‘Hey, look: I get what the standard is here and we can win now. It’s possible in this era of college sports.'”
Pope: “Well, if you know Kentucky, you don’t really have an option. I mean, this Kentucky basketball. You can try to go out there and moderate expectations. But that’s not going to be accepted by anybody. If you want to moderate expectations, don’t take the job of the University of Kentucky. Because there’s one thing that’s expected here, and there’s one thing that that will seal your tenure as a coach and a player and that next expectation is go win a championship. So, it’s terrifying for sure. And it’s daunting. And it’s humbling because you understand how hard it is. I’m not naive to understanding it. That’s why no coach at any other program in the country is going to come say the things at their introductory press conference that I said here at the University of Kentucky because it’s that hard. It is nearly impossible. But this just is the one program in all of college basketball where nothing less is acceptable. And I want it. I want that challenge. Call me crazy, but I want it. That’s why we want to be here and our guys want to be here, to have those expectations. That’s part of the defining feature of somebody that can be qualified to come here and do this. And there’s no reason and posturing for anything less. If you want to posture for like, ‘Hey, we’re going to build this and we’re going to kind of go step by step, and we’re going to celebrate a Final Four,’ then go to any other school in the country. But you can’t do that here at Kentucky.”
Greever: “So, we have you when you’re at the pinnacle of your career. This is the job, that dream job. I want you to take me back to Mark Pope who was in medical school for a little bit and had to make the decision of, ‘Okay, I want to give coaching a shot.’ How much do you think back on that period of your life and think about where you’re at now, because as someone who has seen what medical school does to my fiancee, and residency, it’s a grind, man. Just making that transition, it had to be a heck of a decision.”
Pope: “Lee Anne (his wife) and I, if you got us in a room together today, we still think like, ‘What were we thinking?’ Like, how did we ever look each other in the eye and say, ‘This is a good idea.’ It’s insanity. I mean, we left Columbia (University), one of the top three medical schools in the world and we have one year left. And we’re going to go take a job at the University of Georgia to be the assistant to the director of basketball operations, not even a coach. We’re not talking about coaching. We took a job for $24,000 with no guarantee that we would ever get another job to go put up the tailgate tent for recruits every Saturday. That was my job. I can’t explain it. But I believe this: I’m telling you, we were super prayerful about it. We struggled about it for a long time. And I believe that God has plans for our lives. And I believe that when we will include God in our lives and be prayerful, I just believe that his plans for us are way bigger than the plans we have for ourselves. And having the faith to actually make those insane moves, that’s where it’s at, man. It’s not easy. And so, for this story right now, the fact that if you had told us, ‘Hey, in 15 years, you’ll be the head coach at Kentucky,’ and we’d be like, ‘Alright, we can go do that.’ But that was certainly not in the cards when we began this journey. And now, we’re just beginning the meaningful part, right? This is the meaningful part. We get a chance to be here to try and serve everybody in BBN, and especially the state of Kentucky, the best we can and represent Kentucky basketball the best we can. It’s an unbelievable gift to have this opportunity to try and do that.”
Greever: “I really appreciate your time.”
