Arkansas HC John Calipari names one condition that could lead him to retirement: "I'll say it's been a good run"

Arkansas coach John Calipari led the Razorbacks to a 22-win record and the Sweet 16 of the 2025 NCAA Tournament in his first season in charge after unexpectedly leaving the Kentucky Wildcats. Calipari has had a legendary career and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015.

During a segment of the Jim Rome Show, the charismatic Calipari revealed under which conditions he would retire from coaching in college basketball.

"As long as I can keep helping young people and their families, then I'll do it," John Calipari said. "The minute I'm not capable because the rules have made it or the environment has made it with NIL and the transfer portal. If it's transactional versus transformational, why would I do it?

"My daughter tells me all the time, 'You do it 'cause you wanna do it 'cause you don't have to do it. But I love doing what I'm doing, and so I'd like to help 20-25 more families, 30 more families, and then I'll say ...'It's been a good run.'"

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John Calipari airs frustration with NIL and transfer portal

Former Alabama Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban cited the unregulated nature of the NIL environment and the transfer portal as one of the reasons behind his shock retirement last January.

After admitting that the same factors could cause his retirement, Arkansas coach John Calipari once again expressed frustration with those aspects of college sports during a segment of the Golic & Golic Show.

“We had four guys return. If you lie to kids, they’re not coming back. If it’s all about money, they won’t stay with us,” John Calipari said. “If it’s about money, I’m not going to, ‘Well, I’ll pay you more.’ I got a locker room. I can’t have one guy making three times what everybody else in the locker room does. We’re not going to do that to any of these kids.

“I mean, what in the world? What are we doing? And we can’t cure that? The transfer portal. We can’t say, academically, you can’t transfer four times and graduate. We can’t allow it. … If you transfer once, maybe twice, without penalty, that’s fine. Coach leaves, that’s fine, but you can’t be 28.”

Last week, John Calipari rubbished reports linking him to the lucrative New York Knicks job after the firing of Tom Thibodeau but he hasn't held back in airing his frustrations with the current NIL-dominated environment in college sports.