A PITTSBURGH STORY | Calipari, and his high school coach, recall a lifetime of memories | Sports

PITTSBURGH, PA. (WDRB) – John Calipari is in his element, and why shouldn’t he be? The Kentucky basketball coach is in a room full of reporters, on stage, about to coach in the NCAA Tournament in his hometown.

Here he sat, in PPG Paints Arena to talk about Thursday night’s 7:10 NCAA Tournament opener against Oakland. But it took him less than a minute to steer somewhere else, back 50 years, and down memory lane.

“I mean, let me say this about Pittsburgh,” he said. “When I grew up, it was a blue-collar town, but it's never changed the roots of what Pittsburgh is and what it's about. The Steelers are still -- I call them the Stillers. They're still a blue-collar team with fans who love them and, like, where I grew up, my high school teammates are still my best friends. They still come to games. We were all brought up the same way. Our fathers were laborers. Mom raised us and put hopes and dreams and you can be whatever. That was mom. But we were all the same. It was a melting pot. And, you know, you were taught, there's nothing in this world that's going to be given to you. You're going to have to go take what you want, and if you don't work, you will not eat. That was the famous line, you don't work, you're not eating. You work. If you want to be better than somebody, you better work. That's Pittsburgh.”

That’s the city. But if you get out of town a little bit, up some winding roads and inclines about 20 minutes and into Coraopolis, there you can encounter a piece of the coach. That’s where you find Bill Sacco. He’s tucked away in his athletic directors’ office at Cornell High School, the walls filled with photos of his players there, but none of his most famous player, from way back in the late 1970s in Moon Township.

Kentucky coach John Calipari listens to a reporters question during an NCAA Tournament press conference in PPG Arena in Pittsburgh on March 20, 2024.
ERIC CRAWFORD

Sacco was Calipari’s high school coach. On a brisk morning, the 81-year-old coach recounted some memories of Calipari, starting with his first memories, of a little kid who lived next to the school and worked as a ball boy.

“John was this little wee kid who wore a shirt and a tie like we did as coaches,” Sacco said. “And he would carry the bag of balls to the game. And he traveled with us on the buses, Mom and Dad gave permission for him to travel with us. And so he was our ball boy. And that's the first time I ever saw him.”

It wouldn’t be the last. Sacco said Calipari lived in the gym. He would pick the locks to get into they gym to the point where they had to put in new locks. Those are still there. But by the time Calipari got a chance to play for the high school team, all the work paid off.

“I got to be his coach in senior high school and took a team that wasn't really very good prior and those kids played their guts out. They played really hard,” Sacco said. “The first year I had them when they came back, they won 17 games. And that was amazing. Because the year before that, they probably won three. So they did a great job. And it was John. He was the one that led them. He was the one that said, ‘Guys, we're traveling here to play ball,’ so that I'd get into cars and go. I just followed them around. I was there with them. That's how we first started.”

Sacco said Calipari was determined and hard-nosed as a player. It wasn’t unusual to see him bloodied or bruised after a game. Sacco swears Calipari once shot 40 free throws in a game.

Bill Sacco, John Calipari's high school coach, in his athletic directors' office at Cornell High School on March 20, 2024.
ERIC CRAWFORD

But he assumed Calipari’s future would be in something other than basketball.

“I never thought that he would be a coach,” he said. “John was an entrepreneur. He was a salesman. He could talk you into buying whatever he had to sell. He was good. And that's what I thought he would do. And his coaching ability -- we started a camp when I was coach at Moon. John was a player, and we started a camp, and he basically ran the entire camp. It was the Moon Area Basketball Camp. And it was free for all kids from the Moon area. And he was like the director of the camp, and I was there with him. So what was it? He was probably about 16 or 17. . . . I was impressed with the fact that, like, all the drills and things that we did, he was able to remember them all and teach them to these little kids. It was amazing.”

Calipari went on to UNC-Wilmington, then transferred back to nearby Clarion University, where today the basketball court bears his name and signature.

From there, everybody knows the story. Calipari coached at UMass, and in the NBA, and then to Memphis, and Kentucky. Final Fours. More NBA players than you can count. An NCAA Championship in 2012. The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. And at every one of those stops, if you looked around, you could find Sacco. Calipari even gave him a championship ring.

Sacco was at practice on Wednesday, as Kentucky prepared to face Oakland. Hardly a week goes by when he and Calipari do not speak. And two weeks never go by. Calipari not only remains close with Sacco, but most of his teammates from Moon, and with his college coach at Clarion, Joe DeGregorio, and let’s be honest, about half of Pittsburgh, if he starts reeling off names.

Sacco and DeGregorio were with Calipari in Springfield for his Hall of Fame induction, and were shocked when a bench there was uncovered, and they saw the words on it.

“Thanking Joe DeGregorio and Bill Sacco,” Sacco said. “And it's there forever, it's never going to go away. It's going to be there forever. So these are the kinds of things that he that he does. And he's, you know, he's always treated us well. We certainly appreciate it.”

Calipari has referenced Sacco over the years, and said when he retired in 2020, “Coach Sacco showed me personally what it means to be a coach. He showed me that it’s more than Xs and Os. He made it about us and always pushed and promoted all of us. He was the original servant leader.”

Calipari comes to Pittsburgh with a team that is full of promise, potential and future pros. But he has stressed this week that he not only wants to push them, but to make sure they are leaning on each other.

If you want to understand Calipari the coach, you could do worse than listen to the guy who coached him. But Sacco doesn’t offer advice to his former player.

“Other than play some defense,” Sacco said, laughing. “That’s all.”

Sacco will be in PPG Paints Arena on Thursday, watching again as Calipari, back at home, will look to launch another run at history.

“I love coming back,” Calipari said. “. . . My dad worked at J&L Steel for a while. My family worked with A&S Railroad and American Bridge and all that. They went through that. My dad worked near the blast furnace, and said he had to stop. He ended up going to the airport working for Allied Aviation, which fueled the planes, because he said if he stayed there he was going to die. You know, he was losing ten pounds a day. But that's -- you're feeding your family. You want your children to have a better life than you had. That's what Pittsburgh was and is. . . . It’s a special place. I called (Steelers’ coach) Mike Tomlin. Why don't you come in and talk to the team? Mike and I are friends. He's in a Pro Day somewhere, can't do it. But it’s a special place.”