Payne surprised to be on Calipari's staff

UK Basketball: Payne surprised to be on Calipari's staff

By LARRY VAUGHT
larry@amnews.com
October 18, 2010

Editor’s note: This is the first of a four-part series with University of Kentucky assistant basketball coach Kenny Payne.

LEXINGTON — Kenny Payne says “not in a million years” did he ever imagine a scenario where he would be wearing blue and white and being part of the Kentucky basketball program.

Granted, he was heavily recruited when he was a prep standout in Mississippi, but he chose Louisville over UK and helped the Cardinals win a national championship. However, a curious path led him to Kentucky from Oregon this year to join John Calipari’s coaching staff.

“I guess growing up playing ball at Louisville that was the perceived rivalry with the players, but I always respected Kentucky’s program. We were always friends with each other. I recruited Rex Chapman and told him to come to Kentucky,” Payne said.

“(Kentucky players) Reggie Hanson and Winston Bennett and we were all friends. Kenny Walker recruited me (for Kentucky). We had a great relationship with Kentucky players. I still respect the programs of Louisville and Kentucky.”

How did a Louisville player recruit Chapman, one of Kentucky’s all-time most popular players, for the Wildcats when Chapman was a home-grown Kentucky star from Owensboro?

“We were recruiting Rex (at Louisville) and I was his host. I just felt like Rex as a player was a super, super talented kid and we were stocked (with players),” Payne said. “We had a whole bunch of players. He could have come in and been one piece of nine. Instead, he came here and his impact on this program, today even if you look at it, is enormous with what he has done here.”

Chose father figure

So why didn’t he come to Kentucky to play? Payne said UK and Louisville were his final choices, but that Louisville assistant coach Wade Houston came across as a “father figure” to him and his parents. It also hurt Kentucky that Joe B. Hall resigned and Eddie Sutton was named the new head coach.

“I remember when it happened that the first day after the press conference he (Sutton) came to Mississippi to see me. It was a tough decision, but what scared me was the new coach. I built relationships with Joe, (assistant coach) Leonard (Hamilton) and Kenny. Then the change was made and there was a lot of unknown,” he said.

Payne doesn’t feel there is any unknown about joining Calipari’s staff. The Kentucky coach is one who helped convince Payne to go back to school once his playing career ended and that proved to be a wise decision based on the job Payne did as an assistant at Oregon.

“Over the course of the last four years we talked about doing something together and me working for him. My goal is to help kids,” Payne said.

“I was not coaching before Oregon and in this business, you have to know it never happens the way it happened to me when you go from not being in the business to all of a sudden being in a high profile program. We brought a lot of kids in there. I promised my soul to those kids, meaning I would not leave them.

“That made it very hard to come here. With the coaching change (at Oregon), the transition, there were a lot of dynamics. I still had three guaranteed years on my contract that I walked away from, which says a lot about this program and John Calipari. “

Payne said it was Calipari and current NBA head coach Larry Brown who convinced him going back to school was the right thing for him to do. Brown was coaching the Philadelphia 76ers then and Calipari had just become head coach at Memphis after being fired by the New Jersey Nets.

“They invited me to the coaches’ clinic that was basically all NBA guys. I was deciding what to do. They both inspired me to go back to school. At that time I wanted to coach in the NBA and I needed something to judge it by,” Payne said. “In order to do it the right way, you have to have college and NBA experience.

“In the NBA, you are going to get fired. We all know that. What happens when you get fired. You need somewhere to go. You don’t want to sit at home. Most coaches have a degree, which I didn’t have. Those guys talked me into coming back to school and getting my degree. Best advice I ever had.”

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