John Calipari responds to comments on social media made by Rick Pitino

Kentucky head coach John Calipari and Louisville head coach Rick Pitino are two of the most successful coaches in the history of college basketball. However, both of them have differing opinions on social media.

This past week, Pitino made some waves when some comments were released of him speaking rather ill of social media and its use. Of note, he called most of the people that use it as a tool to express their opinion, “underachievers.”

Calipari, on the other hand, is a fan of social media. He has over a million followers on twitter and has embraced its status in the sports world nowadays.

On the Mike and Mike show Thursday morning, Calipari gave a response to Pitino’s comments, which more or less got the same point across, just in a more positive manner.

"“This is no disrespect, the coaches you mentioned, I respect them all. They know nothing about social media. Nothing. They don’t do it. They feel it’s another job. What I’m trying to tell our players, we train them, we bring in professional people, we talk about it, we oversee what they put out. If they put out something dumb, we talk to them and tell them why [it’s dumb]. ‘Why would you do that?’ We tell them, if you’re into reading the responses, don’t go on twitter!”“Twitter is an opportunity. Facebook is an opportunity. To say what you feel. To try to pick people up. To try to be positive. To try to add something to society. To let people see you transparently. You cannot be defined if you’re on social media by someone else. You will define who you are, and if you’re negative, that’s your fault. But here is who you are. If you are negative, it will come through. Five years of being on twitter and facebook, are you gonna lie for five years? You are who you are. But we’re trying to tell those kids, you build your brand or you break your brand down. You are who you are through social media.”“I’m not going to hold my team back from twitter or facebook, I’m going to teach them. How do you use it for a positive. I don’t read one response on twitter or facebook. There are a lot of bullies and haters on twitter. I don’t read them, I don’t see them. I give out information, I’m transparent to our fans. I tell them how I’m feeling. I talk about the last couple of practices. There are things I want my players to read that I’ll put out. I also have things that we do that only go to our players, that I put out that I want them to see and hear. Videos and different things. Social media, for anyone to say don’t do it, it’s crazy. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I go home, I got a 17 year old son, he doesn’t watch TV, he’s on the computer all day.”"

Both men did bring up some great points, but again, just in a different manner.