How Kentucky coach Mark Pope decided to follow a legend

Copy Link

Email

Print

MARK POPE felt uncertain.

There was a moment, he admitted, after it was clear that he was Kentucky's choice, when he stood alone at home and grappled with apprehension about a job that offered both spoils he knew well and obstacles, too.

Pope was the head coach at BYU, the second-winningest program in the state of Utah. If he took this job, he would be the head coach of the winningest team in men's college basketball history -- following John Calipari, whose run included a national title and four trips to the Final Four in five years.

"You never follow a legend, right?" Pope said he wondered for a few minutes that night. "You never follow a legend."

Pope decided to anyway,…