Vanderbilt Hires Brad Calipari, Son of Kentucky Basketball Coach

The father-son duo should meet at least twice in the 2023–24 season.

Madison Williams | Jul 17, 2023

Vanderbilt Hires Brad Calipari, Son of Kentucky Basketball Coach /

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Longtime Kentucky coach John Calipari’s son, Brad, has been hired as the director of on-court player development at Vanderbilt, making him a direct SEC rival to his father.

The young Calipari had his own career at Kentucky as a player and graduate assistant. He played as a guard for the Wildcats during the 2016–17 and ’17–18 seasons before transferring to Detroit Mercy in ’19 to finish his college career.

Calipari earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s certificate from Kentucky. While studying sports kinesiology in 2022, he worked as a graduate assistant for the Wildcats under his father, who has been the head coach since ’09. He also worked as the director of player development for Long Island University in Brooklyn during the 2022–23 season.

The 2023–24 schedule hasn’t been released, but the Calipari father-son duo will meet at least two times during the season.

Published Jul 17, 2023

MADISON WILLIAMS

Madison Williams is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated, where she specializes in tennis but covers a wide range of sports from a national perspective. Before joining SI in 2022, Williams worked at The Sporting News. Having graduated from Augustana College, she completed a master’s in sports media at Northwestern University. She is a dog mom and an avid reader.