How a friend and a priest from Northeast Philly helped John Calipari decide to leave Kentucky for Arkansas

John Calipari was at a crossroads. Stay at Kentucky or go to Arkansas? He went to Las Vegas and got his answer from a Northeast Philadelphia priest.

Seriously.

Calipari spent part of Final Four week last year in Arizona, but then headed north to Vegas for the bachelor party of longtime friend Jerry Haffey, a Mayfair native and Father Judge grad who has been running in Calipari’s circle for about a dozen years. On the trip was Father Joe Campellone, president emeritus at Father Judge. Campellone, through Haffey, has known Calipari for a while, too, and since Calipari doesn’t like to miss a day of Mass, has given Mass to Calipari a few times over the years, including at his Jersey Shore home.

This Mass was a bit different. They pray for jackpots in Vegas, and Campellone isn’t sure that’s not what Haffey and his other friends were doing in a Vegas hotel room one morning last April. Calipari, though, doesn’t gamble. He pulled Campellone aside before that morning’s mass and told him he was torn. He had a decision to make and he wanted to pray about it.

» READ MORE: DJ Wagner’s transition from top recruit to college fixture came with lessons: ‘Be grateful to play the game’

Campellone told him he wanted him to walk around for a little bit and imagine he was still the Kentucky coach. He wanted Calipari to think about ending his career there. Then he took out his Mass kit and said Mass. Afterward, he told Calipari to take a walk and act like he was the new coach at Arkansas. He told Calipari to think about all that would entail, like moving his family, starting a new program, the energy it would require a then-65-year-old to have to do those things.

The following morning’s Mass was supposed to start at 10 a.m., but Calipari told Campellone later that night that he would need to start earlier. How’d 6:30 a.m. sound? “Why?” Campellone asked. A plane, Calipari said, was coming to get him to take him to Arkansas.

“I said, ‘I guess you made your decision’,” Campellone said.

How did Calipari, a three-time coach of the year who has taken six teams to a Final Four, end up at a Vegas bachelor party with a couple of Father Judge guys in his mid-60s?

Haffey and Calipari’s story begins in Vegas. Haffey was a longtime attendee of the USA Basketball fantasy camp, and met Calipari at the Wynn around 2013. Haffey was the CEO of a few addiction treatment centers and was a big hoops fan and Duke booster. Why Duke? He loved watching Bobby Hurley. So did his son, Jerry Jr.

Back to Calipari …

They hit it off in Vegas and had dinner.

“From there it just took off,” Haffey said. “We’re two people that don’t want anything from each other. He’s a really good man. He goes to church every day. He’s an honest, good-living dude. We just hit it off. It’s nice because we’re both in the position with a little money that we don’t want anything from each other. We’ve got enough of those people in our lives.”

They’ve grown close over the years. When Haffey was inducted into the Father Judge Hall of Fame in 2019, Calipari was there (as were other sports friends like Cris Carter and Jimbo Fisher). Calipari shouts out Haffey’s birthday on social media. He was at Haffey’s wedding last May.

“It’s funny because they’re opposites in a lot of ways,” Campellone said. “Cal is a Democrat and Jerry is a Republican and when they’re together it’s so funny. You just laugh all the time. They have a lot of commonalities. They’re both family-oriented, came from little neighborhoods. They just hit it off. Every time I’m with them I just laugh my butt off.”

» READ MORE: DJ Wagner gives back to Camden, and details his trust in following John Calipari to Arkansas

Haffey frequently finds himself behind the bench when Calipari is coaching in big games. He was in Providence this week watching Calipari’s Razorbacks, a No. 10 seed, taking on No. 7 Kansas in the NCAA tournament — a game Arkansas won, 79-72. Haffey once got in a little trouble when he was caught on camera next to Calipari in the Bahamas wearing the wrong shoe brand. It was 2022, and Father Judge at the time wore Adidas apparel. Calipari, of course, is a Nike guy, and you don’t get caught on camera with an Adidas logo on. Someone high up at Nike had Haffey change shirts.

These days Judge wears Nike, and Haffey is a big reason the Crusaders became a Nike Elite school this year. Look good, play good. Judge won its first Catholic League title in 27 years, and is now in the state semifinals.

“Jerry of course wants to take credit for that,” Campellone joked. “Jerry’s a good donor to Judge, but more importantly he’s a really good friend of mine now. We do a lot together.”

Haffey never played organized basketball as a kid. He was raised in Mayfair, St. Timothy’s Parish by a single mother and was a self-described troublemaker. He loved hoops, though. He played plenty of years of basketball at Vogt Playground and Recreation Center, but “didn’t want to be bothered” by staying after school for school ball.

The humble beginnings are why Haffey thinks he and Calipari, who was raised outside of Pittsburgh in Moon Township, became such good friends.

“He’s like the brother I never had,” Haffey said.

Calipari is an honorary Philadelphian. His team has a few Philly-area guys and has longtime assistant coach and Philadelphian Bruiser Flint on the bench. Calipari stays at Haffey’s place at the Ritz-Carlton whenever he’s in the city and attends morning Mass at St. John’s on 13th Street.

A different St. John’s could await Calipari in the next round: Rick Pitino’s Red Storm are seeded second in the West region. Calipari vs. Pitino is as old-school as it gets, and even that matchup has its own Philly tale.

The first time Calipari and Pitino faced each other as coaches in the NCAA Tournament was in 1992 at the Spectrum in the Sweet 16. Pitino coached at Kentucky and Calipari at Massachusetts. Jamal Mashburn scored 30 points as Kentucky knocked off Calipari’s Minutemen to set up one of the sport’s best games ever: Duke vs. Kentucky in the Elite Eight, which ended with Christian Laettner hitting “The Shot.”

Haffey was in the building. Remember, he was a Duke and Hurley fan. Haffey was a union carpenter at the time and had seats in the “nosebleeds” with a friend. He couldn’t afford another ticket for his son, but wanted his boy to see Hurley and Duke up close. On one of the practice days, Haffey went inside Saint Matthew School on Cottman Ave. and got Jerry Jr., then in sixth grade, out of class for a “family emergency.” To the Spectrum they went.

“My life has evolved since then obviously,” Haffey said.

Saturday he’ll be back at Amica Mutual Pavilion in Providence, hoping Calipari can get by Pitino 33 years after their first meeting and get back to the Sweet 16 for the first time as a coach since 2019.

“He’s a good man,” Haffey said. “He’s always been a villain and that’s why we laugh. Him and I are always the bad guys but really we’re pretty decent guys. I said to him, ‘You’ll always be the villain. You like playing the villain. They don’t know you get up every morning and go to church. They don’t know you sit and light candles for everybody and all your players. They don’t know all the [stuff] you do for people who are suffering. They don’t know all that stuff.’

“They just say he cheats, he does this, he does that. … Believe me. If he had a bag man it would’ve been me.”

A bag, maybe not. But he did give Calipari a priest.