Kentucky assistant coach Chin Coleman says John Calipari spends an enormous amount of time studying the name, image and likeness issues. (UK Athletics Photo)
No matter what happens with the name, image, and likeness decisions that will allow college athletes to make money, Kentucky basketball intends to be well-positioned — or maybe better positioned — than any other basketball program.
“We talk about it every day as a staff and I can tell you right now, there is no one on top of it more than Coach Cal,” Kentucky assistant coach Ronald “Chin” Coleman said during his media time at last week’s Kentucky basketball camp.
“No one, I promise you. He’s spending 27 hours a day on trying to understand all of the NIL stuff, whatever it relates to; crypto, NFTs, and all of that stuff.”
July 1 is the scheduled date where some states have already passed legislation allowing student-athletes to make money. The NCAA and Congress have yet to pass any specific legislation but the Supreme Court did issue a 9-0 ruling against the NCAA Monday that is going to change a lot of things in the antitrust world. That’s why it is so hard still to exactly speculate on what might happen and Coleman knows that.
“I know that it’s very close to there being a decision on the name, image, and likeness stuff but there are too many moving parts for me to speak upon it because I don’t think anyone fully has an understanding of what they can talk confidently about with name, image, and likeness,” Coleman said.
“I think until there is a full layout of legislature, of laws and the state and the government and also the NCAA and then you have the individual schools. There’s too many moving parts right now, and that’s way above my food chain for me to comment on.
“I think that until that is all laid out, we’ll be able to speak on that confidently. But we are getting educated, we’re getting educated with it every day.”
