Several outlets today are reporting that the literary world is about to be turned on its ear. As if he didn’t have enough on his plate, like hauling the University of Kentucky into court, trolling the Lexington bars, making friends with the locals, and maybe trying to find a JOB, one Mr. Billy Gillispie has decided to put pen to paper and tell the world his story (with the aid of an actual writer, of course). That’s right. Even though I’d say you might have to wait a whole, like, TWO WEEKS for the thing to be written, we will soon be enlightened by…The Billy Gillispie Story.
My question is what on earth is going to actually GO INTO this book? Riveting chapters about how he was Kentucky’s 18th choice for the head coaching job when they hired him? A list of his favorite beers? A discussion on the benefits of never playing a second of zone defense, or how two-hour full-speed practices on game days can lead to REALLY cool injuries for your team? It seems to me, aside from taking himself a lit-tle too seriously, making an idiot out of himself and embarassing the school he represented (esp. as it pertains to a certain Jeanine Edwards) and being an inflexible boob, the man just hasn’t DONE anything yet. And there’s a good chance he never will. With the public persona he’s built for himself and the fact that he’s shown a proclivity for suing former employers, the guy’d be lucky to get a job cleaning John Calipari’s golf cleats, let alone a coaching job at anything resembling a major basketball program.
Seriously, who’s going to buy this thing? The Texas A&M and UTEP years are too far gone for anyone there to care. Kentucky fans will only buy it if it turns into a diatribe against his former players (yeah, THAT’LL make players want to play for you, big guy), but even then most UK supporters will refuse to buy it out of spite. He might call it The Billy Gillispie Story, but I think we all know what this is, in terms of his career — a hundred-page, picture-filled, large print coffin nail.