Bluegrassrivals

Let me first say, that I know UK did not put on Hoops for Haiti for good press, but for it to go unnoticed is surprising and disappointing. I am angered by the lack of coverage UK's Hoops for Haiti has gotten. In 48 hours John Calipari helped organize and lead a fundraiser for struggling people a world away. The UK fan base responded by giving an amazing amount, which was matched to over $1 million.

All of this money was given in just 5 hours. There's still more money coming in.

With all of this said, I perused ESPN.com last night and only saw a couple of Twitter comments from Dana O'Neill and Vitale. After looking today, I never once saw an article on the amazing feat that was accomplished yesterday.

I go to ESPN.com's main page, no mention of it there. Ok, this IS a college basketball story, I suppose, so I go to that page...nothing.

You're telling me an article about a DePaul player's foot injury is noteworthy, but an article about UK raising $1 million for Haiti is not? Are you serious?!

Please, ESPN, good God, "Hoops for Haiti" was the 3rd most popular Google search yesterday!

The thing that especially ****es me off, is that ESPN loves to bash UK. If there had been some ridiculous rule violation, like Patterson accidentally ate at Joe Bologna's, then God knows it'd be all over ESPN, but we can't give UK a little bit of good press?

ESPN loves to put down Calipari, and make him out to be sleazy, but when he organizes something like this it goes unnoticed? Come on. The main could have easily just sat at home and watched film, etc. but he did not. Instead he donated his time to a great relief effort, all the while teaching his players a great life lesson. That life is more than just basketball.

Bob Knight accused Calipari of lacking integrity and it gets tons of press on ESPN, but Calipari and the UK fans raise $1 million for Haiti and it gets no press. Shame on you ESPN.

Personally, I wrote ESPN.com and let them know about my disappointment. If you would like to do so as well, here's the link.

https://r.espn.go.com/members/contact/index

I did write them. Thanks for the link and story.

I also wrote in. Cal said something along the lines of the donations being "matched". So if he raised over a million, and that million is matched, did Coach Cal raise 2 million dollars for Haiti?

Really don't like the guy, but a great job for a great cause. Those people over there are really suffering. Good to see people coming together to help. There was an article on the Knoxville News Sentinel's sports site about this, so I guess it isn't being totally overlooked. ESPN loves to run with the bad and forget about the good. Its hard to put much into anything they do anymore.

PC_You_Know Wrote:I also wrote in. Cal said something along the lines of the donations being "matched". So if he raised over a million, and that million is matched, did Coach Cal raise 2 million dollars for Haiti?

Roughly $500,000 was raised and Cal's Pals (or something like that) matched that number, making the total above $1 million.

They were interviewing Coach Cal live on ESPN when the telethon was going on. I think that was the reason why so many people were googling it... So they were drawing attention to it for UK so that other people could call. Here's the link. [ame="http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4834253"]Hoops For Haiti Telethon - ESPN Video - ESPN[/ame]

Well glad to see ESPN acknowledged the event.