LEXINGTON, Ky. — This started with a menace. Not a thinly veiled menace. No. This was about as direct because it will get.
Mark Pope, all 6 ft and 10 inches of him, stood tall, pushing his shoulders again. Contemplating his dimension, his shaved head, and his background — a decade spent banging across the paint as a journeyman NBA middle again within the late ’90s and early 2000s, when freedom of motion was a overseas idea and survival required withstanding elbows within the chest — he ought to be an imposing determine. Besides Pope has this manner of being impossibly likable. He seems and feels like a human exclamation level. He throws round adjectives like he’s writing the most recent “Hardy Boys” quantity. Every little thing he sees or hears is sensible! Or unimaginable! Or the biggest factor ever! Blended in with the overloaded enthusiasm is the truth that Pope is, though he’ll by no means admit it, an mental. He can spend hours discussing philosophy or theology. In a previous life, he was a Rhodes scholar candidate on his option to turning into a physician. He’s, as his former coach Rick Pitino says, “smarter than 99 p.c of faculty basketball coaches.”
Add all of it up and Pope, irrespective of how massive, isn’t intimidating.
That’s why the menace wasn’t his.
“I’m truthful sport, however in case you say something in regards to the women,” Pope warned, shaking palms inside his workplace on the College of Kentucky, half-smiling, eyes transferring cautiously, “Lee Anne will burn your home down.”
Welcome to the Pope Household. There’s your postcard.
Final spring, they have been scattered. Every one in his or her personal world. Lee Anne was in Texas, visiting a brother within the hospital. Ella, the oldest, was off embarking on early skilled life. Avery, then a school junior, was heading into tennis follow at Brigham Younger College. Layla, a BYU freshman, was in Salt Lake Metropolis, prepping for that evening’s Utah Jazz-Houston Rockets sport, her make-up half-done for a dance group efficiency. Shay, the youngest, was dwelling in Provo, Utah, within the throes of highschool volleyball follow.
And Dad? He was in a job interview with Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart.
Quickly their cell telephones have been buzzing. Textual content messages within the household group chat. Pope informed his spouse and 4 daughters he wanted them on a name. He talked about a Zoom. No, no, one of many women replied. Simply begin a bunch Facetime. OK. Everybody scrambled to discover a quiet spot to speak, slightly privateness. However then — the place’s Shay? Volleyball follow wasn’t over but. Because the youngest, she is, after all, the favourite. They couldn’t begin with out her. Lastly selecting up her cellphone, Shay discovered a display screen flooded with alerts. “Oh, my gosh.”
The decision might hardly deal with their collective wavelength. Extensive eyes stared at screens, stared at each other. There was smiling, some lip-biting. Lastly, Dad requested, “How will we really feel if I’m going to Kentucky?” The tears began rolling.
This wasn’t a carried out deal but. Pope informed his household, “Hear, if anybody isn’t OK with this, I’ll keep at BYU.” He meant it. And he wanted to listen to from everybody on the decision. He went round one after the other.
Every daughter checked out her dad and noticed a person who, within the second, had one way or the other lassoed his entire life historical past and pulled all of it collectively. Mark Pope was born in Omaha, Neb., to a household that adopted his dad’s profession. Don Pope took a job with Union Pacific in New York within the Seventies, when Mark was a child. Then he took a job with Burlington Assets in Seattle. Don and his spouse, Linda, raised six children in Bellevue, Wash. Mark grew tall, starring on the basketball court docket, and accepted a scholarship to the College of Washington in 1991. Two years later, his coach was let go, setting off a series of occasions that, you’ll study, one way or the other led to his life unfolding with a charmed bliss he might by no means have imagined; and, finally, shaping the route of faculty basketball’s winningest program — the Kentucky Wildcats.
So, sure, it was a giant query.
Lee Anne went first, telling her husband she cherished him and was pleased with him. Sure. Then every of the women. Sure. Sure. Sure. Go Cats.
Shay went final, form of hiding her face from the display screen. Because the child, she’s the one Pope lady who didn’t beforehand transfer round rather a lot as a child, as an alternative rising up primarily in Utah, spending her entire life in a singular world. Everybody on the decision knew a transfer would impression Shay probably the most. Altering excessive faculties, new pals, dwelling in an enormous highlight. Exhausting stuff for a 15-year-old.
Shay peeked on the display screen so her household might see her. Sure.
“I knew what Kentucky was, as a result of my dad has talked about it a lot, however I didn’t actually get it,” Shay says now. “I used to be unhappy, however … it’s simply, I like my dad, and he’s … he’s my favourite individual, you understand? That is, like, his precise dream. And that’s larger than me being mad or unhappy about having to depart my pals, proper?”
Lee Anne and Mark Pope, middle, with daughters, from left, Shay, Layla, Avery and Ella. (Chet White / UK Athletics)
Outdoors the household, there as soon as existed a prevailing thought that perhaps Pope wasn’t the person for arguably the largest job in school basketball. It was April, to be actual. Again when all hell broke free.
First, John Calipari, Kentucky’s second all-time winningest coach behind Adolph Rupp, pulled an all-time vanishing act, buying and selling years of rising animosity for an out-of-nowhere transfer to Arkansas. The overall feeling was shock, however understanding. Either side — Cal and the Cats — in all probability wanted a contemporary begin. If something, these in Lexington have been excited. It was assumed this system would land some big-time title. Scott Drew. Dan Hurley. Bruce Pearl. Or perhaps even a demigod like Billy Donovan or Jay Wright.
However then Drew mentioned no. And Hurley mentioned no. Pearl and others have been non-options, weighed by prohibitive contract buyouts. Donovan wasn’t prepared to speak till after the NBA season. Wright was a pipe dream.
That led Barnhart to Pope. The fifth-year BYU head coach was a Kentucky legend; symbolically, perhaps extra so than athletically. He first arrived in Lexington in 1993, when Pitino introduced him in as a switch, hoping he’d be the glue man for a group able to win a nationwide championship. Pope had began for 2 seasons at Washington, however would come off the bench for the dynamic, dynastic Kentucky groups of the mid-90s. A fireplace hydrant in the midst of a group of Cadillacs — Tony Delk, Antoine Walker, Walter McCarty, Derek Anderson, Ron Mercer. He was co-captain of the 1996 nationwide title group. He set screens like a door jamb, grabbed each free ball and defended like a madman. All informed, Kentucky went 62-7 in his two seasons. Pope earned a spot in Wildcat lore and was drafted with the 52nd total decide within the 1996 NBA Draft.
However, head coach? Of Kentucky? Pope had a pleasant four-year run at Utah Valley, and went 110-52 at BYU, however — c’mon. He by no means received a league championship. He by no means received an NCAA Event sport. His 2023-24 group efficiently navigated BYU’s tough leap from the West Coast Convention to the Huge 12, however flamed out within the first spherical of the massive dance, shedding to Eleventh-seeded Duquesne.
Kentucky followers are notoriously demanding and chronically on-line. The response to Pope’s emergence as head coach went as follows: He’s too unproven. He can’t recruit. The job is simply too massive for him.
All of these issues might very properly be true.
Barnhart employed him anyway.
Now the keys to the dominion are within the palms of a coach not like some other in program historical past. He’s a coach who’s, above all else, Lee Anne’s husband, and pop to Ella, Avery, Layla and Shay. He’s a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He’s the primary UK graduate to function head coach since Basil Hayden — a 1922 grad who coached the Wildcats in 1926-27. (Joe B. Corridor, who led Kentucky to the 1978 nationwide championship, transferred to, and graduated from, Sewanee.)
Sitting in his workplace, the 52-year-old seems round like a pet encountering snow for the primary time, and says, are you able to consider this? Like he needs it to really feel like a shared expertise.
“That is so superior,” he provides. “And but, consider it or not, it feels completely pure to me.”
Lynn Archibald first turned conscious of Mark Pope someday within the late Eighties. He started recruiting the 6-foot-9 middle from Bellevue (Wash.) Newport Excessive College as College of Utah head coach. Then, after being let go in 1988-89, continued the recruitment as an assistant on Invoice Frieder’s workers at Arizona State.
It was a protracted line of suitors. Pope was among the many finest Class of ’91 highschool gamers within the West. Perhaps a notch under Jason Kidd and Cherokee Parks, however excessive on the listing of prime recruits nationally. In November 1990, he broke hearts by selecting hometown Washington over a listing together with California, Arizona, Syracuse, Utah and Kentucky. Arizona State wasn’t within the image, however Archibald nonetheless thought extremely of Pope. He typed up a letter congratulating him and welcoming him to the Pac-10 Convention.
That’s how Archibald did issues. Outdated-school. He was self-made and appreciated those that have been the identical. His teaching profession was the byproduct of a knockabout school enjoying profession — a while at Utah State, a yr at El Camino Junior School, a level from Fresno State. He discovered some work teaching within the California prep ranks within the ’60s and threw himself into it. He dutifully attended camps performed by Lengthy Seashore State head coach Jerry Tarkanian, who ultimately employed him. Archibald spent two seasons at Lengthy Seashore State, then crammed a gap at Cal Poly, then reunited with Tarkanian in 1974, becoming a member of his workers on the College of Nevada, Las Vegas. Two years within the desert have been adopted by one season at USC, then 5 as Idaho State head coach.
This might be Archibald’s life’s work — chasing the occupation. Alongside the best way, he and his spouse, Anne, had two sons, Beau and Damon, and a daughter, Lee Anne.
After being let go at Idaho State, Archibald spent 1982-83 as Jerry Pimm’s assistant at Utah. He was stunned when Pimm took a job at Cal Santa Barbara that April, and extra stunned when Utah requested him to take over. On the time of Archibald’s promotion, Tarkanian informed The Salt Lake Tribune, “He’s the best individual I do know and is a good coach. Everyone loves him.” There are reams of quotes like this about Archibald. He was good-looking, humorous and curious. As a Mormon with a cosmopolitan view, he was a pioneer in worldwide recruiting — tapping Yugoslavia, Venezuela, Nigeria for gamers.
Archibald’s household was a part of each group he coached. Lee Anne noticed Utah gamers Mitch Smith, Manny Hendrix and Kelvin Upshaw as superheroes. She modified faculties each few years and barely complained. She was a coach’s child.
There was one final transfer, this time in 1994. Archibald returned to his dwelling state of Utah, filling an assistant spot at BYU — the proper place to settle with a household in full bloom. The Archibald children have been off chasing their very own desires by now. Lee Anne was on her option to New York Metropolis for, get this, a job as David Letterman’s private assistant. Damon landed a scholarship to play ball at Boise State. Beau was a proficient highschool participant, on his option to a scholarship at Washington State. Life was good.
So that you perceive why Lynn Archibald didn’t inform them, why he made his spouse promise to maintain the key. Prostate most cancers wasn’t going to outline his last years. He didn’t need the youngsters to make their life choices primarily based on him being sick. He didn’t need anybody feeling sorry for him. So he wouldn’t inform them till he completely needed to.
Archibald died in Might 1997. Solely 52. Lee Anne and her brothers have been there for the ultimate weeks. Trying again, she says now that, had she identified about her father’s prognosis two years earlier, she possible wouldn’t have lived in New York, or began her profession — precisely all of the issues her dad didn’t need her to surrender. She wonders the place life would’ve taken her.
As a result of Lynn Archibald gave his children the liberty to maintain on dwelling in his last years, an ideal collection of dominoes all fell so as. In 1998, Damon Archibald met Mark Pope on the Pete Newell Basketball Camp. Instantly, he was floored to return throughout what he would describe as, basically, the male model of his sister. Damon, who had by no means beforehand arrange his sister with anybody, not to mention one other basketball participant, wrote down Lee Anne’s cellphone quantity and gave it to Mark.
Mark, a member of the Indiana Pacers, known as Lee Anne throughout the 1998 NBA participant lockout. The 2 did what folks did again then — cellphone calls on landlines and electronic mail exchanges. Round that point, Letterman informed Lee Anne he wanted assist establishing a charity. It might be primarily based in his dwelling state. To get it off the bottom, she’d have to take common journeys to Indianapolis.
They met later in 1998; married in 1999. Then got here the women — Ella in winter 2001, when Pope was the beginning middle for the Milwaukee Bucks; then Avery, throughout Pope’s temporary stint with the Knicks; then Layla, when he was with the Denver Nuggets, then Shay in 2009, when Pope was out of the league, in medical faculty.
Because it seems, in one other life, Pope might need ended up as a 6-foot-10 emergency room doctor. Besides, at some point, not lengthy after Shay was born, whereas finding out orthopedic surgical procedure at Columbia, Mark got here dwelling at some point to inform Lee Anne that the youthful college students round him felt about drugs the best way he felt about basketball. Lee Anne, with blind certainty, responded that there was just one possibility.
“Burn the ships,” she says, 15 years later.
So at 37, with 4 children, Pope dropped out of med faculty and took a job on Mark Fox’s teaching workers on the College of Georgia. Title: Assistant to the director of operations. Wage: $24,000 for the yr.
Lee Anne understood the journey forward. That her household was about to subscribe to wins and losses, and to sharing their dad’s time with waves upon waves of younger males, and to job adjustments past their management — from Georgia, to Wake Forest, to an assistant gig at BYU in 2011, to Utah Valley in 2015, and again to BYU. She was now a coach’s spouse. And he or she was extra geared up to try this than anybody possible.
That joke? The one you may be considering of? One thing like, “Oh, you suppose teaching Kentucky is tough? Making an attempt elevating 4 women.” Yeah, Pope has heard it earlier than.
It often performs out one thing like this. The household is packed in an elevator, or standing collectively in an airport, or ready in line at a espresso store, minding their very own enterprise, when the outdated trope comes up. Some man sees Pope, sees the spouse, sees the 4 daughters, and quips, “Sheesh, sorry, man,” or, “Man, acquired your palms full,” or no matter different empty-headed zinger looks as if a good suggestion.
However Pope doesn’t do tropes. As an alternative, issues get very uncomfortable, in a short time. Pope has, in keeping with Lee Anne, by no means laughed, by no means performed alongside. Not as soon as. Not ever. As an alternative, he clenches his jaw, narrows his eyes and spits again. “Are you kidding me, man? That is the perfect. Have you learnt how fortunate I’m?”
It’s in that second that outdated jokes go to die and the Pope women are reminded who their father is. Understanding the coach requires understanding the daddy, and Pope is supplied with the emotional maturity that comes with balanced realities.
“All these years, he’d be along with his boys all day, then dwelling to his women, who all adore him,” Lee Anne Pope says. “However the factor is, he’s the identical man in each settings. It’s not like he hangs it up on the door.”
All of them have their tales. They often include tears. The Pope household isn’t one to cover feelings.
Ella, for example. Sitting on a sofa in her dad’s workplace, arms wrapped round a pillow, she remembers a journey to highschool at some point in grade faculty. She had created a video that was to air all through the college that day. Opening her laptop computer, watching it one final time on the drive, she was hit with a wave of nerves. She closed the laptop computer, turning ghost-white. Pope, realizing what was taking place, slowed right down to a cease, pointed to Ella’s abdomen, all twisted in knots, and mentioned, “That’s it. That’s the sensation. That’s when you understand you care and when you understand you’ve labored at one thing. That’s the perfect.” She’s by no means forgotten it, by no means forgotten that zeal is value pursuing, value manifesting, value feeling. She remembered it when she was the one Pope lady to pursue basketball, incomes a scholarship to Ohio College.
Avery thinks of her dad’s skill to be there, proper the place she might see him. These tennis matches within the deep warmth of California or Arizona, the solar rippling off the court docket. Different mother and father parked as shut as potential and sat in air-conditioned automobiles. However Mr. Pope? He watched out within the solar as a result of Avery was out within the solar. He didn’t sit as a result of she didn’t sit. He wouldn’t yell or make a scene and even stand out. He would as an alternative intently watch every level, Avery says, “dwelling and dying for each second.” He’s all the time had that method of showing from out of nowhere. Earlier this yr, quickly after Pope was named Kentucky head coach, she was scheduled to present a farewell speak to her LDS Church ward in Provo in preparation for her upcoming two-year mission in El Salvador. She was scheduled to talk for, at most, quarter-hour.
“He had one million issues happening, and it made no sense for him to fly throughout the nation, however there he was,” she says. “I’ve all the time felt like, in my life, there have been so many alternative occasions the place it could be OK if he wasn’t there. However then he’s there. And it simply occurs over and over and over.”
Layla remembers coming dwelling upset at some point within the sixth grade, telling her mother and father a boy in class known as her “the B-word.” The next morning, a shock visitor speaker was scheduled. The category door swung up at 1 p.m. and in got here coach Mark Pope and 6 members of the Utah Valley State basketball group. “At present we’re going to speak about respecting ladies,” Pope mentioned to a room of huge eyes and deep silence. They spoke to the category for almost an hour. On the best way out, Pope launched himself to the boy who had insulted his daughter. He shook his hand, perhaps providing an additional squeeze.
“I imply, we have been in sixth grade!” Layla says now, laughing onerous. “It was unimaginable. I used to be like, oh my goodness, that is the best day of my entire life. However that’s my dad. He’s, like, probably the most protecting, loving individual ever. And the one time you’ll ever actually see him actually mad is in case you did something to harm me or my sisters or my mother.”
Shay loves to inform the story of the money advance. Again in Utah, she had the concept to order DoorDash to highschool, then upsell the meals within the cafeteria. She known as her outdated man. “Dad, I’ve this concept, however I don’t have any cash.” Pope, with out hesitation, responded. “Find it irresistible. You’re a genius. I’ll provide you with 100 {dollars} to get began.” The cash got here by way of Venmo and Shay began transferring product. Capitalism in motion. “It labored completely,” she says. That’s, till Lee Anne’s cellphone rang, with a college official saying her daughter was basically working a racketeering outfit within the caf.
“Apparently,” the official mentioned to Lee Anne, “one in all Shay’s mother and father was concerned in funding this.”
“He’s simply the perfect,” says Layla, now a 16-year-old sophomore.
The tales go on and on. The Pope ladies communicate of their father like an amusement journey. He has a method of mastering moments, the few that he will get, to take advantage of them. He’s an expertise, one which blocks out all the opposite noise.
“Even when we now have one million eyes on us,” Ella says, “my dad makes it really feel prefer it’s simply us.”
Kentucky coach Mark Pope is introduced a plaque after successful his first sport at Rupp Area on Nov. 4. (Michael Hickey / Getty Photos)
Over the summer time, Pope met with native Lexington media for an offseason information convention. He leaned into probably the most relatable model of himself. The ex-NBA participant who says he wasn’t a lot of a basketball participant. The Rhodes scholar who says he isn’t very vivid. In that information convention, he pressed play on the position he’s introduced for so long as he can bear in mind.
“A bit informal, perhaps slightly self-deprecating,” he now says. “That’s my armor.”
The media session wrapped up and, on the best way out, Pope requested longtime Kentucky basketball media relations director Deb Moore for suggestions. “How’d that go?” Moore informed Pope that he was good, then paused, and added one passing thought. “However in some unspecified time in the future, on this job, you’re going to need to take your self slightly extra severely,” she mentioned.
The purpose — Kentucky, for as unimaginable and passionate and devoted as it’s, can be ruthless. It’s a spot the place a susceptible disposition is ripe to be weaponized. It’s a spot the place, as soon as the wins and losses begin coming, the coach with the clipboard is now not seen as an individual. He’s a goal.
Pope was livid. “Deb, you don’t know me but …” he popped again.
The 2 didn’t communicate for the subsequent three days. Pope continued to bake and Moore puzzled if she’d gone a step too far. However then got here Sunday, a visit to church, and a while for Pope to suppose.
“It had sat with me and sat with me and sat with me,” he says. “I lastly got here to appreciate, this issues to folks otherwise. Like, this job is larger than me. This job is extra vital than me. Actually, there’s slightly reverence to it. However that’s a brand new position for me. I’ve all the time eschewed that slightly bit. As a result of I simply need to be reachable and join with folks. Now I have to discover a steadiness.”
In actuality, Pope understands all this greater than anybody Kentucky might’ve employed. The few occasions Huge Blue misplaced throughout his time as a participant, Pope retreated to the Cat Lodge, the group’s housing facility, and cried alone. It was the stress of being captain. It was the stress of answering to Pitino. It was the stress of being 2,400 miles from dwelling, in a spot so hard-wired to each bounce, each play, and each breath of Kentucky basketball.
He will get it. And he welcomes it.
“I feel he’ll deal with it higher than all of us,” Pitino says of himself and different former Kentucky coaches. “As a result of he’s so grounded and he’s such a non secular individual. I feel he’s going to deal with it superbly. He is aware of it so properly.”
The devoted are giving Pope an opportunity. His return to Lexington final spring was greeted with a raucous introduction that crammed Rupp Area — all 23,500 seats — to the brim. He’s, in spite of everything, one in all them.
However Lee Anne is aware of there are nonetheless doubts. And he or she is aware of the honeymoon will solely final so lengthy. And he or she is aware of her household is in a highlight so massive that not even an amusement journey can block it out. This, although, she says, is what they’re all constructed for. It’s why all of them mentioned sure on that household name. It’s why they consider within the coach.
“You recognize, anyone mentioned to me, he’s goofy,” Lee Anne says, slightly protection in her voice. “However no. He’s not goofy. He’s simply — in a world the place everyone seems to be cool, he isn’t too cool. And there’s a giant distinction. He’s sensible. He’s genuine. And he’s going to outwork everybody. I do know it.”
The workplace door is closed and Pope makes one very last thing clear. He didn’t make his household. His household made him. The largest job in school basketball doesn’t change that. The warmth that’s coming — enjoying Duke, touring to his hometown to play Gonzaga in Seattle, battles within the SEC, the second-guessing, the followers swarming to social media, the publicity — will solely be granted items of him. By no means the entire.
“Being the coach at Kentucky,” he says, “if it’s all the pieces you might be, you received’t be any good at it.”
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; photographs: Andy Lyons / Getty Photos)