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Dan Shaughnessy is the Clive McFarlane of Boston Sports reporting. He is a miserable guy who everyone hates but the Boston Globe keeps on staff anyway because people click on his shit just to get upset about something. This is the same clown who read our article about the Little League World Series being a good thing for kids, on the air and refused to cite his source until he was bombarded on Twitter by Turtle Riders.

The other day Shaughnessy decided he would piss everyone off by going off on a tantrum about John Calipari having his number retired at UMass. After all, he led them to their only Final Four appearance and is one of the greatest college coaches in sports history. But Dan works for the Globe, who put 4-11 Boston College on the front page of their paper while UMass was undefeated last year. They HATE it when UMass does well at the Globe, because it requires a two hour car ride to do their job. Naturally Danny Boy didn’t care for this too much. Here’s what he had to say:

Here we are. Kentucky, the No. 1-ranked team in the country — coached by John Calipari — is on the cusp of NCAA history, 31-0 after Saturday’s win over Florida. Meanwhile, the folks at UMass have decided to retire Coach Cal’s “number,” and this weekend marks the 20th anniversary of him refusing to allow a Globe reporter to visit his home for Selection Sunday.

Let’s start with this: John Calipari is a magnetic figure, undoubtedly the greatest college basketball recruiter of the 21st century. He works the NCAA’s cesspool system better than any man alive. He is charismatic. He came to Amherst more than a quarter of a century ago as a Rick Pitino wannabe, but now he has vaulted over Pitino, and created the Brand of Cal. He is probably going to win a second national championship with Kentucky this year and is no doubt a swell dancer and would make for a fine dinner companion.

But as a Massachusetts taxpayer, I have a problem with UMass “retiring” Coach Cal’s number.

Really? Bill Cosby’s jersey is not available?

Wait…..what??? Did he really just equate a college basketball coach, who at worst let some stupid NCAA violations slide, to a man who has probably raped half of you reading this right now? Awesome start Danny Boy. 

Calipari is a man who stretches the rules, and wins. He won at UMass. He won at Memphis. He took both schools to the Final Four, but both appearances were “vacated.’’ They were erased. You know the drill. Ineligible players. Phony SAT tests. The usual. So, while Coach Cal and Pitino are the only coaches to take three schools to the Final Four, Cal’s also got more vacancies than a Days Inn in downtown Detroit. And our state university is going to honor him? Again?

Newsflash Dan – everyone else was doing it. Calipari’s guys were just the only ones who got caught. Is it his fault Marcus Camby took an agent’s money while he was dominating life in Amherst? Was it his fault that Derrick Rose can’t spell? Nope. Because he’s not their life coach, he’s their basketball coach. He doesn’t have them on a leash, and if Camby shows up to practice in an Escalade, well, that’s none of his business. 

I see Calipari on the bench and I see bundles of cash. I see classroom vacancies. I must be imagining things.

Dan, I see that when I look at every single team that isn’t in the Ivy League. Do you think any of these players got where they are because they’re good students? Nope. They’re there because they can play basketball. That’s it. 

Cal promotes the dribble-drive and gets his one-and-done kids to the NBA. He walks hand-in-hand with the fraudulent, sanctimonious governing body that insists we refer to his players as “student-athletes.’’ What a joke.

I respect the shit out of Calipari for what he does with those kids. He realizes that people like John Wall and Anthony Davis are best served staying in college before going on to make millions of dollars. He realizes that keeping them in school so they can take a bunch of joke classes isn’t going to help them financially in the long run. So he puts them on a stage where they’ll get national exposure. You know who the real frauds are? Coaches that try to keep kids in school who could be making a fortune in the NBA. It benefits them because they get top-notch free labor for another year which in turn leads to multi-million dollar contract extensions. Meanwhile the players risk career ending injuries that could cost them millions. At least Calipari is honest about who he is and what he stands for. 

But the joke is on us when UMass chooses to honor Cal during the 2015-16 season, a year that will mark the 20th anniversary of the Minutemen’s one and only trip the Final Four, an appearance that officially never happened.

Oh shut the fuck up Dan. Take a look at this picture:

As you can clearly see it says in capital letters, “1996 NCAA FINAL FOUR.” You will also notice that UMass is on the court playing basketball. That actually happened. It was devastating for young Turtleboy when they lost, but it did indeed happen. Anyone who says otherwise is delusional. 

In case you missed it, Cal took UMass to the Final Four at the Meadowlands in the spring of 1996 (ironically, the Minutemen were eliminated by Pitino’s eventual national champs from Kentucky), but it turned out that star center Marcus Camby already had turned professional while he was still in school, and UMass’s appearance was officially erased by the NCAA.

Oh no!! You mean the NCAA, the most corrupt and fraudulent organization in the history of the world, “erased” our Final Four appearance? Sounds pretty official. These are the same sacks of shit who intentionally told us for years how a college playoff in football would never work so that they could line their pockets by robbing schools with “bowl games.” But please, tell me more about how anything the NCAA says or does actually matters. 

But it’s all OK because, you know, Cal is just working within the system. And he is really good at it. The Wildcats are fun to watch (did you see the spectacular comeback against Georgia Tuesday night?). And if you have an 18-year-old son who is one year away from NBA millions, send him to Kentucky. Just don’t insult everybody’s intelligence by calling him a “student-athlete.’’

Yea, send him to a standout program like UConn, or Syracuse, or a million other schools who have missed the postseason for NCAA “infractions.” 

This week marks the 20th anniversary of Coach Cal barring the Globe from his Shutesbury home on Selection Sunday. The Globe’s UMass beat reporter was the estimable Joe Burris, who had covered the Minutemen for six seasons and wrote stories on 29 regular-season games in 1995. Calipari was upset because the Globe had reported on the poor grades and academic probation of UMass’s student-athletes — a report that should have served as fair warning that our State U. was sacrificing standards in the name of Final Four glory.

Seriously Dan, you’re still butthurt that one of your cronies at the Globe couldn’t get into Calipari’s house for an interview 20 years ago? Gee, I wonder why he didn’t like your rag of a newspaper? Probably because it’s run by a bunch of dooshnozzles from Boston College who don’t pay any attention to UMass unless they’re in the Final Four. And when they do finally give them credit where credit’s due, they start muckraking for some story about players not going to class that no one cares about. 

The bottom line is that UMass’ Final Four run in 1996 was one of the defining moments of my childhood. Don’t forget – this was before Boston sports teams won everything all the time. These were the Dino Radja/Dana Barros Celtics, the Drew Bledsoe Patriots, the one-and-done Adam Oates Bruins, and the Mo Vaughn/John Valentin Red Sox years. UMass basketball was all the state of Massachusetts had. Sure Calipari ended up skipping town for greener pastures, but he left us with a lifetime of memories. We’ll probably never get back to the Final Four unless we get another dago just like him who knows how to recruit and sees the NCAA for exactly what it is – a big joke. But someday I will bring Turtleboy Jr. to the Mullins Center and I will tell him about the time the #1 team in the country called that arena home.

Want to have your business advert seen by over 500,000 people per month? Email us at Turtleboysports@yahoo.com for more information, and check out our website about types of advertising we offer.

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