As is customary in the South, Kentucky coach John Calipari received a traditional stuffed squirrel on a log upon his arrival at the Ole Miss facility on Thursday.
Oh, that's not customary? Well, someone didn't get the memo.
This was waiting for me when I arrived at the arena a few minutes ago. Happy to help. LOL. Beautiful arena. pic.twitter.com/nP1FgLwWzb
— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) December 29, 2016
So, um, why did he get a squirrel? And what does that note say?
Here's the transcription, via the Clarion-Ledger:
Thanks to you, the Tad Pad will be no more and Andy Kennedy has state of the art facility to work with ... also thanks to you, we are now relegated to this log for the rest of our being and have no more locker rooms to find leftover food. -- they would never let us inside the brand new Pavilion.
So this basically makes no sense, either. Here's some added context from comments Calipari made in 2013 about the old basketball facility Ole Miss owned:
The locker room we're in there's squirrels in there," Calipari said after that game. "You've got to be kidding me. This campus is gorgeous ... this campus is like none other. This is one of the nicest college campus in this country except for this building."
OK, so now it's coming together. This was one elaborate and hilarious way to say, "Hey John, thanks for saying our old facility was outdated. We got a new one thanks to you."
Ole Miss opened a brand spankin' new basketball facility earlier this year, which replaces the old squirrels home. Now the only squirrel home will be on Calipari's mantle (or wherever he chooses to hang his new friend.)
This is what I saw in the OLD locker room in the Tad Pad! Lol. pic.twitter.com/dodQs0VWXX
— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) December 30, 2016