Rare is the coach who is great enough to call it quits on his own terms. More coaches are fired every year than who leave their positions willingly. Many who get their first head-coaching gig at the Division I level never get another. It’s been that way since television contracts fundamentally changed the economics of collegiate athletics. What has changed, though, is the bar of demarcation, the threshold a coach must cross before he is safe from constant calls for his job.
John Calipari was awfully close to being run out of Lexington before the exit door shown in the darkness and the Arkansas basketball coach was able to skip town ahead of the mob.