Calipari plans to coach Kentucky for the rest of his career

Despite the fact his last stint as an NBA head coach ended last millennium, John Calipari's name seems to get floated as a potential candidate every time a vacancy in the NBA emerges. That practice may be at an end.

In an update on his website posted Monday morning, Kentucky's head coach laid out his vision for the future of the program and how he intends to play out his remaining years as a coach.

"My plan is to coach here for the rest of my career. I want this to be my final coaching position," Calipari wrote.

The 57-year-old Calipari has compiled a 217-47 record during his seven seasons at Kentucky including four trips to the Final Four and a national title in 2012, the eighth in school history.

That number is important to Calipari and he certainly doesn't lack for confidence. Calipari has set for his Wildcats the ultimate goal of catching and surpassing the 11 championships won by UCLA, mostly during the John Wooden era.

"Our next challenge is to chase UCLA's 11 titles. I hope you understand that it's going to be very difficult," Calipari wrote. "We've won eight titles since 1948, and now we're going to try to win four more. This could take more than a decade, but so what? Let's chase it. Can we do it? Sure, but it's going to be really tough."

For Calipari it isn't just about proving to be the class of the college game. While he may be attempting to put to rest the idea of a return to the NBA for himself, he still firmly believes Kentucky as a whole can dominate at the next level.

"I want to one day go to the NBA All-Star game and have half the players in the game be from Kentucky," Calipari wrote. "If we continue on the pace we’re on we can do this."

While it's a lofty goal, the Wildcats did have three representatives in this year's game with John Wall, Anthony Davis, and DeMarcus Cousins all participating. Throw in other highly drafted Wildcats from recent seasons like Karl-Anthony Towns, Eric Bledsoe, Trey Lyles, Nerlens Noel, Julius Randle, and more, it's not totally out of the realm of possibility one day.

"Kentucky is the gold standard in our sport. It’s been that way throughout the history of our game. It's one of the reasons I dreamed of one day coaching here," Calipari said. "... There will be some who will attack me, attack the program, attack the approach, and some will even say, 'He only talks about the NBA.' But I can only tell our fans it's similar to what Frank Sinatra once said: Our best response … is massive success."