How Coach Mark Pope Can Lead Kentucky as a Program to Great Success

A storied program like the University of Kentucky will always be seen as the gold standard for college basketball. Many coaches have worked at the university and left their mark. What does Mark Pope do that sets him apart?

Mark Pope is a great analytical coach and former 1996 National Champion Kentucky Wildcats captain. This shows how much leadership Coach Pope has. Leadership is tapping into someone and reaching their highest potential.

There are many ways to tap into a player’s potential, and current Kentucky players have all said that Pope’s leadership style starts with belief. Forward Ansley Almonor had this to say about Pope: “He inspires confidence; he talks to all of us like we’re the best players ever,” Almonor said. “He lifts us up and I’ve never had a coach like that, someone who just comes in while we’re doing little drills and says, ‘Good job! Great job!’ Just walking around, talking to us, complimenting us, it’s different. He definitely inspires confidence in us.”

Confidence is huge in sports. You can have the most talent in the world, but if you don’t believe in yourself, you’re a shadow of your own potential. Pope knows this too, so he wants to instill confidence in his team.

Pope is also known as a people person; he seems to cherish his time at Kentucky so far; here’s what offensive lineman Andrew Carr had to say about Pope as a person: “One thing I love and know about Coach Pope, and he showed it in recruiting (me), is he loves people. Coach Pope is just a great person and it shows in everything he does,” Carr said. “With his family, the way he coaches us, the way he treats the coaching staff, all the way down to the way he treats the cleaning people here. It’s everybody.”

Pope creates a system where players can lean on each other and all move at the same pace. This is an excellent foundation for the coach in his first year and will propel Kentucky to great success.