This article, "Recognition 'a long time coming' for John Calipari" by Mike DeCourcy, was first published April 3, 2012 in the hours after Kentucky's NCAA Tournament championship game win over Kansas. NEW ORLEANS — It wasn’t a “softball” question in the traditional sense of the word. A championship celebration does not call for Mike Wallace or Michael Isikoff to come in and carve up the interview subject, get him sweating, catch him off guard with a little linguistic misdirection. It’s about eliciting a moment of emotion. But Jim Nantz’s words over the CBS airwaves and through the glittery air of the Superdome had to seem like a fat, underhand lob as John Calipari listened. What did a first NCAA championship, earned by a 67-59 margin over a spirited bunch of Kansas Jayhawks, mean to Kentucky’s coach? “This is not about me,” Calipari answered immediately, well-rehearsed because he’d said the same so many times previously. “This is about these 13 players. This is about the Big Blue Nation ...” And if he said anything after that, or if he intended to, he was drowned out, as expected, by the significant portion of Big Blue Nation that jammed itself inside the Superdome on a stormy Monday evening. Oh, Calipari could have made it about himself right there. He had just constructed, through 40 college basketball games that spanned the winter and 40 minutes that electrified a state, the perfect rejoinder for all those who’ve lambasted his methods, his personality, his reliance on freshmen, his coaching acumen, his flashy suits, his language, him. Calipari won a championship with a team teeming with freshmen. He won it by convincing those freshmen that their best shot at the title would come through each player mattering a little on offense and a lot on defense. He