John Calipari may have conquered the world of college basketball, but he says he was too “intimidated” to take a shot at talking to Taylor Swift when he had the chance at a New York Knicks game this year.
In a Friday (Oct. 15) interview with CBS Sports College Basketball, the University of Arkansas coach recalled attending game 4 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden and seeing that the pop star was also in the building. “Taylor Swift was there,” he said. “I was embarrassed to go up to her.”
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Coach Cal went on to say that the 14-time Grammy winner was just a few feet away from him, at one point conversing with Adam Sandler and his wife. Despite knowing the Happy Gilmore star, the Basketball Hall of Famer said he was “intimidated” to approach.
“She came up and was bubbly, and then I’m sitting here at this table,” he added. “She’s at other end … I took my phone and I acted like I was on my phone, and I wasn’t on my phone, but I acted like I was.”
To underscore how big of a deal it was, Calipari also shared that the last time he felt nearly as starstruck by a powerful figure was when he met Barack Obama — and even then, he had no problem shaking the president’s hand.
Swift notably attended two Knicks games this year. She first went with then-fiancé Travis Kelce to the New York team’s away game against the Cleveland Cavaliers in May. It was just a couple of weeks later that she cheered on the Knicks — who’d go on to win the NBA Finals — at MSG, sitting next to Mariska Hargitay and Este and Alana Haim.
Less than a month after that, Swift would return to MSG for her wedding, which Sandler officiated. The pop star is now fresh off the release of her The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore deluxe, which earned her a 16th career No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Patient Zero.”