Josh Pastner: Young Veteran

Josh Pastner was compiling scouting reports on high school basketball players when he was 13, recruiting blue chippers for his father’s Houston summer league team when he was 14 and coaching them when he was 16. And he nearly ended up in Lexington at age 30 but fate had other plans.

For Pastner, his shot came unexpectedly. He was an assistant to John Calipari last season, before Calipari left for Kentucky, taking his prize recruiting class with him, and Pastner was leaving to rejoin Calipari. Pastner had just finished packing the car for Lexington when he met with Athletic Director R. C. Johnson on April 6, sitting in Johnson’s living room in a ragged T-shirt and dripping with sweat.

Johnson offered Pastner a job and Pastner immediately declined, thinking it was an assistant coaching job to salvage the recruiting class. Johnson meant the top job, and the young coach was stunned.

Who knows in a few (several) years he may get another shot at Lexington.