President Lee Todd, UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart and other members of the UK Board of Directors met Wednesday morning at the Joe Craft Center to discuss and vote on hiring John Calipari of Memphis as the next head coach for the UK men’s basketball team. Photo by Allie Garza | Staff

John Calipari has officially joined the the Big Blue Nation, and he’s getting a lot of green.

The UK Athletic Association Board of Directors unanimously approved an eight-year, $31.65 million contract for former Memphis men’s basketball head coach John Calipari Wednesday, making him the highest paid collegiate basketball coach in the country.

LINK: Download Calipari’s signed 20-page contract

At a special meeting, the board approved a 20-page contract, already signed by Calipari, UK President Lee Todd and Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart.

The UK Athletics Association — a separate financial entity from UK — will pay a majority of the money promised in the contract.

The deal still has to be approved by UK’s top administrative body, the Board of Trustees. Dermontti Dawson, a trustee and a member of the Athletic Association Board of Directors, said he doesn’t anticipate a problem gaining the board’s approval. Dawson said Calipari’s outgoing and welcoming personality would be a positive change for UK and the Big Blue Nation.

“Coach Calipari’s personality, he’s outgoing so he’s just that kind of person,” Dawson said. “He’s got a personality where he goes out, and he just loves being engaged with people. That’s one thing that Billy G. didn’t have that I think made fans upset.”

Calipari’s agreement explicitly lays out the terms of his deal with UK, including endorsements, incentives and termination terms. Gillispie’s 2007 “memorandum of understanding,” by contrast, was a three-page document that did not discuss specific termination terms, saying official definitions would be hammered out later with an official contract.

That contract was never created, and now Gillispie and UK dispute the amount of the buyout owed to him. Gillispie said in a Saturday news conference he is confident he will receive the potential $6 million buyout, while Todd has said he will be paid less because the signed memorandum is considered a “year-to-year” document. Dawson agreed with Todd, saying it won’t be as much as Gillispie says he’s owed, but that they’ll come to some agreement.

With Gillispie’s buyout still up in the air, it is possible UK will be paying around $10 million with Calapari’s first salary and Gillispie’s unsettled contract.

An item not specifically listed in the contract, but paramount nonetheless, is the ability for Calipari to be an ambassador to the school. Dawson said while it may not be written down specifically in the contract it’s something that must be understood by the coach, especially at a university like UK.

“You have to be engaging, you have to be out in the community and you have to be an ambassador whether you like it or not, that’s just part of the job,” Dawson said. ” … When you’re in the head coaching position, you have to relate to the media and be able to talk to the media, through the good and bad, stand up and be a man and do what you got to do.”

Now that Calipari has signed the contract and is officially the 22nd men’s basketball head coach, optimism is brimming not only for UK fans across campus, but among board members as well. Alan DeSantis, a professor at UK and the Cats’ faculty-athletic representative, said he’s not only excited to have a fellow Italian and Yankee at UK, but that Calipari was ultimately the right hire to bring UK back to the championship caliber teams the fans covet.

“Hopefully in five years from now we’ll be putting a few banners up and saying, ‘wow, what a great decision we made,’ ” DeSantis said. “I do think he’s the right person to bring us back to basketball prominence.”

The details of the contract

• Coach’s base salary for each contract year — $400,000

• Additional broadcasting and endorsement payments:

2009-2010 — $3,300,000

2010-2011 — $3,400,000

2011-2012 — $3,400,000

2012-2013 — $3,400,000

2013-2014 — $3,400,000

2014-2015 — $2,850,000

2015-2016 — $2,850,000

2016-2017 — $2,850,000

• Buyout paid to Memphis — $200,000

• If Calipari is fired, he will be paid $3,000,000 per year remaining on his contract

• Incentive Bonuses:

For winning the SEC Regular Season Championship — $50,000

For winning the SEC Tournament Championship — $50,000

If team qualifies for NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 — $100,000

If team qualifies for NCAA Tournament Final Four — $175,000

If team wins NCAA Tournament Championship — $375,000

If team achieves a .950 Academic Progress Rate — $50,000

If team achieves a 75 percent graduation rate — $50,000