John Calipari is the former head coach of the University of Memphis Tigers, the University of Massachusetts Minutemen, and the National Basketball Association's New Jersey Nets. He is the only coach to direct three different colleges to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. As a college coach, Calipari has 18 20-win seasons (17 official), 8 30-win seasons (7 official), and has been named National Coach of the Year 3 times and is a 2-time Naismith National Coach of the Year. In the 2011–12 NCAA Division I men's basketball season, Calipari led Kentucky to its 8th NCAA Tournament Championship, and the first of his career.

Mark Bathum was born with retinitis pigmentosa, the second leading cause of blindness and has been legally blind since his late 30s. Mark embraced this challenge in his late 40’s and is currently the top-ranked visually impaired ski racer in the world in the downhill event, is a three time Paralympic silver medalist in the 2010 and 2014 games, is the top-ranked adaptive alpine racer in the U.S., has won eight World Cup races despite attending only half the races each year, was nominated for an ESPY and was named the Paralympian Male Athlete of the Games at the inaugural U.S. Olympic and Paralympic “Best of U.S.” Awards ceremony broadcast by NBC in 2014.