RICK PITINO KEEPS WINNING FOR NEW YORK, LEAVING BEHIND HIS STAINED PAST
Another wondrous coaching job places St. John’s in Final Four position, allowing him to escape his Louisville scandals while riding the NIL wave and describing his performance as “the best for last”
Only in Queens could Rick Pitino become a king after years as a joker. Don’t consider this a knock on his coaching, among the best of his era as shown at St. John’s, but a commentary on how his Louisville scandals have been forgotten. Isn’t it stunning how a story about Jackie Robinson’s military service was deleted — until the Department of Defense restored it, thankfully — when Pitino should be remembered for his woes and achievements.
Oddly, because he works in the swallows of an adoring New York media, we’ve heard little about the pay-for-play wrongdoing and dormitory sex parties. Pitino claimed not to know about prostitutes and strippers at Billy Minardi Hall, named for a brother-in-law who died in the 9/11 attacks, and acted dumb when Adidas paid six-figure bribes to recruits. He was blown out by administrators in 2017 and later acknowledged, “I deserved to be fired by Louisville,” though not mentioning he had sex with a woman — the wife of his equipment manager — on a table in an Italian restaurant.
His return to stardom began at an ugly juncture in a Hall of Fame career. He pondered life and ultimately refused to retire, coaching Panathinaikos in Greece’s EuroLeague and accepting a gig at wee Iona. When St. John’s came calling two years ago, with legal NIL payments on the brain, Pitino had more to offer in March. He has become a leading light of college basketball, positioned to take his team to the Final Four and proving at 72 that his lessons still work for Zuby Ejiofor and RJ Luis Jr. Being removed from the coaching game made him appreciate what made him great. The sex and the payoffs are part of his story, he hints, only briefly.
“Failure,” he said, “has to enter the equation of greatness.”
And?
“I saved the best for last,” he said.
So, like it or not, Pitino is the first coach to take six schools to the NCAA tournament. How curious that his second school, Providence, was the first stop Thursday night — far from the school that fired him and taking on a bigger role in New York than Juan Soto or any sports figure. He has been to seven Final Fours and won two national championships at Kentucky and Louisville. Is this possibly the third?
“I have been blessed for a long period of time. Fifty-plus years of coaching,” he said. “It’s going to stop, so why not have a blast? Why not get the most out of it? Laugh, have fun, get great experiences. Early years, it wasn’t like that. Trying to move up the ladder, you’re trying to accomplish certain things — collectively with the team, and yourself. Now I don’t have to move up the ladder. I don’t have to look for another job. I don’t have any dreams of coaching elsewhere, so it’s just fun. You have fun with your guys. It’s laughter, it’s all the great things, but I do know it’s coming to an end.”
An end? Seems he’s launching a new life. “I said it at the press conference, we would be back. I didn’t lie to you, did I?” said Pitino, smiling. “For all the St. John’s fans, this is for you. St. John’s is New York’s team. I am as a New Yorker about as proud as any person could be because, you know, when I hear St. John’s is New York’s team and we’re New York strong and we represent New York, that makes me feel awesome inside. Get ready — everybody get ready. We’re just getting started.”
Will America feel the same way? The Supreme Court has turned recruiting bribes into NIL reality, allowing billionaire Mike Repole to fund the program as a Queens native and a close friend of Pitino. In the past, such a character would be bad news. Today, the man who founded Vitaminwater is a savior. “Without Mike Repole, we did not have the funds to do what we wanted,” said Pitino, whose personality has changed with the swirling times. He used to be known as a scoundrel.
“Humility is a big part of my life right now. It wasn’t always that way,” he said. “I don’t believe in redemption. I believe in humility.”
Greece helped. “A major silver lining,” he said. “It rejuvenated me. It stopped me from being bitter at all. It’s just adversity. You can look adversity square in the eyes and piss all over it. So don’t hang your head, pick yourself up, get on, become the best EuroLeague coach you can possibly be and move on.”
The Johnnies, or the Red Storm, are known for overachieving players. Pitino hasn’t lost passion but has softened, saying, “How can I get the most out of them? And yelling and screaming is not the way to do it. … You don’t know what you are getting. Zuby didn’t even play at Kansas. RJ was a good freshman, solid, but you don’t know what you are getting. So here’s two stars, very underpaid.”
And yet, thrilled. “I’m just so happy to be part of history,” Ejiofor said. We still got a lot more to prove and I’m ready for it.”
“This has by far been like the most emotional, happiest week of my 22 years of existence,” said Luis, the Big East player of the year.
The St. John’s president, the Rev. Brian J. Shanley, took a gamble on Pitino. Two years ago, he told the Associated Press: “Yeah, sure, there’s some reputational risk because of things that have happened before, but I think Rick is at a point in his life where he has learned from things that have happened in the past. I think he’d be the first one to tell you he’s done things that he regrets. Who doesn’t when you get to be that age? I know I have. I’m a believer in forgiveness and new beginnings as a priest, and I think Rick’s going to do a great job for St. John’s.”
The priest is ready to weep. “Rick is a New Yorker, through and through, and for him to be able to come back and command the big stage that is New York City, there was no other coach that could pull it off, in my opinion, what Rick pulled off here,” Shanley said. “I’m sitting here tonight, I almost want to cry because our fans have been hungering for this for literally 40 years.”
Backed by Shanley and Repole, Pitino is in the environment where he doesn’t have to cheat. Pay up — just leave the prostitutes at home. “I really think you just have to adapt to the climate you’re in,” he said. “You have to know what to wear in that climate, how to adapt to it, and that’s what we’ve tried to do with the NIL, what we tried to do with the (transfer) portal. We didn’t complain. It’s here, let’s try to be the best at it that we could be as far as being creative.” He is in the same site this week as John Calipari, Bill Self and Will Wade, all winners and sinners. Each has failed yet carried on, with Wade about to leave McNeese for North Carolina State after he was fired by LSU for recruiting violations. Calipari fled Kentucky for Arkansas, while Self was suspended by the NCAA. The Calipari-Self winner is slated to face Pitino.
At least one homeless person will be watching. “Because New York, being the greatest city in the world, you turn on the news or you speak to someone: ‘Trains suck, this sucks, this thing.’ But one of the greatest things that happened to me this year — anytime I see the homeless my heart breaks, in the streets of New York, ‘How can we let these people suffer like this?’ ’’ Pitino told the New York Post. “So I was walking out of a restaurant, and I see a homeless person, he didn’t have any money, on Madison Avenue. I always give them something, and I didn’t have anything on me but a credit card. So I walked a little quicker and just kept my eyes forward, and he said: ‘Coach P, Johnnies are doing great!’ And I turned around and said: ‘Thank you, are you keeping up with us?’ He said, ‘Keep up with every game.’ … So now I’m thinking to myself, how is a homeless person keeping up with this? And I just said, ‘Well, thanks so much for your support.’ And I walked away with such a great feeling inside, that a homeless person is following the Johnnies.”
He would have provided a credit card if it didn’t belong to St. John’s. The NCAA still wouldn’t approve. Repole expects Pitino to “sign an 18-year contract” and coach until he’s 90. He might.
“Top 3 of all time,” someone posted on social media. “John Wooden, Coach K and @realpitino.”
The writer was his son, Richard, the coach at New Mexico.
As a leader of young men in a white suit, maybe.
As a humbler septuagenarian, watch the next few weeks.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.