Rick Pitino

Rick Pitino

Pitino coaching the Louisville Cardinals

Rick Pitino (born (1952-09-18)September 18, 1952) is an American basketball coach. Since 2001 he has been the head coach at the University of Louisville. He has also served as head coach at Boston University, Providence College and the University of Kentucky, leading that program to the NCAA championship in 1996. He has coached on the professional level for the NBA's New York Knicks and Boston Celtics with mixed results.

Pitino holds the distinction of being the only men's coach in NCAA history to lead three different schools (Providence, Kentucky, and Louisville) to the Final Four. In addition, Pitino has achieved a measure of success as an author and a motivational speaker.

Biography

Early years

Pitino, an Italian American and native of New York City, was captain of the St. Dominic High School basketball team in Oyster Bay, Long Island. He enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1970. He was a standout guard for the Minutemen basketball team. His 329 career assists rank tenth all-time at UMass, as of the 2008-2009 season. He led the team in assists as a junior and senior. The 168 assists as a senior is the eighth-best single season total ever there. Pitino was a freshman at the same time future NBA legend Julius Erving spent his junior (and final) year at UMass, although the two never played on the same team because freshmen were ineligible to play varsity basketball at the time. Another teammate of Pitino's was Al Skinner, who also went on to become a successful college coach. Pitino earned his degree from UMass in 1974. He was an inductee into the UMass Hall of Fame.

Collegiate coaching

Pitino is currently head coach at the University of Louisville. Previous college coaching assignments include Boston University, Providence College, and the University of Kentucky. As a collegiate head coach, Pitino has compiled a 521–191 record, for a .732 winning percentage that is ranked 10th among active coaches and 29th all-time among all collegiate basketball coaches entering the 2009 season.

Pitino is considered by many to be one of the first coaches to promote fully taking advantage of the 3-point shot, first adopted by the NCAA in 1987. By exploiting the 3-point shot, his teams at Kentucky in the early 1990s were known as Pitino's Bombinos, as a significant portion of the offensive points came from the 3-point shot. Even now, Pitino's teams are known for the 3-point threat and all of his teams rank towards the top in 3-point attempts per season.

Many of Pitino's players and assistant coaches have gone on to become successful collegiate coaches. In total, 21 former Pitino players and coaches have become Division I head coaches, including Florida's Billy Donovan, Minnesota's Tubby Smith, Arizona State's Herb Sendek, and Cincinnati's Mick Cronin.

Assistant coaching career

Pitino started his coaching career as a graduate assistant at the University of Hawaii in 1974, and became a full-time assistant in 1975. He was then the first assistant hired by Jim Boeheim in 1976 as Boeheim began his tenure at Syracuse University.

Boston University

Pitino's first head coaching job came in 1978 at Boston University. In the two seasons before his arrival, the team had won a mere 17 games. Pitino led the team to its first NCAA appearance in 24 years.

Providence

Pitino left Boston University to become an assistant coach with the New York Knicks under Hubie Brown. Pitino returned to college coaching to become head coach at Providence in 1985. Providence had gone a dismal 11–20 in the year before he took over. Two years later, Pitino led the team to the Final Four. That Final Four team featured point guard Billy Donovan, who would go on to be an assistant coach under Pitino at Kentucky and then win back-to-back national championships as head coach at the University of Florida.

Kentucky

After spending two years coaching in the NBA, Pitino returned to the college level again in 1989, becoming the coach at Kentucky. The once legendary Kentucky program was reeling from a major recruiting scandal brought on by former coach Eddie Sutton that left it on NCAA probation. Pitino quickly restored Kentucky's reputation and performance, leading his second school to the Final Four in the 1993 NCAA Tournament, and winning a national title in the 1996 NCAA Tournament, Kentucky's first NCAA championship in 18 years. The following year, Pitino's Kentucky team made it back to the national title game, losing to Arizona in overtime in the finals of the 1997 NCAA Tournament. Pitino's fast-paced teams at Kentucky were favorites of the school's fans. It was primarily at Kentucky where he implemented his signature style of full-court pressure defense.

Louisville

Pitino went back to the NBA in 1997, but returned to college—and his adopted home state—on March 21, 2001 to coach the University of Louisville following the retirement of Hall of Fame coach Denny Crum. In the 2005 season, Pitino led Louisville to their first Final Four in 19 years, and became the only men's coach in NCAA history to lead three different schools to the Final Four. Immediately following their Final Four run, several players graduated or entered the 2005 NBA Draft, leaving the 2005–06 team very inexperienced. The inexperience caused the Cardinals to limp into the Big East Tournament seeded 12th, and miss the NCAA tournament. They did rebound and made it to the semifinals of the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), where they were defeated by eventual champions University of South Carolina. The 2007 Cardinal team was primarily the same team, with added freshmen. Picked to be towards the bottom of the Big East Conference yet again, Pitino led them to a 2nd place finish, 12–4 (tied with the University of Pittsburgh, but Louisville beat them earlier in the season) in the conference standings and a first round bye in the conference tournament. Pitino, realizing that this is another rebounding year and not paying any attention to the critics, implemented a 2-2-1 and 2-3 zone defense that has frustrated the conference after he started using it midway through the season. The surprisingly-strong 2007 team's season ended when the Cardinals lost to Texas A&M in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The 2008 Cardinals were also quite successful, finishing second in the Big East and ending the regular season ranked 13th in both the AP and Coaches' polls. Louisville was a three-seed in the 2008 NCAA tournament's East region. They defeated Boise State, Oklahoma and Tennessee to advance to the Elite Eight, where they were defeated by North Carolina.

Professional coaching

Pitino became head coach of the New York Knicks in 1987. The year before he arrived, the team had won only 24 games. In just two years, Pitino led the Knicks to their first division title in nearly twenty years.

His NBA coaching experience often demonstrated a deep frustration with the dynamics of the league, especially in Boston, where he amassed a 102–146 record from 1997 to 2001. After being beaten by the Toronto Raptors on March 1, 2000 on a buzzer-beater by Vince Carter, Pitino's frustration reached critical mass as he addressed the press. Referring to the expectations of Boston Celtics fans and media, Pitino challenged each of them to let go of the past and focus on the future:

Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans. Kevin McHale is not walking through that door, and Robert Parish is not walking through that door. And if you expect them to walk through that door, they're going to be gray and old. What we are is young, exciting, hard-working, and we're going to improve. People don't realize that, and as soon as they realize those three guys are not coming through that door, the better this town will be for all of us because there are young guys in that (locker) room playing their asses off. I wish we had $90 million under the salary cap. I wish we could buy the world. We can't; the only thing we can do is work hard, and all the negativity that's in this town sucks. I've been around when Jim Rice was booed. I've been around when Yastrzemski was booed. And it stinks. It makes the greatest town, greatest city in the world, lousy. The only thing that will turn this around is being upbeat and positive like we are in that locker room... and if you think I'm going to succumb to negativity, you're wrong. You've got the wrong guy leading this team.

Pitino struggled in his roles with the Celtics, and statistics like 1998's 19-31 record made him little better in the eyes of many Boston fans than his inexperienced predecessor, M.L. Carr. Pitino's remarks became a cornerstone of Boston Celtics lore, and has served as a metaphor for other sports franchises and their inability to relive past successes. Pitino himself reprised the speech in a tongue-in-cheek manner at Louisville in November 2005, challenging his freshmen players to play as tough as past seniors and drawing laughter from sportswriters in a post-game press conference.

Author and accomplishments

Pitino is the author of a motivational self-help book (and audio recording) named Success is a Choice. He published an autobiography in 1988 entitled Born to Coach describing his life up until his time with the Knicks. His most recent book "Rebound Rules," was the top seller at the 2008 Kentucky Book Fair.

In 2005, Pitino's Louisville team posted a tie for the most single season wins in school history (33) while he became the only men's coach in NCAA history to lead three separate schools (Providence, Kentucky, and Louisville) to the Final Four.

Pitino's .744 winning percentage in 43 NCAA Tournament games is 3rd best among active coaches.

Thoroughbred horse racing

Beyond basketball, Pitino has been involved in the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing as the lead partner in Celtic Pride Stable and the Ol Memorial Stable. Among his notable horses have been A P Valentine and Halory Hunter.

Personal life

Pitino married his wife, the former Joanne Minardi, in 1976. They have five living children: Michael, Christopher, Richard (an assistant coach for the University of Florida Gators), Ryan and Jacqueline. Another son, Daniel, died in 1987 from congenital heart failure at the age of six months. Rick and Joanne established the Daniel Pitino Foundation (along with a Daniel Pitino shelter in Owensboro, Kentucky) in his memory, which has raised millions of dollars for children in need.

Their son's death was not the last tragedy for Rick and Joanne. Both were especially hard-hit by 9/11, as Joanne's brother and Rick's closest friend, Billy Minardi, was working as a bond trader for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center when it was struck by American Airlines Flight 11. Since 2002, UofL has designated a December home game as the Billy Minardi Classic, and the university named a dorm on campus as "Billy Minardi Hall". Only a few months earlier, another brother-in-law of Rick, Don Vogt, was killed after being hit by a New York City cab.

Extortion attempt against Pitino

On April 18, 2009, Pitino issued a statement saying that he was a target of an extortion attempt. Pitino declined to give specifics but has stated that the person making the extortion attempt, Karen Sypher, the wife of Louisville equipment manager Tim Sypher, made public statements against him in the media. Pitino notified the FBI and officials at the University of Louisville.

Head coaching Record

Statistics overview

Season	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Postseason
Boston University Terriers (Independent) (1978–1979)
1978–79	Boston U.	17–9	N/A	N/A
Boston University Terriers (America East) (1979–1983)
1979–80	Boston U.	21–9	N/A	N/A	NIT Second Round
1980–81	Boston U.	13–14	N/A	N/A
1981–82	Boston U.	19–9	6–2	T–2nd
1982–83	Boston U.	21–10	8–2	1st	NCAA Preliminary
Boston U.:		91–51	14-4
Providence Friars (Big East Conference) (1985–1987)
1985–86	Providence	17–14	7–9	5th	NIT Elite Eight
1986–87	Providence	25–9	10–6	4th	NCAA Final Four
Providence:		42–23	17–15
Kentucky Wildcats (Southeastern Conference) (1989–1997)
1989–90	Kentucky	14–14	10–8	T-9th
1990–91	Kentucky	22–6	14–4	T-8th
1991-92	Kentucky	29–7	12-4	1st / 1st	NCAA Elite Eight
1992–93	Kentucky	30–4	13-3	2nd / 1st	NCAA Final Four
1993–94	Kentucky	27–7	12-4	2nd / 1st	NCAA Second Round
1994-95	Kentucky	28–5	14-2	4th / 1st	NCAA Elite Eight
1995–96	Kentucky	34–2	16–0	1st / 2nd	NCAA Champion
1996-97	Kentucky	35–5	13-3	2nd / 1st	NCAA Finalist
Kentucky:		219–50	104–28
Louisville Cardinals (Conference USA) (2001–2005)
2001-02	Louisville	19–13	8-8	T-8th	NIT Second Round
2002-03	Louisville	25-7	11-5	3rd / 1st	NCAA Second Round
2003-04	Louisville	20-10	9-7	T-6th	NCAA First Round
2004-05	Louisville	33-5	14-2	1st / 1st	NCAA Final Four
Louisville Cardinals (Big East Conference) (2005–"present")
2005–06	Louisville	21-13	6-10	T-11th	NIT Semifinals
2006–07	Louisville	24-10	12–4	T–2nd	NCAA Second Round
2007–08	Louisville	27-9	14-4	T–2nd	NCAA Elite Eight
2008–09	Louisville	31-5	16-2	1st / 1st	NCAA Elite Eight
Louisville:		200–72	90-42
Total:		553–191
National champion         Postseason invitational champion         Conference regular season champion         Conference regular season and conference tournament champion       Division regular season champion       Division regular season and conference tournament champion       Conference tournament champion

NBA Head Coaching Record

Team	Year	G	W	L	W–L%	Finish	PG	PW	PL	PW–L%	Result
NYK	1987–88	82	38	44	.463	2nd in Atlantic	4	1	3	Lost in First Round
NYK	1988–89	82	52	30	.634	1st in Atlantic	9	5	4	Lost in Conf. Semifinals
NYK		164	90	74	.549		13	6	7
BOS	1997–98	82	36	46	.439	6th in Atlantic	0	0	0	None
BOS	1998–99	50	19	31	.371	5th in Atlantic	0	0	0	None
BOS	1999–2000	82	35	47	.471	5th in Atlantic	0	0	0	None
BOS	2000–01	34	12	22	.371	5th in Atlantic	0	0	0	None
BOS		248	102	146	.436		0	0	0
Career		412	192	220	.466		13	6	7	.461

See also

• NCAA Men's Division I Final Four appearances by coaches

External links

• Official Website
• Rick Pitino's bio at CSTV.com
• UofL Men's Basketball website
• Player/Alumnus page on UMassHoops.com
• Celtic Pride Stable at Breeders' Cup.com