NEW YORK – Rick Pitino purchased a powerboat in the summertime of 2017. A 32-footer. Open cabin with wraparound seating. An actual magnificence. Within the mornings, he’d take it into the Atlantic and “simply go searching and hearken to music on my own.” At nightfall, he’d set out throughout the Miami River, “go to a restaurant, tie it up.” That is what males together with his means and in his station of life do, he thought. This was how he would spend these years. Below the solar. Wind in his hair. Louisville behind him.
Inside a yr, he bought the boat.
Then got here two years wandering the Euroleague as coach of Panathinaikos, a Greek skilled staff. Then, three years teaching Iona School, a small Catholic faculty in New Rochelle, N.Y., driving the bus to league video games at Quinnipiac and Mount Saint Mary’s.
And now Pitino, who turned 71 in September, is sitting within the passenger seat of a rented Volkswagen Jetta, sporting a sweatsuit within the morning chill of a New York autumn, caught in a.m. gridlock. We’re crawling to the Higher East Aspect, the place he and his spouse, Joanne, have stored an condo on sixty fifth Road for the reason that late ’80s, again when he coached the Knicks. That was roughly a lifetime or two in the past, however who’s counting anymore? Of all of the issues he might be doing this morning, Pitino is as a substitute right here, on this automotive, on Sixth Avenue, catching a trip uptown after showing on the “Boomer & Gio” present to advertise an exhibition basketball sport between St. John’s and Rutgers.
Inside WFAN’s studio in Hudson Sq., the brand new St. John’s coach was in his aspect. Pitino’s mic went reside, and he spun some classics. How, when he coached the Knicks, he remembers “Vinny from Bensonhurst” and “Mike from Bay Ridge” calling the station to say he must be fired. How St. John’s is a sleeping large. How he’s hatching a plan (severely) to play Duke at Arthur Ashe Stadium subsequent season. How he’s going to make use of school sports activities’ identify, picture and likeness (NIL) revolution to his benefit. “If that is the sport, we’re going to play it.”
Hosts Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti delighted in all of it. Afterward, Giannotti, whose mom is a St. John’s grad and a “bat— loopy fan,” informed Pitino town is determined for him. The Yankees and Mets stunk. The Jets and Giants stink. “I can’t keep in mind us ever speaking in regards to the Johnnies presently of yr,” Giannotti says, brows raised.
Relying on the way you rely, St. John’s is the twelfth head-coaching job of Pitino’s very lengthy, very unusual, extremely controversial and insanely profitable basketball life. This tally, for example, features a little-discussed stint as interim head coach on the College of Hawaii in 1976. These components of his bio really feel like forgotten books misplaced in a library. Pitino’s first job as a full-time head coach was at Boston College in 1978-79. He was 25. That yr, he beat a 37-year-old Northeastern coach named Jim Calhoun. He misplaced to a rising younger coach named P.J. Carlesimo and to older guys like George Blaney and Tom Davis and Dom Perno.
Just a few issues have occurred within the 4 a long time since. The Knicks and the Celtics. Nationwide titles at Kentucky and Louisville. The Corridor of Fame. Tens of millions upon hundreds of thousands of {dollars}. A intercourse scandal. Extortion. Aspect hustles — horses, books, investments. Wins. Vacated wins. Recruiting violations. The FBI. The battle with the NCAA. Lawsuits. Fame. Infamy.
This season, for some cause, Pitino is beginning over but once more. Iona was his final job, till it wasn’t. Now he says it’s St. John’s. You possibly can take him at his phrase, however because it usually goes with Richard Andrew Pitino, you’ll be able to by no means be so certain.
“Oh, it’s, it’s,” he says within the automotive, interrupting. “God, I hope it’s.”
Possibly. We’ll see. It’s troublesome to understand how any individual can exist with such excessive contours of Pitino. He’s beloved by some, loathed by others. He’s thought-about maybe his technology’s best coach, and its most controversial. And in contrast to so lots of his contemporaries — Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim, Roy Williams, so on — he’s nonetheless out right here on the lookout for his subsequent win.
The query is: If you’re 71 and beginning throughout, the place is it you’re making an attempt to go? There’s a tidy narrative that casts Pitino as a twilight rental come to infuse once-proud St. John’s with successful. He can relive some Massive East glory days, put the Johnnies again on the map, then set sail towards a sundown.
Just a few days within the man’s orbit say in any other case.
Bear in mind, there isn’t a boat.
If spending three days with Rick Pitino, be ready for the self-loathing that comes with being outpaced by a grandfather of 14. It’s a Tuesday morning, and Pitino has already put in a 5 a.m. exercise at his luxurious health membership, met together with his assistant coaches, mapped out the afternoon’s apply session, and is now on the court docket for 4 separate hour-long participant improvement classes. It’s 8:45 a.m. Pitino calls out each drill for every wave of three or 4 gamers. All will stand up over 300 pictures, totally on the transfer. They’ll be drenched. That is conditioning as a lot because it’s ability improvement.
Pitino wanders over every so often. Watching one exhaustive drill, he recounts the time he satisfied Celtics common supervisor Danny Ainge to draft Terry Rozier primarily based on how he carried out on this train. “This one separates guys,” he says. That is a part of the trip. Every little thing Pitino does comes with an accompanying story pulled from the recesses of his basketball thoughts.
Again on the court docket, Pitino calls out the following drill. No notes. “It’s all in right here,” he says, pointing to his head. Then a well-recognized pose — Pitino, arms clenched behind his again, head cocked to the facet, vast clean eyes seeing every part. One session, then three extra. Then a two-hour afternoon apply, when Pitino wears a cordless microphone and serves as the one soundtrack.
“I don’t assume there’s one other head coach within the nation who spends extra time on the court docket than him,” says assistant coach Steve Masiello, who’s admittedly biased, but additionally probably proper.
Everybody round Pitino talks this fashion. They converse of him as a warlock. A defiance of age and time and power. Following apply, he’ll enterprise from Queens to Manhattan for a dinner auctioned off by certainly one of St. John’s NIL collectives. That, after all, will go effectively into the night. The following morning, he’ll return to the gymnasium for a 5 a.m. exercise. Identical factor the following day. And the following.
In August, throughout an enormous household trip at Sea Island, Ga., Pitino labored out each morning, performed golf each afternoon, went on walks together with his grandchildren, and had three or 4 too many drinks every night time. He went to mattress after everybody. Awoke earlier than everybody. And did it another time.
“He has an absolute obsession with maximizing each minute, each second, of each day,” says Richard Pitino, Rick’s 41-year-old son and head coach on the College of New Mexico. “It’s sort of annoying.”
That obsession is now centered on a gaggle of 13 gamers assembled largely from the switch portal over 56 days final spring. Participant improvement is the important thing to every part in Pitino‘s world. Whereas his long-standing caricature has centered on his fashion (fits), his persona (brash) and his defensive philosophies (swarming), he’s, at his core, a hands-on coach. His best feat isn’t taking 5 packages to the NCAA Event. It’s constantly turning common gamers into good gamers, good gamers into nice gamers, and nice gamers into motion heroes.
This is the reason, no matter what you consider him, it’s onerous to argue with how his system works on the school degree. His first staff at Boston College went 17-9. The following yr, it went 21-9, successful the previous Jap School Athletic Convention. His first staff at Windfall gained 17. The following gained 25, reaching the Remaining 4.
His first staff at Kentucky went 14-14. The following went 22-6, successful the Southeastern Convention. His first staff at Louisville went 19-13. The following went 25-7, touchdown an NCAA Event bid. His first staff at Iona went 12-6 in a COVID-shaped season. His subsequent went 25-8, successful the Metro Atlantic Athletic Convention.
There’s no magic trick. Every little thing goes again to the time on the court docket. Every second of obsession. This new St. John’s roster is adjusting to what that entails. Or making an attempt to. One luxurious it has is an on-court chief, Daniss Jenkins, who already spent a yr as Pitino’s level guard at Iona, main the MAAC in assists. He speaks fluent Pitino and, whereas watching teammates in a latest exercise, leans over to conclude, “I don’t know if quite a lot of these dudes actually knew what they had been signing up for.”
Joel Soriano, a 6-foot-11 All-Massive East choice final season, is certainly one of solely two holdovers from former coach Mike Anderson’s roster. Soriano thought-about pursuing skilled basketball this season, however Pitino and Masiello took him to dinner final spring, asking for yet one more run at St. John’s. “I began fascinated by what I might accomplish with Pitino,” Soriano recollects. “I figured if I’ve the season I had final yr, but it surely’s with him, and we win? That’s completely different. Folks will discover.”
So Soriano agreed, imagining himself starring for the revamped Johnnies. Then, although, got here offseason exercises. The movie session when Pitino informed Soriano he isn’t ok to play for St. John’s Prep in Queens, not to mention St. John’s College. The time Pitino informed Soriano there’s a cause his earlier groups at St. John’s and Fordham didn’t win with him. This preseason, Pitino demoted Soriano to the second string in preseason practices.
Added all up, Soriano at occasions has questioned what the hell he’s doing this for. He’s not the one one. St. John’s introduced in high-profile transfers from Penn (Jordan Dingle), Harvard (Chris Ledlum), Connecticut (Nahiem Alleyne), Kansas (Zuby Ejiofor), Oregon State (Glenn Taylor Jr.) and Massachusetts (RJ Luis Jr.), together with two promising freshmen (Simeon Wilcher and Brady Dunlap). Most of those gamers have by no means seen something like Pitino.
“Every little thing’s modified right here,” Soriano says, sitting in an empty Carnesecca Area. “It’s a must to be good.”
The day prior, going by way of his participant improvement session, Soriano noticed Pitino conversing off to the facet. He glanced on the coach after every shot. When pictures fell with Pitino’s again turned, Soriano shook his head. A 23-year-old with 4 seasons of school expertise desperately desirous to show himself to a Corridor of Fame coach.
“He’s probably the most trustworthy individual I’ve ever met in my life,” Soriano says. “Any little factor, he’s in your ass. It’s been very overwhelming. I’ve had nights simply, like, considering, rattling, I got here again for this? However I do know that’s all in my thoughts. I’m simply making an attempt to remain optimistic.”
Soriano understands what’s taking place. That he’s being examined by a coach with 835 profession wins in school basketball — the ninth-most ever, probably the most amongst energetic coaches, no matter which of them the NCAA counts.
Pondering on all of this, Soriano uttered the final word adage so many have conceded on the subject of Rick Pitino and the game of basketball.
“The outcomes,” Soriano says, “will all be price it.”
As a result of everybody needs in on the present, ESPN despatched Seth Greenberg and a digicam to St. John’s in late October for a reside “SportsCenter” hit. Pitino and Greenberg chatted like previous associates as a result of they’re. They’ve recognized one another for the reason that ’70s, once they had been youngsters on the legendary 5 Star Basketball Camps in Pennsylvania. In an informal interview, Greenberg talked about the obvious want for on-campus facility upgrades at St. John’s. Pitino agreed and joked that athletic director Mike Cragg “is gonna have a coronary heart assault in any respect the cash we’re gonna spend.”
Then Pitino added, “That’s OK, we’ll discover one other AD.”
He laughed the best way an previous man laughs at his personal joke. Hysterically. Greenberg laughed, too, but additionally gave his buddy that look. You recognize the sort. The attention-raising, head-shaking whoa-boy kind. Pitino instantly put up the flaps, saying no, no, that he was kidding, that he loves Cragg. None of this stopped the web from slicing the video shy of Pitino’s walk-back and creating a pleasant clip of a Machiavellian coach steamrolling his athletic director.
Rick Pitino: “Mike Cragg is gonna have a coronary heart assault in any respect the cash we’re gonna spend. That is okay, we’ll discover one other AD” pic.twitter.com/VT64X9CgKq
— CJ Fogler account could or will not be notable (@cjzero) October 26, 2023
The clip was despatched to Cragg, who ultimately spoke to Pitino, who stated it was all in enjoyable. Per week or two later, Cragg says, “That was him joking round. His character, you realize? It’s not even price placing in your article.”
Greenberg has seen all this earlier than. “Rick being Rick,” he says. “The king prince. (St. John’s) is gonna have 100 of these items with him.”
Postcards. They’ll all be postcards of life with Pitino. For those who take him, you get him in all his components. You get a 70 % spike in year-over-year season-ticket gross sales. You get the unease of him saying and doing no matter he needs. You get a program that wins, close to immediately; a program constructed within the picture of a puppet grasp who refuses a curtain.
It’s been seven years since Pitino coached within the highlight. These seasons in Greece and at Iona had been spent in anonymity (by his requirements), as if the basketball gods demanded penance for the kingdoms he’d left behind within the previous 5 a long time. Seeing his return to the stage, some may purchase him being extra subdued, extra measured.
Any such anticipation is comically misguided.
St. John’s has already rearranged athletic division positions to afford directors’ availability to react to Pitino’s whims. He just lately wished to know the advertising and marketing plan for this system’s Madison Sq. Backyard opener in opposition to Michigan on Nov. 13. Cragg had the division’s advertising and marketing and ticketing staff ship a customized presentation. In October, a number of days earlier than the Rutgers exhibition, Pitino and a good friend put up the money to print T-shirts for the primary thousand followers at Carnesecca Area. Did the advertising and marketing of us know any of this? Nope. Did he have permission to make use of the college’s trademarked brand? In all probability not. However everybody rolled with it. When a high-ranking college official was subsequently requested if there’s anybody on the faculty to inform Pitino “no” to any of his concepts, the one response was amusing.
Pitino was employed by college president Rev. Brian J. Shanley and his govt management. Shanley was beforehand president of Windfall School, a spot Pitino has held expensive since that 1987 Remaining 4 (the primary of his seven). Shanley oversaw main funding pumped into the Friars’ basketball program. Whereas St. John’s generated dossiers on a number of potential teaching candidates, Pitino was the one goal.
Shanley employed him to switch Anderson, who went 30-46 within the Massive East over 4 seasons, by no means reaching the NCAA Event. The varsity terminated Anderson’s contract for trigger, citing a failure to watch his program, and refused his $11.4 million contract buyout. Anderson responded that the college wanted the cash to rent the “scandal-mired” Pitino. He’s suing the college for practically $45 million. The case remains to be in arbitration.
Pitino signed a six-year package deal price roughly $20 million.
That is the brand new face of a college tethered to a few identities: Roman Catholicism, New York Metropolis and basketball. Largely a commuter faculty for a lot of its historical past, St. John’s used the supposed stigma as a bonus. As Pitino tells it, a technology of city-born basketball gamers had been granted monetary assist for housing, solely to gladly pocket the money whereas dwelling at house.
Corridor of Fame coach Joe Lapchick established the college as a basketball energy in the course of the post-Despair rise of the school sport. One other Corridor of Famer, Frank McGuire, succeeded him. Then Lou Carnesecca turned the college’s patron saint, teaching the likes of Chris Mullin and Mark Jackson, Walter Berry and Malik Sealy, and taking the Johnnies to the 1985 Remaining Fours.
Then? Purgatory. 9 coaches in 21 years. A 505-426 document amongst ’em. Brian Mahoney, Fran Fraschilla, Mike Jarvis, Kevin Clark, Norm Roberts, Steve Lavin, Mike Dunlap, an unlucky falling out with a would-be storybook savior in Mullin, and, lastly, Anderson.
This system slipped into irrelevance. It hasn’t gained a Massive East title since 1992. It hasn’t reached the second weekend of the NCAA Event since 1999. Because the Massive East has been reshaped and reborn in recent times, the Purple Storm has ridden alongside as an incidental hanger-on.
Now, the place is placing its religion in Pitino. A son of town. A Sicilian. Born in Manhattan in 1952. The son of a constructing superintendent (Sal) and a hospital administrator (Charlotte). He moved to Cambria Heights, Queens, at age 6, then to Bayville, on Lengthy Island’s north shore, at 14. He was a standout level guard at St. Dominic Excessive in Oyster Bay.
Greater than 5 a long time later, sipping a big cappuccino with skim milk in a restaurant off Park Avenue, Pitino is speaking about returning St. John’s to its gilded age. He makes it seem to be he can accomplish that with sheer will, however the faculty’s on-campus amenities are that of a middling Atlantic 10 program, and it’ll take years to reshape the place to high-major school basketball’s present requirements.
These really feel like main points. However Pitino solely shakes his head.
“See, I don’t assume so,” he counters. “These days, I feel St. John’s is not any completely different than UCLA. We are able to get the identical gamers they will get. Why? NIL. Previous to that? Yeah, completely different worlds. However now? All the youngsters are getting paid.”
He pauses.
“What’s the distinction between St. John’s and Kentucky now? Nothing.”
Pitino pulls over a chair throughout apply to ask, out of nowhere, about Jay Wright. Why’d he go away Villanova? Why’d he get out of the enterprise? Rick can’t think about why Jay walked away in any case that success.
“How previous is he?” Pitino asks.
“Simply over 60.”
“Yeah, nonetheless younger,” Pitino says. “I ponder if he’ll get again in.”
This new period of school basketball – the switch portal with rosters rebuilt anew each season, NIL collectives and empowered gamers – is unrecognizable to coaches of Pitino’s technology. Some left the sport earlier than getting wrapped up in all this. Others have railed publicly or privately over a system that now not is smart to them. Some have adjusted, certain. A lot haven’t.
After which there’s Pitino.
When the 3-point line was launched to varsity basketball in 1986, a 34-year-old Pitino noticed it as his muse. He might already coach a protection that starved opponents of oxygen. The three-pointer, dismissed by different coaches as a gimmick, gave him the identical energy on offense. Led by a younger guard named Billy Donovan, the Friars led the nation with 8.4 made 3s per sport in ’87, fueling a shocking run to the nationwide semifinals.
NIL is Pitino’s new 3-point shot. When Pitino was employed, Shanley promised a stunning new apply facility, upgraded places of work, all the sport’s fashionable trappings. Pitino responded, “That’s nice, however an important factor proper now’s the NIL.”
St. John’s had a number of collectives established final yr, however the cash didn’t precisely movement. The varsity estimated it ranked within the backside third of the Massive East in out there NIL cash. Then got here Pitino. He estimates he’s spoken at or participated in additional than 30 NIL fundraisers since taking the job. He set the aim of producing a pool price roughly $2-3 million in out there funds for this yr’s staff.
It’s now believed St. John’s – a program with solely 5 NCAA Event appearances this century – ranks within the prime third amongst Massive East brethren in NIL payouts.
That is what, even within the fashionable period, Pitino can ship. Identified for eclectic and costly tastes — thoroughbred horses, memberships to a few of America’s most unique golf golf equipment, tremendous eating places, a number of homes — he says he now spends “most of my free time” elevating cash for the NIL. He estimates 40 % of the cash he’s raised at St. John’s has come from donors unaffiliated with the college. They’re associates, enterprise companions, supporters; those that dot all his concentric circles. They’re sending checks from Tennessee, and Florida and, sure, Louisville.
“That makes him actually distinctive on this house,” says sports activities legal professional Darren Heitner, the authorized counsel to St. John’s Flat Prime Fund collective and a distinguished voice in NIL laws. “He has the cache. He has the community. He has the connections. He has a reputation that mainly transcends the college that employs him. Anybody who has that has a significant benefit. The one query is that if they use it and exploit it.”
That’s not a query on the subject of Pitino.
Not like many others, Pitino neither complains about nor cares what NIL cash or the switch portal means to any supposed sanctity of collegiate athletics. He thinks the NCAA is corrupt, anyway, so what’s the distinction? If something, his concern is sustaining money movement when donors ultimately tire of writing non-tax-deductible checks yr after yr. These are issues for subsequent season, and the season after that. “How are we gonna maintain this factor?” he wonders.
Spoken like a person fascinated by his future.
Corridor of Fame coach Rick Pitino has taken three faculties — Windfall (1987), Kentucky (1993, 1996, 1997) and Louisville (2005, 2012, 2013) — to the Remaining 4. (Porter Binks / Getty Pictures)
So, some basic math. Rick Pitino is elevating gobs of NIL cash, getting prime expertise to St. John’s, teaching at Madison Sq. Backyard, and returning his hometown faculty to prominence, all whereas working with the power of a a lot youthful man, and commuting from the comforts of his house on Winged Foot Golf Membership in Westchester County. Doesn’t all this add as much as a swan music that sounds an terrible lot like a brand new starting?
“Effectively, look, Father Time goes to meet up with me ultimately, proper?” Pitino says.
Some would argue Pitino’s hourglass ran out years in the past, and he merely turned it over.
That’s as a result of every part round Rick Pitino is seemingly surrounded by deep philosophical questions on accountability and redemption, about the price of successful usually being a Faustian cut price, about who somebody says he’s versus who some consider him to be. The problems of his life and profession will all the time be with him. That whereas Pitino lengthy maintained no information of cash being funneled to recruits or strippers in dorms, what happened at Louisville was a complete catastrophe. That his private historical past consists of moments of self-destructive habits. That his endings are hardly ever uncomplicated.
One night within the NoHo part of Manhattan, Pitino has a desk reserved at Zero Bond, a personal membership with, according to the New York Times, a $5,000 initiation price and a $4,000 annual cost for members over age 45. Pitino mentions that Taylor Swift and Aaron Rodgers have come by way of just lately. This, he says, is the place. A good friend of his joins for dinner and is determined to get in, however the ready record to affix is impossibly lengthy. Pitino says he’ll put a phrase in.
Right here, issues make an increasing number of sense. Few individuals have ever loved sporting their very own pores and skin as a lot as Rick Pitino, and seeing him stroll by way of this place, all eyes following him, explains what he’s been working his manner again to.
Pitino says he stopped caring about his critics a very long time in the past. Within the subsequent breath, he turns so many conversations into unsolicited rebuttals and rationalizations. Pitino profoundly cares how others see him.
However that pales compared to one thing a lot bigger. And that’s how Pitino sees himself.
Which brings us again to that boat.
That model of Pitino, in his early 60s, hoisted up within the helm seat, steering by way of the water, on the lookout for someplace to go, was misplaced. Fired by Louisville, he bunkered in Miami and contemplated life off the court docket and out of the limelight. At the moment he recollects watching NBA video games alone at midnight, and Joanne telling him he was consuming an excessive amount of, days rolling by with out cause, and Joanne telling him, sure, please, go take that random job in Greece to do one thing with your self. It was the primary time he ever felt lazy, the primary time he ever wasted time, the primary time he ever aged.
Pitino has spent each day since making an attempt to get as far-off from that place as potential.
“I feel that he thinks if he’s sitting idly, that he’s going to age,” Richard Pitino says of his father, “but when he lives life the best way he’s, that he’s going to remain younger.”
In a season-opening win in opposition to Stony Brook final week, over 5,000 followers gathered in a sold-out Carnesecca Area to tug a burial shroud off their favourite program. Pitino took the ground in a black go well with, a burgundy tie and with a well-recognized fireplace. The Johnnies gained, led by 22 factors from Soriano, their beginning middle.
This week, time has come for a return to the Backyard, and a primetime matchup with Michigan.
Pitino on a stage. The place else would he be?
(Illustration: Samuel Richardson / The Athletic; picture: Rob Carr / Getty Pictures)
