Back In Final Four, Pitino A Changed Man
April 01, 2005 | Men's Basketball
April 1, 2005
By CHRIS DUNCAN
AP Sports Writer
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - When Rick Pitino resigned from the Boston Celtics in January 2001, it didn't take long for the college offers to start rolling in.
Michigan. UCLA. UNLV. And Louisville.
Two months after he left Boston, Pitino was ready to accept the job in Ann Arbor. His wife, Joanne, convinced him to take the Louisville job instead.
"She felt Michigan was a great school, great academic university, great university athletically," he said. "And she said, `You don't know one person, including the athletic director, in the state of Michigan.' At our age, friends are very important, very significant.
"She was right. It turned out to be great."
Did it ever.
Louisville (33-4), in its first Final Four since 1986, plays Illinois (36-1) in St. Louis on Saturday. And Pitino is back in the Final Four after an eight-year odyssey marked by professional failure and personal tragedy.
"This will probably mean as much to me as any time in my life, just because I'm going to have a large contingent with me, with family," he said. "We're all going to be in it together. It's going to be a special time for everybody."
Pitino left Kentucky after the 1997 NCAA championship game to become the Celtics' coach and president. But his high-intensity style, controlling nature and a few bad personnel moves turned his dream job into his first coaching disaster. He resigned after 3{ unsuccessful seasons and moved to Florida.
Pitino considered taking a full year off to re-examine his life. Instead, his passion for the game returned.
"The Celtics was a great thing for me," he said. "It got me back with that P.H.D. - being poor, hungry and driven."
Shortly after he left the Celtics, Pitino visited Florida coach Billy Donovan, who as a player helped Pitino reach his first Final Four, at Providence in 1987.
Donovan said that despite the failure, Pitino believed leaving Kentucky was the right thing to do.
"Coach Pitino has always been a big believer in change," Donovan said. "He's always been interested in taking on something new and that next challenge. He could be sitting at Kentucky right now, not knowing what would've happened in Boston. He had to find that next great challenge."
Easier for Pitino, maybe, than Kentucky fans. They could forgive him for leaving for the pros, but coming back to Louisville, of all places, was downright betrayal. To them, he was Traitor Rick, and they let him know with hate mail and radio call-in shows.
It was almost enough to keep Pitino from taking the job.
"I will always love UK and my players. It's always going to be great in my heart," Pitino said. "I'll always root for them and always be behind them. But now is my time to lead the Cardinals back to prominence."
He accepted the Louisville job with renewed vigor, using the Celtics experience as motivation.
"I'm too wise to ever think you're not going to fail in life," he said. "Failure is great if you accept it, accept ownership of failure and do something about it. There are a lot of people out there a lot better than me who have failed and have gone on to be successful."
But as he rebuilt the Louisville program, more adversity followed. In March 2001, the husband of his wife's sister was struck and killed by a New York City taxi. And on Sept. 11 that year, Billy Minardi, his wife's brother and Pitino's best friend since high school, died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
Last season, he missed a game to address an undisclosed health issue. And earlier this season, his mother died.
Pitino shies away from questions about his ordeals. Donovan, still close to him, sees a changed man.
"There has got to be a different perspective you have on life when you lose some of the people he's lost," Donovan said. "People ask me if he's mellowed. I don't think so. He's still as passionate about the game as he ever was, but he may view things in life a lot differently."
Holy Cross coach Ralph Willard, one of Pitino's best friends and the father of Louisville assistant Kevin Willard, said the tragedies have taught Pitino patience.
"He used to be so impatient about success," Willard said. "I think that's what happened with the Celtics. He just wasn't patient enough with that situation."
Pitino had to be patient this season. The Cardinals were ravaged by injuries early and Pitino had to cancel a handful of practices because he didn't have enough healthy players.
Like their coach, the Cardinals figured out a way to overcome the setbacks.
"That's what makes this season so fulfilling," he said with a smile. "Everything you believe in as a coach, every principle, every dream, has come true."
