When St. John’s tips off on Thursday night, Rick Pitino will be coaching in his 74th NCAA Tournament game, searching for his 55th career March Madness victory.
Fittingly, the Red Storm are beginning their tournament journey where the legendary head coach secured his first-ever tournament win nearly four decades ago.
There have been several stops in between and drastic highs and lows, but Pitino first put himself on the map as one of the premier coaches in college basketball when he took Providence to the Final Four in 1987, part of the Big East’s heyday when the likes of Georgetown, Syracuse, and the Johnnies were consistently in the national title conversation.
Now, back in Providence for the first round against Omaha, Pitino is back where his winding and unprecedented road began its initial ascent, and he can look back on those early Big East days with gratitude.
“It's one of my favorite coaching stints of all time,” Pitino said of his time coaching the Friars. “It was certainly magical. I still talk to all the players all the time and it was 1987, so a long time ago, but it was a fun time. It was a sad time. It was every emotion that you could possibly feel, both positively and negatively.
“Providence, though, when I was at Kentucky, I would take my family for two to three weeks to Newport in the summer to vacation, and we did that, like, for a long time.”
Pitino’s rise in the college ranks was swift after what he accomplished in Providence. First, a bump up to the NBA to coach the Knicks before returning to the college ranks, where he eventually became one of the most accomplished coaches of all time. Two Final Fours and an NCAA championship at Kentucky preceded three Final Four appearances and a national championship at Louisville, where he became the first (and only) coach ever to coach two different teams to a national title, and the first to lead three different schools to the Final Four.
Then, just as it seemed that Pitino’s face was being chiseled next to the likes of Wooden on the Mount Rushmore of all-time college basketball coaches, it all came crashing down. A pay for play scandal at Louisville shocked the sport and resulted in Pitino’s exit in 2017, and suddenly, one of the most successful coaches ever couldn’t find a job. He had to leave the country to satisfy his continued love for coaching, taking the job with Greece’s Panathinaikos of the EuroLeague.
There, a legendary coach discovered a newfound appreciation for the job, and eventually learned to let go of the resentments and frustration he held towards his previous, historic chapter.
“Any time you get fired, it's always a traumatic experience, but even more so when I went through it, it was more traumatic,” Pitino said of his Louisville exit. “Felt a little betrayed in a lot of areas, but I took off for Greece by myself. Never been to Greece, didn't know the EuroLeague, didn't know anything about it. I stopped hanging my head that night because I had to coach against CSKA, and then I had the most wonderful two years of a learning experience of my life at 65, and became the Greek National Coach.
“I look back on it and say there's always a silver lining in every cloud. You've heard that expression many times, and for me it was a major silver lining. It rejuvenated me. It stopped me from being bitter at all. Just said, ‘Let's get on with it.’ It's just adversity. You can look adversity square in the eyes and piss all over it if you're smart. So don't hang your head, pick yourself up, get on, become the best EuroLeague coach you can possibly be and move on.”
Pitino’s success in Greece turned heads back in the states, and finally, he was given another chance at the college level, taking the job at mid-major Iona just 24 miles from where he was born in New York City. It was far from coaching at a Big East titan like Louisville, but Pitino wasted no time making the Gaels the titans of the MAAC. Coming off a 12-17 season in which it missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time in four years, Pitino brought Iona right back to the tournament in 2021, then again two years later after posting a 27-8 record. Pitino had once again fully embraced coaching at the collegiate level, and the college game reembraced him, as his hometown school came calling, in need of Pitino to restore its program to heights it hadn’t reached since Pitino was a conference rival at Providence.
St. John’s hadn’t reached the first round of the NCAA Tournament since 2015. Hadn’t won a conference tournament since 2000. Hadn’t reached the second weekend of the tournament since 1999. Enter Pitino, once again sure of himself as a coach and free to soak in the twilight of his unprecedented coaching career. The results have been swift and landscape-changing, as the Johnnies are Big East tournament and regular season champions, and a two seed in the tournament with sights set on a deep run.
At the center of it all is Pitino, a remade version of himself but with the same result, knowing that this will likely be his last stop on a journey that he at one point wasn’t sure had any stops left.
“Early years it wasn't like that trying to move up the ladder. You're trying to accomplish certain things collectively with the team yourself,” Pitino said. “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.”
Before it comes to an end, there is still more work to do at St. John’s. He declared when he took the job that the Red Storm would be back, and here they are. He still dreams of making the school an even more attractive destination for players, and a Big East juggernaut after being a doormat for decades. Even as Pitino nears the end of his Hall of Fame career, there is unfinished business at his likely last stop. But first, he will make sure he enjoys this moment for St. John’s as he looks to take yet another school to new heights.
Fittingly, it will happen where he first took a starved program to the apex of the sport.
“I have been blessed for a long period of time,” Pitino said. “Fifty-plus years of coaching, and I think I look at it this way: I don't know if God will bless me with two, three, four more years, but if he does, 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.”