Rick Pitino and the Curse of coaching at Louisville
Little did Pitino know that this would lead to the biggest mistake of his career: coaching at Louisville.
Everybody knows the story by now. Rick Pitino left the best college coaching job in America while in the middle of the greatest success he had ever seen in order to take a job with the Boston Celtics as the head coach and the general manager for a large sum of money. This I do not begrudge him, as many Kentucky fans do not. What irks us the most is that he tucked his tail and ran to our biggest, most hated rival when he was canned as the Boston coach.
Ever since Rick Pitino left the Kentucky job he has been nothing short of a failure, both professionally and privately. He touched the tip of success in 2005 when he took Louisville to a Final Four, but that’s about all he has done. The only other success he has to show at Louisville are two Elite Eight appearances, two NIT appearances and only one other trip out of the first round of the tournament.
Compare that to two Elite Eight’s, one Final Four, a national title and a national title runner-up at Kentucky.
So what happened? How could a coach as insanely successful as Rick Pitino, a Hall of Fame guy and a coaching genius, have fallen from grace so fast? Did he do something to raise the ire of the basketball gods? Did he somehow anger the ghost of Rupp as he left Kentucky fans and their historic program in order to realize his dream as a professional coach? Was there a curse laid on him as he and his U-Haul left Lexington for Boston?
No such mythical curse happened. The curse that plagues Pitino is the curse of being the head basketball coach of the Louisville Cardinals. He didn’t realize that not being at Kentucky would be such a huge negative force on his success. No matter what Louisville fans say or what the Louisville media hype machine professes, it is not the Mecca of college basketball that it is claimed to be.
Rick was able to get Grade A talent at Kentucky. Kids know the name, the history and the pedigree. It’s not so easy to get Jamal Mashburn and Ron Mercer type players at Louisville.
Louisville fans can be a bit unfair to him. They expected him to come in as the same Rick Pitino that coached the Kentucky Wildcats. Their expectations were high. They were blind to the fact that they had been mediocre for an entire decade before his arrival and their program was in shambles. Rick Pitino is a fine coach, but a miracle worker he is not. He had to battle the lack of tradition at Louisville along with unrealistic fan expectations.
I kind of feel sorry for Pitino. It must be a blow to his ego to realize that it wasn’t just his own talents that got him to the highest pinnacle of his profession. If it were his coaching ability alone, he would have double the Final Fours and at least one title at Louisville, but this is not so.
Rick Pitino himself did not kill his career as much as being the coach at a second-tier program has. Why expect Kentucky level success at a school that had a nice run in the 1980’s that garnered two championships but had only marginal success afterwards?
In order to try to reason with himself that he didn’t make a mistake, he must tell everyone that he has never had as much fun coaching anywhere other than Louisville and that he has never had players that work so hard than he does at Louisville. We all know he is not telling the truth. Losing at Louisville is more fun than winning at Kentucky? Coaching Peyton Siva and Terrence Williams is more fun than coaching Tony Delk and Antoine Walker?
And what makes it even worse for him is that he has to coach against his former team every season. He has a losing record to former Kentucky coach Tubby Smith and he has a losing record to current coach John Calipari. He went 2-0 against Billy Gillispie and we all know how that turned out. That very limited success is all he has as consolation when it comes to playing Kentucky.
So where does he go from here? After losing yet another game in Rupp Arena this past New Yar’s Eve, Pitino was actually in a pretty good mood in his post game press conference. He talked a little bit about some of the teams he used to coach at UK and talked about how good of a team Kentucky has. He wasn’t bitter or angry. He seemed at peace. Maybe he has finally realized the mistake he made so long ago and has come to terms with it.
He has stated that he will not coach past 2017. But we all know Pitino; he often says one thing and then does another. But whenever he finally does retire from Louisville, I would be willing to wager that we will see Rick Pitino once again attending games at Rupp Arena. He will shed the curse of coaching Louisville and embrace the past as one of the greatest coaches of the greatest program in college basketball.
Will the fans be able to forgive and forget? I am one that might be able to do so. Until then, I will root against him as long as he is a Cardinal.