Rick Pitino, who of course if one of the greatest coaches of all time, believes parents these days are a big problem when it comes to developing young basketball players.
In an interview with Colin Cowherd of Fox Sports Radio, Pitino said he would “rather blame parents than AAU” when it comes to problems with developing younger players.
“The easiest thing to do is blame the AAU system, and I’m not one of those people that do that,” Pitino said. “I would rather blame parents than I would AAU. I think parents today, are way too involved in their children’s careers as far as growing up. The parents need to just sit in the stands, enjoy the game and let the kids develop. And develop a love for the game. Twenty years ago, I never dealt with parents.
“I’m very lucky, I’ve got parents that are disciplinarians, they get after their kids,” Pitino added. “But the ones that aren’t, hurt much more than AAU. They want, ‘Okay, let’s go to a different school next year because you can get $300,000 more.’ No, let’s grind it out where you’re at and play for Tom Izzo and play for this person, and play for this guy because he’s gonna make you a terrific basketball player with discipline and character.”
Listen to the entire interview here
