Rick Pitino sure sounds like a man who misses basketball and wants to be the next head coach at Siena.
Pitino called a reporter at the Albany Times Union to complain about an article he (the reporter) had written recently.
Check out this excerpt:
“The only thing I’m looking for, wherever I’m going to coach, is to impact the lives of people in some positive way,” Pitino said. “I’m not looking to become wealthy. I’m not looking to be famous. I want to impact lives.”
That isn’t a no, you’ll notice.
Skeptics have suggested that the Albany area and Siena, with its enrollment of 3,100, are too small to attract a coach with two national championships on his resume. But Pitino insisted the size of the college would not be a deterrent.
“Siena is not too small, and School X is not too big,” he said. “I’m looking for the right fit. I’m looking for people who believe in me as a teacher of college basketball and also believe in me as a person.”
In the same article, Pitino took offense to a joke from the writer and took the time to address several allegations he dealt with at Louisville.
So, in the column, I joked — I was kidding, I swear! — that if Pitino is hired by Siena, we might see him canoodling with women in coffee shops and wonder why his players drive BMWs.
That angered him, understandably. He took time to address each scandal.
“Something happened 15 years ago that I’m extremely apologetic to my family about, and we are stronger than ever as family,” Pitino said about the Sypher incident. “I’ve never been in a coffee shop canoodling with a woman.”
Fair enough.
Regarding the other blots on his record, Pitino portrayed himself, as he has in interviews with other media outlets, as the victim of bad behavior by others. He was particularly irked by the suggestion — I was kidding! — that his athletes improperly benefit from playing for him.
“In the game of college basketball, I’ve never given a player anything,” Pitino said in his distinctive Pacino-esque tone. “My conscience is totally clear as far as anything with scandals in college basketball.”
Pitino then directed the writer to a priest for character reference.
“He’s one of the finest people I know, and not just as a basketball coach,” Bradley said before touting the charitable efforts Pitino championed in Louisville. “He has always had a heart for the least and the vulnerable.”
Of course, after this article came out, Pitino said this:
Rick Pitino on @SienaCollege coaching job: "Not interested."
— Terry Meiners (@terrymeiners) April 18, 2018
