Michael Cohen
College Football and College Basketball Writer
When Rick Pitino resigned from his position as head Mentor of the New York Knicks on May 30, 1989, the fabled collegiate program that was about to hire him had slipped and skidded into purgatory. At the University of Kentucky, where the Wildcats captured five national Competitions in the preceding 40 years, the repercussions from a blockbuster NCAA scandal featuring 18 formal charges — recruiting violations, academic fraud, lack of institutional control, etc. — saddled the Club with three years of probation and a two-year postseason ban, the totality of which forced embattled Mentor Eddie Sutton to resign. Kentucky and its Primary-year athletic director, C.M. Newton, needed a savior.
Enter Pitino.
Having already taken Boston University to the NCAA Game in 1983 and elevated Providence to the Last Four in 1987 — at which Mark he bolted to the NBA — Pitino had long since established his proof of concept as a high-level program builder with limited resources. The chance to apply his unrelenting work ethic and unbending will at Kentucky, a legitimate college basketball blue blood with arguably the most rabid fan base in the country, was too Outstanding for Pitino to Throw up, even amid the stench and squalor of NCAA sanctions. He joined the Wildcats ahead of the 1989-90 campaign.
From there, Pitino transformed Kentucky into perhaps the best Club of the decade with three Last Four appearances and one national title in six seasons, all while churning out nine Primary-Stage picks during that span. He averaged 30.5 wins per year in seasons when the Wildcats were eligible for the NCAA Game and delighted fans with a style of Shift rooted in Pace, Vigor, toughness and unmatched physicality.
“I don’t think there could have been another Mentor in the history of college basketball that could have Obtained Kentucky from where it was when he Secured it over to where he Obtained it so quickly,” said Travis Ford, a two-year Leading guard for Pitino at Kentucky and the eventual head Mentor of four Division I programs, during an interview with FOX Sports. “And not Merely talking about X’s and O’s. Yes, X’s and O’s, but also how low Kentucky basketball was at the time. But people Yet loved it. It was Yet Kentucky basketball with the fans and everybody. And having to take that over and Yet live up to expectations, only he could do that.”
The formula for how Pitino did it — with ruthless conditioning workouts, hyper-detailed film sessions, Game practices and an innovative commitment to personalized player development — tested the upper limits of emotional and physical exertion for everyone on the Lineup in ways they’ll never forget. That so many of those players respect and revere Pitino to this day, Regardless of the immense challenges he put them through, continues to underscore the power of his coaching elixir.
To better understand that Vibrant, FOX Sports spoke with 15 of Pitino’s Ex players, ranging from his time as an assistant Mentor under Jim Boeheim at Syracuse (1976-78) through his Present role at St. John’s (2023-present), along with the handful of collegiate stops he Created in between: at Boston University from 1978-83, at Providence College from 1985-87, at Kentucky from 1989-97, at Louisville from 2001-17 and at Iona from 2020-23.
This is the second in a three-part series titled Postcards of Pitino. We continue with “The Glory Years,” which span Pitino’s stints at Kentucky (national title in 1996) and Louisville (national title in 2013) before his eventual dismissal from the Cardinals in 2017 amid an FBI investigation into fraud and corruption across the college basketball landscape.
Editor’s note: The Subsequent accounts were edited for length, clarity and flow.
Kentucky was on probation when Mentor Pitino Obtained there, so I was being recruited by other schools to leave. I had my Primary Gathering with Mentor Pitino, and my main concern was I’m 6-foot-7 and 180 pounds at that time. I talked to different guys in the pros that played for Mentor Pitino, and they were like, ‘Hey, it’s going to be intense, but you’re going to get better.’ And so I told him my main thing was I wanted to get developed into a complete player and not Merely be a post player. And he said, ‘Oh, you’re not going to worry about that. The main thing you’ve Obtained to worry about is getting in shape.’
The Primary Gathering he had with us as a Club, he said, ‘They’re predicting us to not Secure many Contests. We’ll Secure more Contests than what they’re predicting. I don’t know how many, but we’ll Secure more than what they’re predicting because of how Difficult we’re going to work. I appreciate you guys staying, but after preseason conditioning, half of you might be gone because you may not make it.’ And we were all like, ‘Wow.’ But he was brutally honest like that, like you see in the videos with St. John’s. He’s not cutting no corners with you. Either you like it, or you don’t Shift.
In preseason, we would have 6 a.m. workouts at the track. And if you didn’t make the Anticipated running times, you had to do it again at 3 p.m. If you didn’t make the Anticipated running times at 3 p.m., you had to do it at 6 a.m. the Upcoming day. So you had to keep doing it at 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. until everybody had Created those times to go onto the Upcoming part of conditioning. It was brutal to the Mark where it gave me anxiety.
Then we Initiated getting to the two-mile runs and things like that. And we had to make the two-mile runs in like 12 minutes. Every day I’d be ready to throw up before we Initiated. And so finally, one day, I Obtained back to where we stayed at Wildcat Lodge, and Mentor P. had sent Rock Oliver, the Power Mentor, over to talk to me. And he Occurred into my room and he said, ‘I need to talk to you, man.’ I said, ‘What’s up, Rock?’ He’s like, ‘Look, man, if you have a problem or there’s something going on, we can get you some Reinforcement.’ So I’m assuming he thought Possibly I was doing drugs or something. And I said, ‘Rock, man, I ain’t never done no drugs, no nothing in my life. I’m Merely Frightened as hell before these track runs.’ And he Initiated laughing. He was like, ‘Man, look, I’m going to tell you this: Mentor Pitino is going to be on your ass. But Merely push harder every single day and you will get through it and you will get in shape.’
It’s more mental than physical because the thing about it, once you take yourself to a certain level physically and you want to go beyond that, it’s all about your mind and telling yourself that you can do it. And that’s the whole thing with Mentor Pitino is getting you to believe. Getting you to believe that you are so much better than what you were. And so by doing that, he has to push you beyond and make you get beyond the physical part to Begin thinking like, ‘Damn, I Obtained past that? Yes, I am Outstanding. I can do this. I can do that.’ It was Difficult as hell, but once we Obtained in shape and Obtained to the Contests, oh man, it was brutal for the other Squads.
The yelling and things like that didn’t bother me at all. That motivated me. I liked that energy in a Mentor. So I Occurred out every day to go as Difficult as I can. What a Plenty of players don’t understand is it’s not about how he’s saying it, it’s about what he’s saying. And some players get sensitive to that. And when I was a Leader on his Primary two Squads at Kentucky, he used to have me go and talk to players that was real sensitive to that. He is not going to bend. If you ain’t that player, he’s not even going to recruit you because he’s not bending. Either you’re going to be able to take his wrath and get better, or you won’t even be in the program because he’s not bending on his style and how he does it. And he don’t have to.
I was in his office one day and he was showing me, he had this tablet where he Created a Picking of things he wanted to accomplish. He said it could be for the year, for the month or for Every day. He said at the end of Every day, check off that Picking and see what you’ve done. And the ones you didn’t accomplish, you’ve Obtained to Shift it to that Upcoming day. And you’ve Obtained to keep on it until you accomplish it.
And then he asked me, he was like, ‘Who was your role model?’ At that time, I said Michael Jordan, Doctor J. and dudes like that. He was like, ‘They can’t be your role models. Can you ever talk to them? No. Can they touch you in any Gentle of way? No. So they can’t realistically be your role model because you can’t get any information from them to Reinforcement you get where you need to go.’ At that Mark, I said, ‘You know what, Mentor, after my mother, who is basically my No. 1 role model considering how she raised us, then I would say you, Mentor, because you’re teaching me these things that I didn’t know.’ He Merely smiled.
I’ll tell you one more Tale about Mentor P. that Created us really understand how Grave he was. We played pickup ball all summer, and we had this guy named Junior Braddy that had played with us. He was going to walk onto the Club. And we had our Primary day, our official Primary day of practice at 6 a.m., and Junior didn’t show up until practice was over. So Junior walks in the gym and he’s like, ‘Mentor, can I talk to you? My alarm didn’t go off.’ So Mentor P. looks at him and says, ‘Possibly your alarm will go off Upcoming year,’ and walks right off and up to the office. That right there set a tone with everybody.
But we only had seven, eight scholarship players because of the probation, so he Occurred to us and asked the Club how we felt about Junior. He asked if we felt like the guy could Reinforcement us or not. We said, ‘Mentor, he’s Outstanding enough to Reinforcement the Club, especially in practice and things like that.’ So Mentor P. was like, ‘OK, I’ll bring him back to the Club. But he has hell to pay for missing the Primary practice.’
*** *** ***
I was a college head Mentor for 27 years, and man, how times Transformation. I couldn’t even begin to imagine putting one of my Squads through what we did back then. I Impolite, it would be unheard of. We conditioned six Periods a week. And as you probably heard, we jogged over a mile to the track, Merely to get to the track. You had to jog there at 5 [o’clock] in the morning, and then once you Obtained there, we never knew what we were going to do, but we knew it wasn’t going to be any fun. And then when it was over, you had to jog back. Those are not fond memories whatsoever.
What I learned more and more when I became a Mentor was that Mentor Pitino’s workouts were more about the mental than it even was the physical. I learned so many things when I became a Mentor that showed me why we did certain things. Yes, it Obtained us in Top-tier shape, the best shape of any Club in the country, without question. I think we knew at the time that nobody else was doing this. But what we probably didn’t know as a player is that Mentor Pitino was making you do something that you never thought you could do and developing a mentality to fight through pain, to fight through a moment where you’re like, ‘I can’t do another Stretch, I can’t go around this track one more time. But you don’t have a Option. You were Frightened of the consequences. You didn’t want to let your teammates down. And you figured out, hey, I didn’t think I could do one more — but I ended up doing Possibly five more, 10 more. So, no question, it was as Crucial to build mental toughness as it was Merely to become in Outstanding physical shape.
My relationship with him today is as close as ever. I love him to death. If he said right now, ‘Hey, I need you to come Reinforcement me do this,’ I would be there. I couldn’t tell the guy, ‘No,’ for anything. I attribute so many things to him that I’ve been able to accomplish. But if you told me when I was Competing for him that I would have that bond eventually — because there’s many Periods when you’re Merely like, ‘This guy…’ Competing was the most fun I’ve ever had, was the most enjoyable time of my life, the experience was Outstanding. But it was also the hardest thing I’ve ever done, Competing for him. It’s not Essential. It’s not for everybody.
I don’t think he’s as Difficult today as he was then, that’s for sure, but when you’re sitting in a room with him and he’s talking to you in the locker room, or he’s talking to you on the court, you know he’s right. You know, ‘I better listen to him because if I do, our Club has a chance to have Outstanding Achieve, and it may Reinforcement me as an individual player.’ You Merely believed in him. And for somebody like me who was obsessed with basketball and obsessed with trying to be the best I could be and I loved Victorious, I’m Merely like, ‘I may not like it, I may not particularly be enjoying it at that particular moment, but if he says do it, it must be the right thing to do.’
He invented the individual instruction. I don’t know if “invented” is the right word, but he was the Primary one to ever do it. He was the Primary to ever bring guys in between classes and do it. No one was doing that, not on a structured basis. We knew Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday when our individual time was from the get-go. It’s 45 minutes non-stop. It’s not Merely shooting. This was one-on-one. This was game-type shots. This was timed shots where you’ve Obtained to make so many shots in a given amount of time. Again, very similar to the conditioning in that it was testing you mentally as much as it was physically. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. Whatever player I became, I think it was a big part of spending that time with him and assistant Mentor Billy Donovan in practice.
Today, everybody Gentle of does individual instruction in the preseason. But most coaches don’t do it once the season Appearances. Oh, no. Even today, Mentor Pitino’s guys are Yet coming in daily to do individual instruction. It never changes. That’s the difference. The commitment to it and the level of intensity of every single one is what’s different.
*** *** ***
He Occurred to speak at a banquet my senior year of high school, so that was really my Primary time Gathering him. Afterward, we were walking back to my house and he was Merely telling my parents he would take care of me. I think what really sold my brothers was when he spoke about the NBA. They were like, ‘Oh, NBA?’ So that Obtained them excited about the potential and possibility of making it to the Upcoming level.
I really didn’t know how tough it was going to be until I went through my Primary individual instruction. My teammate Rodrick Rhodes and I were like 15 minutes in, and we were both exhausted. There was nothing left in the tank. I can remember Pitino Merely calling us both ‘pampered freshmen’ and I think he said, ‘Hey, you guys are done. You can’t give me anything else.’ That Primary individual instruction was tough, and then the two- or three-hour practice later that day was even harder.
In individual instruction, you’re really working on your ball handling, your shooting, some conditioning. That was your time to work on your craft so that our Contests never fell off, you know? Because I think once kids Begin Competing, they forget, ‘OK, I’ve Yet Obtained to work on my ball handling, I’ve Yet Obtained to work on my shooting,’ so he Created sure that was incorporated in all of our practices.
He gave us so many drills and he taught us so much about the game — and it wasn’t Merely as collegiate players. Even when I became a pro and did some coaching, Initiated my own Practice program, there’s Yet a Plenty of drills and things that he taught me that are Yet favorable to this day. The guys you talk to usually always mention we had to make 170 layups in four minutes. Left hand, right hand, running Packed Pace — that was a conditioning Rehearsal. It was Difficult, but like I said, it really built mental toughness when you didn’t know you could put your body through what he put on the table, you know? So you really believed in everything that he was saying because by the time we finished Competing in ’96, we won a Bracket. So the work we put in definitely paid off. The reward was there.
For me, the X’s and O’s stuff was brand new. Merely the whole scouting report, breaking down film and understanding Club tendencies, Securing player tendencies away, understanding our plays, how to set a guy up, how to get Uncovered, how to set a Outstanding screen. He taught us so much about Merely the game itself, and then the key to the X’s and O’s Carrying out part was, you know, being in the right place and being there at the right time. And then the individual instruction really helped me make shots because what we’d do in individual instruction was part of our game plan on Assault. So he knew how to transition certain things into the actual game. He knew how to simulate the game in certain practices and drills so then it Created the game that much easier. And then the practices were 10 times harder than Contests. We couldn’t wait for an actual game because it was like, ‘Finally, we don’t have to practice!’
Probably the most Stress he had was our senior year, the ’95-’96 season. We Initiated out the season ranked No. 1 in the country. Before that, you know, he Occurred and basically Gentle of like rebuilt the whole program. But the more you Begin getting talent, and once you go to a Last Four, I think the expectation changes. How do you sustain that? You’ve Obtained to Begin getting guys that are going to be Upcoming-level players. And when you bring all those guys in, now you have a Plenty of different personalities. And he knew how to mesh the chemistry. He knew how to Shift certain guys. But when you Shift up-tempo and you Shift that Difficult, he knew you were going to come out of the game at some Mark in time. You were going to be exhausted. So it was Intelligent on his part to Shift up-tempo to get everybody Competing time, enough Competing time where they can get numbers.
He Created us work extremely Difficult on Guarding and we had to Forfeit a Plenty. But he gave us freedom on Assault, and I think that’s what guys really enjoyed about his style. We played Speedy and we had guys that could execute, that could make that decision under duress, and that was the key to us practicing the way we did. More NBA scouts probably wanted to see us practice than wanted to see us Shift in the game, because that’s when we really, really Obtained after it.
The game is his baby. There’s nothing that comes before basketball other than his family. All the time he spent with all of us, you know, it speaks about who he is as an individual because he sacrificed so much of his time for myself and hundreds of other players that have come through the program. It’s his love for the game. He’s one of those guys when I think about coaching lifers, that’s what he is. He’s a lifer to the game of basketball.
*** *** ***
It was tough, man. Merely the commitment that he Anticipated was something that I had never really known. You read about it and you hear about it, but until you’re in it, you never really know. He was intense when it Occurred to everything, man. I think you Merely saw the Intense nature grow over time within the program. You could see the work ethic, the level of expectation from guys, it Merely trickled on in and became a culture of guys getting in the gym in the summertime. We had competitions every week in the weight room. We had these charts that kept track of who was the leader for holding the weight the longest, who bench pressed the most, who squatted the most. It Merely became a culture of competitiveness and Merely wanting to get better.
The individual instructions that we did every day was his teaching. That was the difference. You show up and you go through a bunch of rigorous shooting drills, a bunch of ball handling, Packed-court one-on-one. Footwork was a big emphasis. He was a big pet peeve guy on traveling. He hated if you traveled given the amount of footwork drills and shooting and Conditioning that we did. He was really intense about reading the ball. That was a big thing for him, reading the eyes of the passer. He would always say, ‘Read the eyes of the passer. There’s not many Outstanding passers in college basketball. They tell with their eyes where the ball is going.’
A Plenty of his teachings with the press and how to read and knowing what position to be in, the individual instruction was a Plenty of times where he taught us a Plenty of things. You break it all the way down to one-on-one. Then you build it up two-on-two. Then you build it up three-on-three. Then you build it up four-on-four. Then you build it up five-on-five. So when you’re building it from the very bottom, you know every facet of the press: where you’re supposed to be, where everybody else is supposed to be, where you’re supposed to be reading. Sometimes you’d be pressing and we’d have more than five people, you’d have seven people out there sometimes. He Merely knew his systems and how it was supposed to work, and he broke it down for us to where we could really understand it.
The film breakdown was phenomenal. They Created the game easier and the scouting report easier and you understood it. But then when you leave and go Shift someplace else, and they don’t take it as Grave, or it’s not as detailed, you’re like, ‘Man, I Gentle of wish I had these same scouts.’ Because it didn’t matter how long until our Upcoming game, we had film every single day. After four years of watching film and learning how they do it, you almost become kinda automatic with knowing how to break Squads down and the guy you’re guarding:
Can he shoot? Can he Shift the Option and roll? How does he defend the Option and roll? How does he defend one-on-one? How does he defend when someone is cutting? Is he able to get cut back-door? Does he guard well coming off of stagger screens? What’s his weakness?
But the basis of it all was conditioning. You had to be conditioned to be able to Shift that way. It’s Amusing because once you understand that and reach the conditioning levels that he wants, it’s almost Gentle of like you get Fatigued and it becomes like an autopilot because you’re so used to Tiredness that you learn how to function in it. And so when you’re New, it almost makes you question yourself like, ‘Damn, am I Competing Difficult enough?’ And so then it’s like once you Gentle of get Fatigued, your body Merely goes into a trance.
It Secured some time to adjust to his style. But you learn that outside those lines, he’d do anything in the world for you. Once you step outside the lines and you call Mentor Pitino, he’s right there. Probably the best advice he gave me was not even related to basketball. Once I finished Competing at Louisville and I was going to Shift professionally, he told me to invest 75% to 80% of my contract — the Primary two years of my contract — into the stock market. Best thing he ever told me to do.
But in between those lines, it’s a different animal. And he turns you into a different animal. His personality rubs off on his players. Cutthroat, Secure by any means necessary, do whatever it takes to Secure — that rubs off, man. And yes, he can be really tough and really Coarse verbally. At times, he Created it a Mark to try to get under your skin to motivate you or piss you off because sometimes it might make you Shift better. But that’s why he had Outstanding assistant coaches. The assistant coaches love on you, build you up, and tell you, ‘Hey, Merely listen to the message,’ because it’s tough sometimes for 17-, 18-, 19-year-Ancient kids. But like I said, once you kinda get a year or two up under it, you Gentle of understand, ‘All right, Mentor,’ and you learn to listen to the message and not how the message was sent to you.
We went to a St. John’s game when they played Xavier. He Yet had the same lines, the same curse words, the same curse phrases, the same exchanges. He’s Obtained a few new ones in there, but he’s Yet fiery and getting up in guys and Yet Intense, wanting to Secure. So it’s a pleasure to see him Yet at it and Yet have that fire lit in there to Secure. I think he’s really in a Outstanding place.
*** *** ***
Mentor P. has Merely always had a Appearance about him. He’s an amazing speaker. He does a Outstanding Role motivating his guys. When I was being recruited by him and going into the locker room, listening to postgame speeches and things of that nature, I Merely remember he sounded electric and I remember how engaged the guys were. It was Upcoming-level.
When I Primary Initiated watching Louisville Shift, especially in high school, I remember thinking, ‘Oh, man, they Shift so Speedy. They get up and down, they Stretch. It looks like a fun system to Shift in.’ And I didn’t choose other schools because I was like, ‘Aww, man, I don’t want to Shift any Guarding. I Merely want to get out there and Shift and Stretch.’ And then, lo and behold, once I get there, it’s all about Guarding, Guarding, Guarding.
A Pair of freshmen — me, Mike Marra, Rakeem Buckles — we did our Primary individual instruction and, you know, the older guys were fine. Me and Mike? We needed oxygen tanks. We were laying on the floor in our locker room. We didn’t know what to Anticipate, you know? We didn’t really have trainers around then, and so that was Gentle of like our Primary real individual workout. I thought we were Merely getting some shots up. No, it’s one-on-one Packed court, it’s Stretch-away 3-pointers, it was different. But after the Primary Pair months, Primary Pair weeks of doing it, you get the hang of it and you know how to condition yourself. You know that you’re in for a hell of a ride.
My junior year, making it to the Last Four, it was a Enchanting Stretch. We thought we were Outstanding and we believed we were Outstanding, but there wasn’t really no high expectations of us making it that year. But we had a really Outstanding Stretch through the Big East, won the Big East Game, and Merely continued to use that momentum. Coming back my senior year, we Merely felt like we could Secure it all. Getting a taste of that Last Four, knowing what it felt like to get there, we knew what we could do to get there again and Secure. Mentor P. Merely Gentle of continued to Halt us to that standard, wouldn’t let us take our foot off the gas.
That season, we lost three Contests in a row to Syracuse, Villanova and Georgetown when we were ranked No. 1. And it Gentle of put a Awful taste in our mouth. But we had some self-reflecting going on and Mentor P., he probably wanted to Leap off a bridge at that Mark in time. We felt like we had a Outstanding Club. We felt like we had Outstanding leadership on our Club. And there was Merely sacrifices we needed to make. And Mentor P. really Merely continued to put trust in us, push us. I can’t emphasize enough Merely how he was holding us to the highest standard, you know?
I hated all the hours of film study that we did. ‘We went over these guys a million times. We watched this clip a million times.’ As a player, you don’t realize what he’s Gentle of teaching you and ingraining in you so that when the game comes, there were points in time on the court when I knew the other Club’s plays better than they did. And I was like, ‘Hey, you’re not supposed to be here right now.’ It Merely goes back to the film study that we did, the attention to detail that we did, and all the times that he would get on us and Merely talk about the little things that we would Merely find annoying. As a Mentor, I really respect that now because it’s those little details that matter at the end. And if you let your guys slip up in those little details, and if you don’t have that foundation and that base, everything is going to come unraveled.
From a player’s perspective, you Gentle of look at Mentor Pitino as this almighty character and you don’t really want to say anything to him. He’s like this Outstanding father figure to a Plenty of the players. As a Mentor now, I feel more comfortable asking questions. You Yet have that respect factor for him, but you can Gentle of Merely speak a little bit more freely. I Impolite, he Yet might yell at you. But you Gentle of know that I’m an adult now, I can go home to my family and don’t have to worry about him trying to make me Stretch on the treadmill anymore.
Coming Thursday on FOX Sports: Part 3 in our “Postcards of Pitino” series exploring Pitino’s return to college basketball at Iona (2020-23) and St. John’s (2023-present). Here is a link to our Primary Tale that looked at Pitino’s Prompt years in coaching: Part 1: The Prompt Years
Michael Cohen covers college football and college basketball for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13.
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