For nearly two decades, Rick Pitino was a villain for Kentucky basketball fans, a man whose life and career had an almost Shakespearean arc.
After leading the Wildcats from the depths of scandal to championship glory, and after an ill-fated three-year run with the Boston Celtics, Pitino surprised many nationally and angered hundreds of thousands of people throughout the community by returning to the college game to coach the archrival. Louisville.
Nearly 25 years after being hired at Louisville, Pitino seems eager to mend fences with Big Blue Nation — and offer them some money, too.
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On a appearance Thursday on Kentucky Sports Radio — which was being hosted that day by the hosts of the popular “Pardon My Take” podcast — the legendary coach, now at St. John’s, said he has donated money to Kentucky football’s NIL initiatives and would be happy to do the same for Mark Pope and the Wildcats’ basketball program as its former player begins his first season as Kentucky’s head coach.
“Well, I actually cut the football program a check because I’m casual friends with Mark (Stoops) and Eddie Gran,” Pitino said. “I cut the football program a check. I would definitely write a check if Mark (Pope) needs me for anything, no matter what it is – except for my firstborn, Michael – he can have it.”
The Kentucky connections go beyond the basketball and football programs, as Pitino noted later in the interview that he texted Wildcats baseball coach Nick Mingione, who guided the program to its first College World Series this year, wishing you good luck. luck.
While his relationship with Stoops — whose tenure at Kentucky overlapped with Pitino’s four-year stint at Louisville — was not widely known, Pitino’s connections to Pope were well established.
He coached Pope from 1993-96, a successful run that included a national championship in 1996 with one of the most dominant and star-studded teams in college basketball history. Pitino gave his former center a full endorsement when Pope was named John Calipari’s successor in April, helping to ease what had until then been intense public angst over the hire. At that time, Pitino added that he would donate NIL funds to the program if necessary.
“I absolutely love Mark (Pope) and would do anything for his program,” Pitino said Thursday. “I always called the University of Kentucky Camelot my name. I never had a bad year, I never had a bad day. They treated me like a king.”
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Although Pitino, even during his time at Louisville, had long referred to Kentucky as “Camelot,” he has been much more vocal in recent months about his reverence for the program and his fond memories of his eight seasons in Lexington from 1989-97. .
In a March interview on “Pardon My Take,” Pitino expressed regret about leaving Kentucky in 1997 to become the coach and president of the Celtics.
“Dick Vitale, every time I talk to him, ‘If you had stayed at Kentucky, you would have had more wins than any coach,’” Pitino said.
Pitino compared his treatment at Kentucky to Louisville, where he coached from 2001 to 2017 and led the Cardinals to their third national championship but where he was fired in 2017 after the program was connected to the FBI investigation into corruption in college basketball.
In 2023, Pitino was exonerated by the NCAA’s Independent Accountability Resolution Process, which did not directly link him to any of the violations that occurred with the Cardinals’ recruitment of former five-star prospect Brian Bowen. Still, Pitino said he would only consider returning to Louisville for any type of flag-raising or ceremony if the university reconciled with former athletic director Tom Jurich, who was also fired in October 2017 following the FBI investigation.
“They treated me with great respect,” Pitino said Thursday about Kentucky. “Obviously, I wasn’t treated very well when I was at Louisville, but looking at it and examining it today, I completely understand why. So I really like the University of Kentucky.”
This article originally appeared in the Louisville Courier Journal: Rick Pitino donated to Kentucky football’s NIL and would do the same for basketball
