Background and career
Richard Andrew Pitino (; born September 18, 1952) is an American basketball coach who is the head men's basketball coach at St. John's University. He has been the head coach of several teams in NCAA Division I and in the NBA, including Boston University (1978–1983), Providence College (1985–1987), the New York Knicks (1987–1989), the University of Kentucky (1989–1997), the Boston Celtics (1997–2001), the University of Louisville (2001–2017), Panathinaikos of the Greek Basket League and EuroLeague (2018–2020), and Iona University (2020–2023). He was also the head coach of Greece's senior national team. Pitino led Kentucky to an NCAA championship in 1996. In 2013, his Louisville team won the national championship and he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In June 2017, the NCAA suspended Pitino for five games of the 2017–18 season for a perceived lack of oversight in an escort sex scandal at the University of Louisville involving recruits. Louisville's national championship from 2013 was eventually vacated, and the university's appeal was denied. In September, Pitino was implicated in a separate federal investigation involving bribes to recruits, which resulted in Louisville firing him for cause. He soon returned to coaching after a brief stint as a broadcaster, and was later exonerated of the bribery accusation. On March 20, 2023, he was named head basketball coach at St. John's University. Since taking over at St. John's, Pitino has led the program to back-to-back Big East regular season and tournament championships in 2025 and 2026.
Pitino was born in New York City, and was raised in Bayville, New York, on Long Island. He was the team captain of the St. Dominic High School basketball team in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Pitino enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1970. At a listed height of 1.83 metres (6 feet 0 inches) tall, he was a point guard for the Minutemen basketball team. Pitino held the tenth spot at UMass for career assists, with 329, until 2014. He led the team in assists as a junior and senior. The 168 assists as a senior is the eighth-best single season total ever there. Pitino was a freshman at the same time future NBA legend Julius Erving spent his junior (and final) year at UMass, although the two never played on the same team because freshmen were ineligible to play varsity basketball at the time. Other teammates of Pitino's include Al Skinner, who also went on to become a successful college coach, and baseball player Mike Flanagan, who went on to pitch in the major leagues and win the AL Cy Young Award in 1979. Pitino earned his degree from UMass in 1974.
Pitino started his coaching career as a graduate assistant at the University of Hawaii in 1974, and became a full-time assistant in 1975. Pitino served as Hawaii's interim head coach late in the 1975–76 season. Coach Bruce O'Neil was fired after the Rainbow Warriors started the season 9–12. Pitino led Hawaii for their final six games, going 2–4 in the span.
Pitino's time at Hawaii was marred by a 1977 NCAA report on sanctions against the program. According to the report, Pitino was implicated in 8 of the 64 infractions that led the university to be placed on probation. The violations involving Pitino included providing round-trip air fare for a player between New York and Honolulu, arranging for student-athletes to receive used cars for season tickets, and handing out coupons to players for free food at McDonald's. He was also cited, along with the head coach, Bruce O'Neil, for providing misinformation to the NCAA and University of Hawaii officials. Also in 1977, the NCAA infractions committee recommended that Pitino and O'Neil be dissociated from Hawaii athletics. In 1989, Pitino would dismiss the report, saying "I didn't make any mistakes. I don't care what anybody says."
Pitino was the first assistant hired by Jim Boeheim in 1976 as Boeheim began his tenure at Syracuse University.
In 1978, Boston University athletic director John Simpson hired Pitino as head coach, funding the Terriers men's basketball team with $20,000 for recruiting players and fifteen full scholarships, the maximum allowed under NCAA rules and far more than prior head coach Roy Sigler was allotted. As compensation, Pitino received a Renault Le Car and an annual salary of $17,500. In the two seasons before Pitino's arrival, the Terriers had won a mere 17 games. During his 5-year tenure, the team slogan was, "the hardest working coach, for the hardest working team in the country." Pitino used the full-court press for almost the entirety of each game, eventually leading the Terriers to their first NCAA tournament appearance in 24 years.
