Rick Pitino has finally accepted that he’s done coaching
It was obvious to most people, but Rick Pitino has finally acknowledged he’ll never coach again.
In the wake of his dismissal at Louisville, as the FBI starting investigating college basketball and a 2013 national title was stripped, Rick Pitino plead ignorance as much as his own innocence on the accusation the family of top recruit Brian Bowen received money.
Pitino’s’ coaching resume on the college level would get him another job quickly, but he’s clearly tarnished to a point of no return now. He’s also got a book coming out this week, so he has surfaced making the media rounds.
In interviews with ESPN and Jeff Greer of the Louisville Courier-Journal, PItino followed what he wrote in his book with acknowledgements that he is done coaching.
"“Since leaving Louisville, my agent has reached out when NBA openings have surfaced,” Pitino wrote.“We couldn’t even get an interview. I can’t blame the general managers who turned me down. Louisville fired me so abruptly, it instantly created the impression that I must be guilty of something.”“I’m not considering coaching, period,” he said to the Courier-Journal."
"There was one job this past year, that I really did want. They called the NCAA and the NCAA said, ‘We’re handcuffed. The FBI will not allow us to investigate, we can’t give you a yes or no on Rick Pitino because we’re not allowed to investigate,’. “I’m not really thinking about coaching again in the future because I’m not in control of that. I feel it’s over for me."
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Pitino said he plans to work with around 20 college programs as a consultant, with some focus on how to conduct good practices and workouts. He’s also set to launch a podcast. So he’ll remain close to college basketball in some capacity, and his podcast will presumable be focused on basketball or success/motivation in line with previous books he has written.