Pitino Explains How Close He Was to Becoming Michigan's Coach in 2001

Submitted by BursleyHall82 on

This has been covered in the other Pitino threads, but it's worthy of its own thread. Here's an article from 2013 in which Pitino explains how close he was to becoming our coach in 2001. He actually accepted the job and had to call Bill Martin to tell him he changed his mind. It was Pitino's wife who killed the deal:

"My wife doesn't swear. She didn't want to go to Michigan because I never visited there, I didn't know anybody there. She wanted to go back to Kentucky where she saw the family so happy for eight years.”

Yeah, the family ended up being really happy in Kentucky.

Quite fittingly, the last college basketball game that Rick Pitino will ever coach was against Michigan.

He lost.

Here's the article: http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2013/04/rick_pitino_didnt_tak…

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CarrIsMyHomeboy

September 27th, 2017 at 1:16 PM ^

If you agree with the tenets of the Fundamental Attribution Error, it's always illogical to judge people on the basis of the things they do. The only non-dissonant judgments are judgments of behaviors on their own merit. Which, intriguingly, leaves open the possibility that there's no such thing as a "bad person," merely a confluence of people of the generic type who, given each of their circumstances, sometimes (or often) happen to do really shitty things.

As it relates to Petrino, we can't, without risking cognitive dissonance, call him a bad person. But we can say he's done some shitty things. But if all those shitty things are some fraction dependent upon his environment, it's possible he would not have executed any of these recruiting infractions had he been in a less toxic environment -- at Michigan, for example.

In sum, I conclude (and welcome you to join me as such) that the University of Louisville is an environment wholly incompatible with the goodness of mankind.

Joined: 06/30/2008

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blueblooded14

September 27th, 2017 at 1:46 PM ^

If there is one understandable mistake to make with college coaches names (other than Mike Dantonio/Mark D'Antonio) it's Rick Pitino and Bobby Petrino. Same school, same shit, and very similar last names. 

To the substantive point at hand - U of L does seem more than complicit in the fuckery. It might not be just a shitty person problem here.

Joined: 01/27/2013

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Inflammable Flame

September 27th, 2017 at 2:03 PM ^

I'm sure I'm not the only one who got it...basically, to go back in time and say he would've done exactly the same things in a completely different environment can't be held as fact. You are a product of your environment. Who knows...could've been worse, could've been better, could've done the same thing.

Joined: 11/14/2015

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RamblerRobotics

September 27th, 2017 at 1:16 PM ^

A crisis averted because of a squash game. If I remember correctly, Bill Martin tried to hire Les Miles but he was boating when Miles tried to call him. I’m glad everything worked out but man, this guy sucked at his job.

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