Rick Pitino
Coach — born 1952
Rick Pitino is an American basketball coach who led three different schools to a Final Four—the only one in NCAA history to do so.
Rick Pitino is an American Hall of Fame former NCAA Division I men's basketball head coach whose four-decade career produced two NCAA Division I men's basketball national championships (1996 at the University of Kentucky, 2013 at the University of Louisville) — making him the only head coach in NCAA Division I men's basketball history to win NCAA national championships at two different schools. He was born Richard Andrew Pitino on September 18, 1952, in Manhattan, New York City, into an Italian-American working-class family. His father Salvatore Pitino was an Italian-American truck-driver, and his mother Charlotte Pitino was a homemaker.
His college basketball career at the University of Massachusetts Amherst across 1970–1974 under coach Jack Leaman produced his 1974 graduation as a four-year letterman point-guard. His 1975 first NCAA Division I men's basketball assistant-coaching position at the University of Hawaii under coach Bruce O'Neil launched his early-career American college-basketball-coaching career.
His 1978–1983 first head-coaching tenure at Boston University and his subsequent 1983–1985 New York Knicks NBA assistant-coaching tenure produced his early-career American college-and-NBA basketball-coaching public profile. His 1985–1987 head-coaching tenure at Providence College — across which he led Providence to the 1987 NCAA Division I men's basketball Final Four appearance — launched his late-1980s American college-basketball-coaching public profile.
His subsequent 1987–1989 New York Knicks NBA head-coaching tenure (across which he produced the Knicks' first NBA Playoffs appearance since 1984) preceded his 1989–1997 University of Kentucky head-coaching tenure. The 1996 NCAA Division I men's basketball national championship — at the East Rutherford, New Jersey Continental Airlines Arena on April 1, 1996, with Wildcats players Tony Delk and Antoine Walker — produced his 1990s American college-basketball-coaching public profile.
His subsequent 1997–2001 Boston Celtics NBA head-coaching tenure preceded his 2001–2017 University of Louisville head-coaching tenure. The 2013 NCAA Division I men's basketball national championship at Louisville (alongside Russ Smith and Luke Hancock) — and the subsequent September 27, 2017 NCAA-FBI investigation-related Louisville departure — shaped his later biographical narrative. He has continued his American college-and-international basketball-coaching career through his 2018–2022 head-coaching tenure with the Greek Basket League's Panathinaikos team, and his 2022–present St. John's University head-coaching position. He has been with American homemaker Joanne Pitino since 1976, and the couple has six children.
His name Rick is the English short form of Richard (from the Old Germanic root meaning "powerful ruler"). Rick was a popular American boys' name across the mid-to-late 20th century.
About the name Rick
Gender: Male · Origin: English
Abbreviation Of Richard Powerful: Strong Ruler.