Rick Pitino was born on September 18, 1952, in New York, New York. The Italian American grew up in the Village of Bayville and in High School was the captain of the St. Dominic High School basketball team. He went to college at UMass from 1970-74, and was an outstanding point guard for the minutemen.
Pitino’s first Head Coaching job came at Boston University in 1978. He led the team to the NCAA Tournament for he first time in 24 years.
He then left Boston University and went to the New York Nicks (NBA team) and became an assistant coach under Hubie Brown. He then left and became the head coach at Providence in 1985. The team went 11-20 before Pitino came, and in two years he got them to the Final Four.
After spending two years coaching in the NBA, Pitino came back to college level and became the head coach at Kentucky in 1989. The once legendary Kentucky basketball program was falling to pieces. The program was suffering from a major recruitment scandal that was brought on by former UK head coach Eddie Sutton that left UK on NCAA Probation. Pitino quickly restored Kentucky’s reputation and led them to the Final Four in 1993. Then three years later, Rick Pitino would get Kentucky’s 6th National title (1996), Kentucky’s first NCAA Title in 18 years. Pitino left UK after the 1997 season and returned to the NBA again, but returned to coach another college team which would be Louisville in 2001. Pitino finished at UK with a record of 104-28
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