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Louisville's Pitino
Has Another Gig
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Sidekick Terry Meiners,
left, shows the studio audience a copy of Louisville coach Rick Pitino's
"revised resume," Sunday, Dec. 16, 2001, during a taping of Pitino's
weekly show at Jillian's Sports Bar in Louisville, KY.
AP Photo: Brian Bohannon |
By CHRIS DUNCAN
AP Sports Writer
LOUISVILLE, KY (AP) � A fire-eating woman the
first week. A magic show the second. A dread-locked comedian the third.
Louisville coach Rick Pitino's weekly show
isn't the typical highlight-laden summation of last week's games and look-aheads
to upcoming opponents. Pitino tapes the show before a live audience on
Sunday afternoons at a sports bar. More than 100 red-clad fans gathered for
a recent taping.
Dressed in his trademark dark suit, Pitino sits
behind a wooden desk with a Cardinals' logo affixed to the front. Terry
Meiners, a radio personality and one of Pitino's closest friends, serves as
the sidekick, sitting next to him in a leather lounge chair.
Instead of an opening monologue, Pitino dives
into a list of his top five sports events from the previous week.
Last week's list included a jab at George
O'Leary, who resigned as Notre Dame's football coach after admitting
inaccuracies in his resume.
Meiners produced a copy of Pitino's 'revised
resume':
``I've done some neat stuff. If you hire me,
I'll do some neat stuff for you, too,'' Meiners read.
``I can't lie on that resume,'' Pitino quipped.
Louisville forward Luke Whitehead's frightening
headfirst, feet-in-the-air fall in the Cardinals' win over Coppin State also
made the list. Whitehead wears his hair in braids, and Pitino laughed when
Meiners showed him and the audience a computer-doctored picture of the
carefully coifed coach with cornrows.
``I can't wait to braid it tonight,'' Pitino
said.
Next, Pitino introduced his weekly ``Hero Among
Us,'' the head of a local shelter for boys. He interviewed two Louisville
firefighters during one show and a nun who helps AIDS patients in another.
Another segment was a taped one-on-one game
between Bryant Northern and Sara Nord, high school classmates who are now
the point guards for the Louisville men's and women's teams.
Pitino officiated, and Nord won 5-4.
``Were you being a gentleman?'' Pitino asked an
embarrassed Northern after the game. ``Do you realize right now how much
you'll take? She wore you out. She's not even breathing heavy.''
Later, Pitino plucked a card from a red and
black bird cage. Pitino sold it as the ``Internet Question of the Week,''
but it turned out to be a gag, too.
Paul Hornung, the former Heisman Trophy winner
and NFL Hall of Famer who lives in Louisville, asked about the Cardinals'
training methods, saying he could lose a few pounds.
Spike Davis, a local comedian, took his own
playful shot at Pitino during a three-minute routine.
``I was supposed to be on a couple of weeks
ago, but I had to lose like 18 percent of my body weight,'' Davis said.
The only resemblance to a traditional coach's
show came at the end, when Pitino brought out Whitehead, and the two went
over 60 seconds of highlights from Louisville's last two games.
But Pitino also asked Whitehead how long it
would take to braid his hair.
``About an hour, but it's going to look really
nice. Your wife will love it,'' said Whitehead, Louisville's second-leading
scorer.
Pitino, in his first year in Louisville after
three-plus seasons coaching the Boston Celtics, got inspiration for the
show's format from St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli, who does his own
irreverent show in Philadelphia.
``I saw it once and I thought it was
hysterical,'' Pitino said. ``He's a little more off the cuff. I try to be a
little more organized, but his show was very good, very funny.''
A weekly show for the local Fox affiliate was
part of the contract Pitino signed when he was hired in March, returning to
the state where he coached the Kentucky Wildcats from 1989-97, winning the
national title in '96.
Immediately, he wanted to change the staid,
conventional format Hall of Fame ex-coach Denny Crum had used for 12 years.
``Every coach in the business has done these
shows. They're all the same,'' Pitino said. ``To me, I wouldn't call it
drudgery, but it was just repetitious, not a whole lot of variety. It was
just a rehash of things we went over in the post-game.
``I just wanted to do something a little
funnier, a little more entertaining.''
Meiners said he's gotten some negative feedback.
``This has ruffled some feathers among
traditionalists, who want to talk and hear about basketball all the time.
Fans have stopped me in the grocery store and they say, 'Hey, I want to see
more highlights,''' Meiners said.
Pitino said no one should take the show very
seriously.
``In these times, I feel like the more you can
laugh, the better. It truly is the best medicine,'' he said. ``It's just
something fun. I look forward to doing it.''
East Carolina will get a chance to see Pitino
at work in his day job when the Cardinals visit Greenville for a Conference
USA battle on January 16, and again on February 19 when the Pirates play at
Louisville.
AP-NY-12-20-01 2157EST
Copyright 2001
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
02/23/2007 10:47:46 AM
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