Oh, the hardships assistant coaches go through.
During Wednesday’s Spurs-Warriors broadcast, commentator Jeff Van Gundy told a story of when Rick Pitino made him take his son Richard, who’s now a college coach at Minnesota, to the carnival.
Van Gundy was an assistant under Pitino at Providence from 1986 to 1987. So Richard Pitino was somewhere between three and five years old during this story.
Thankfully, Van Gundy has never just stuck to sports. This time that led him in a funny direction.
Here’s how he remembered it:
“Rick Pitino made me take little Richard Pitino, now the head coach of Minnesota, to the carnival one time. And that was the worst. Richard Pitino at that time, Rick gave me like 10 bucks, and he said when it’s out, it’s out. And the kid burned through the money in like the first 10 minutes and looked at me like I was gonna chip in. I had no money. So Richard Pitino, you were a brat that night.”
That little brat is now the Big Ten Coach of the Year. You never know where greatness will come from.
About Jesse Kramer
Jesse is a writer and editor for The Comeback. He has also worked for SI.com and runs The Catch and Shoot, a college basketball website based in Chicago. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow Jesse on Twitter @Jesse_Kramer.