‘The early years of Rick Pitino: How going through that experience propelled him for life’

More than 40 years after he last suited up for Rick Pitino in the early 1980s, at which point the eventual Hall of Famer was partway through a reinvigoration of the Boston University men’s basketball program, Mark Fiedor can always tell when his former coach is generating new headlines at St. John’s, the latest school to reap the rewards of the sport’s most indelible architect. Fiedor’s phone will buzz with messages from his extended family, from his son, from people he goes to church with, from the group chat with his old Terriers teammates, from anyone with whom he’s shared stories of what Fiedor now calls one of the most formative experiences of his life.

They’re all transfixed by what Pitino, 72, is doing in his second season with the Red Storm, the way he’s enlivened another dormant program through an inimitable blend of savvy, steel and shrapnel that everybody who’s ever shared a court with the two-time national champion and seven-time Final Four participant knows all too well. A video clip of Pitino admonishing his team during a halftime speech at Providence earlier this season electrified social media for days — “On a scale of one to 10, this was like a three,” Fiedor told FOX Sports. “He’s cleaned up his language a lot.” — and the reception he now receives during home games at Madison Square Garden, where the team is fresh off a Big East Tournament title, is borderline papal. In elevating St. John’s to the school’s first outright Big East title since 1985 and an overall record of 30-4, good enough for a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, he’s catapulted both himself and the Red Storm into the mainstream media landscape, evidenced by an appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” during the final week of the regular season. No program across the country is hotter than St. John’s.

But what is it really like to live in Pitino’s world, to spend hour after hour, day after day, at the mercy of a coach whose passion for basketball borders on maniacal? How is that so many of his former pupils remain loyal to him for decades — forever, even — knowing full well the kind of physical and mental strain he subjected them to as teenagers and young adults? Even players who haven’t maintained friendships with Pitino still speak about him with the utmost respect.

“I think Coach Pitino is hardworking, he’s intelligent, he’s visionary, he’s loyal,” Fiedor told FOX Sports. “I haven’t asked for anything from him. But I know some of the guys that have played for him that are my teammates, you know, he cares about them, he’s in communication with them because they’re in communication with him. So he’s a loyal guy. And I think that that’s one of the things now with AAU and with the way college sports are, loyalty is sort of the forgotten quality. And if you’re loyal, I would tell the guys that are there right now, ‘Stay loyal, even if it’s tough. Stay loyal to the program and to what he’s doing and to him. And if you do, it’s a payoff for a lifetime.'”

To better understand that dynamic, FOX Sports spoke with 15 of Pitino’s former players, ranging from his time as an assistant coach under Jim Boeheim at Syracuse (1976-78) through his current role at St. John’s (2023-present), along with the handful of collegiate stops he made in between: at Boston University from 1978-83, at Providence College from 1985-87, at Kentucky from 1989-97, at Louisville from 2001-17 and at Iona from 2020-23.

This is the first in a three-part series titled Postcards of Pitino. We begin with The Early Years, a segment of Pitino’s career that culminated in a Final Four appearance during his second season leading the Friars.

Editor’s note: The following accounts were edited for length, clarity and flow.

From: Marty Headd, SG, Syracuse (1977-81)
Career stats: 10.9 points and 1.7 assists per game in 106 appearances
Years with Pitino: 1

I signed with Syracuse the first day of classes my senior year, so I was exposed to Pitino for two years total, but I played for him for one. He basically told me he’d never recruit me, that Jim Boeheim made a mistake, that I never should have been recruited. But since I was, he’d work with me. When I was a senior in high school, Pitino wanted to play one on one with me at Manley Field House. We were gonna do it for a week before SU’s practice and before my high school’s practice. So I went down there and we played one on one, and I basically crushed him. He cut it short to like Wednesday, but he found out what he needed to find out about me.

He announced in front of other players — I’m still in high school — that he was gonna go find somebody to play with me, meaning someone with speed. And he went with small forward Louis Orr down to an All-Star game in New York City. And to make a long story short, he came back with my partner, Eddie Moss. We didn’t like each other at first, but Pitino found my partner, who was a defensive specialist, and that really made a world of difference for me. I went on to become a three-year starter, averaged double figures each year, scored 1,200 or so points, drafted by the New York Knicks, played overseas. But without Eddie, I don’t get off and get going on that path.

Pitino, he really helped me. But he didn’t like my game whatsoever. And that shows an open-mindedness to the guy. He told me, ‘I never would have recruited you.’ But he really liked how much I improved and how much I worked at my game. I don’t think I could have asked for a better career, and Pitino was right there with me and helped guide me.

Rick used to like to stand up during games, and you could tell right then that he was meant to be a head coach. And he wanted to get in and get going in terms of the game. And there were too many cooks in the kitchen — and I think Pitino knew it and Boeheim knew it. Boeheim actually put up with him standing up and talking to the refs because he realized this young guy Pitino, he can’t help himself. And within a couple of years, Pitino had moved on. It just wasn’t gonna work because Boeheim is a dictator. And there’s just no room for two of those guys because Pitino was kind of just doing the same type of thing.

I gotta say, there were some guys that were pretty happy when Pitino left. And it wasn’t because he wasn’t a good coach. It was just, ‘You’re too much. You’re meant to be a head coach.’ Assistants are a little different. They’re not in on every god damn thing you’re doing. They make suggestions and move on. So Pit really got, in a way, too big for his britches real quick because he wanted to be a head coach. He had enough ability to be a head coach, but it was limiting him with Boeheim because it’s like having two Popes. You can’t have two Popes.

But I think we were playing up at Boston College when we were seniors. Eddie shouted at me, he goes, ‘Come here!’ And I go over quick — it’s a foul shot, so somebody is shooting a free throw — and he goes, ‘Over there!’ and it was Pitino watching from the stands. He had come to the game to see me and Eddie and everybody else. He kind of waved to me and Eddie and he was just so proud of us that we had made it, that we had got the most out of our ability and that we were seniors, we punched through. He went out of his way to come see that game.

Even though I went into this interview saying I kind of don’t like Pitino and he’s a little bit kooky and this and that, he’s a really, really good judge of talent. And in order to turn your game around, he has incredible suggestions. He’s a good man. But he’s so confident and sharp with his criticisms and stuff that he can alienate you a little bit. It’s something like you open a bubbly can of soda or something and you taste it and you don’t like it. I never liked Pitino — the taste of it — or just him. But I gotta respect it.

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