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Pitino Says He'll Kill Himself If The Team Plays This Bad Next Season
[The Boston Globe Online][Boston.com]
[Boston Globe Online / Sports]
Critical adjustment in Pitino's remarks
By Peter May, Globe Staff, 03/30/99
WALTHAM - Rick
Pitino said
yesterday that he was
only kidding. He's not
belittling the talk
radio callers who
question his moves and
his team. He, of all
people, wants everyone
to lighten up.
''With the situation we're in, why can't
people understand that?'' he said
following the team's final practice at
Brandeis. They move into their new
facility tomorrow.
After Sunday's loss to Indiana, Pitino
said, ''I want people to be negative on
me. I want people to create that
adversity, because we'll deal with it and
get better ... The 4 percent of the people
who don't work for a living and call in
those shows, I'm not talking about those
people. I'm talking about the people who
are gainfully employed and work hard in
life.''
Asked yesterday about whether he had
become the Marquis de Pitino, the coach
again said he feels the ongoing adversity
will, in the long run, prove to be a
positive.
''So in the interim, yeah, come after me
all you want,'' he said. ''I'll take it. I
deserve it.''
He said people should not have expected
better things from his team this year
because of the lockout and the team's
youth.
''If it was that easy to be that much
better, then this league is not good,'' he
said. ''If you can do without practice,
without preparation, or without
conditioning, then I don't think this
league is very much, especially with this
basketball team.''
But next year, well, that's another story.
They'll be older and wiser, and Pitino has
all but promised a playoff berth, based on
his belief that the team also will be in
better shape, mentally and physically.
If things go badly next year, he said,
''Not only will I take it, I'll kill
myself. So you don't have to worry about
killing me because I'll kill me. The best
bridge to hang from is the BU Bridge.
That's what I love the most is the BU
Bridge because of starting out there at a
very young age.''
Basketball has pretty much dropped to
topic No. 2 these days behind Team
Psychology. If it's not the players'
angst, it's the coach's public embrace of
the bad times. Pitino spends almost as
much time talking about the ''fellowship
of the miserable'' - his phrase for those
who listen to sports talk radio - as he
does about the reasons his team is 9-18.
''I was kidding around when I call it the
fellowship of the miserable,'' he said.
''I say that tongue-in-cheek. If anyone
asks me to go on a radio show with the
fellowship of the miserable, I'll be on
it. That's my job. But I'm joking
around.''
He wasn't joking, however, when he talked
about people who don't understand the big
picture.
''What I don't like from the fellowship of
the miserable,'' he said, ''is don't not
understand the situation. And don't even
take into consideration that we're in the
second year with a young team without
practice, without conditioning. We all got
locked out. So, don't start the
negativity. I don't want to hear that.''
He said Antoine Walker showed ''great
character'' in playing well against
Indiana after getting booed mercilessly in
the two previous games at the FleetCenter,
in which Walker was 3 for 29 from the
field. He said what the people want and
deserve are performances like the victory
Friday in Philadelphia and the loss to
Indiana on Sunday.
''I've noticed a tremendous change in the
players' attitude in the last two games,''
he said.
He added, ''Losing is not good. I think
adversity is good. Adversity, if you have
character, brings out the best. If you
don't have character, it brings out the
worst. I think all this adversity is
good.''
This story ran on page C05 of the Boston
Globe on 03/30/99.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.