Pitino Pals With George Clooney; Buys House IN Boston

[Way Of The Ray <wayray@ix.netcom.com>]

      Boston Herald
      Inside Track       

       Pitino makes inside move to Hub 
      by Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa 
      Friday, October 8, 1999
      Boston Celtics hoop honcho Rick Pitino is getting ready to pack up the 
      Ponderosa out in swank Sherborn and set the family up in Boston's tony 
      Back Bay. 
      Pitino, who still has the ``For Sale'' sign up on the lawn of his $2.45 
      million 11-room Colonial, told the Track he, wife Joanne and the kids are 
      moving into their new digs on Commonwealth Avenue Dec. 1 whether he sells 
      the Sherborn house or not.
      Well, it's not like the coach needs a bridge loan from Citizens Bank or 
      anything!
      The Pitinos' new Back Bay abode costs in the neighborhood of $5 million to 
      $6 million, according to real estate sources. Nice neighborhood!
      The Celtics cheese - who pitched the Pitino tent in the Hub during his 
      Boston University coaching days - said traveling is the reason he and the 
      family are moving into Boston.
      ``I spend 75 nights a year in Boston and I live 45 minutes away,'' he 
      said. ``And my two younger kids go to school in Newton, which is only six 
      miles from the city and they can certainly use the shorter commute.''
      Well, we cannot wait for the coach to pop up on the Track's radar screen. 
      It's sure to be a wild winter!
      In other Pitino news, the coach says after a round robin of telephone 
      calls and aborted plans for a pick-up game, he finally got together with 
      his buddy, George Clooney, when the ex-``ER'' stud was here filming ``The 
      Perfect Storm.''
      ``We hooked up at the airport when I was flying in and he was flying 
      out,'' said the coach, who met the Kentucky-born Hollywood hunk when he 
      was coaching college hoop in the Bluegrass State.
      The basketball buddies met when the University of Kentucky Wildcats were 
      in the NCAA Final Four in 1996 and Clooney, being a Lexington homeboy, 
      took in the championship courtside with the Pitino family.
      ``My wife has such a crush on him,'' he said. ``In fact, a couple of weeks 
      ago when she was waiting for me at Signature Air, someone told her that 
      Clooney was there and I swear she made a beeline through the window to see 
      him - forget the door.''
      And who could blame her???