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Rick Pitino, who was fired as the University of Louisville's men's basketball coach amid a pay-for-play scandal in 2017, will be the new coach at Iona College, the institution announced Saturday.
“Rick has demonstrated that he cares deeply about helping student-athletes achieve great success on and off the court,” Iona's president, Seamus Carey, said in a news release. “After a thorough interview process we are confident that Rick’s experience and commitment to Iona and our community make him the right person to continue to build on Tim Cluess’ success. We welcome Rick and his family to New Rochelle and look forward to accomplishing big things together.”
The "thorough interview process" is as close as Iona came to acknowledging any issues with hiring Pitino. But the enormously successful coach has a checkered past, as Sports Illustrated noted in an article whose summary called him "a coaching genius" and "a rules compliance disaster … Iona will own every criticism out there for its craven, just-win hire."
The college may not have to wait to see if Pitino ends up breaking rules a few years now to feel the sting of the hire. The National Collegiate Athletic Association will be releasing its findings on Louisville's rule breaking soon, and its infractions report could (as such NCAA reports often do) include restrictions on Pitino's ability to recruit or perform other aspects of his coaching job.
