PHOENIX — It began with their first meeting, when Rick Pitino was named the new head coach at Providence and Friars guard Billy Donovan was thinking about transferring to another school.
“I really think what happens to most people, especially when you’re young, when it’s not going well for you, you have a tendency to look at a change being better and maybe you don’t look at yourself in terms of what you’ve got to do to get better,” Donovan was saying yesterday recalling his first meeting with Pitino all those years ago. “I don’t think that my commitment was where it needed to be to play in the Big East and at that level.”
Pitino summoned Donovan into his office and told the youngster if he listened to his coach, lost some weight, and dedicated himself to the program, playing for the Friars would be “the greatest two-year experience of your life.” It was.
VIDEO: COACH, PLAYER REACTIONS
Donovan and the Friars went to the Final Four in 1987, strengthening a bond between a player and coach that continues to thrive. Donovan went on to serve as an assistant coach under Pitino before shaping a successful head coaching career at Florida.
The mentor and the protégé meet in the NCAA tournament West Region final tonight at US Airways Center where Pitino-led No. 4 seed Louisville (28-9) takes on the seventh-seeded Gators (26-10). The winner advances to the Final Four in New Orleans.
In his 27th season as a collegiate head coach, Pitino’s coaching tree stretches virtually from one coast to the other, but no one is more closely associated with him than Donovan, who has won two national championships in his 15 years at Florida. One key to Donovan’s success is something he learned as player and assistant coach under Pitino.
“I realized playing for him how important it is to raise a player’s self-esteem,” said Donovan. “Belief and commitment by a coach in a player can take him to a different level.”
That surprising run to the 1987 Final Four continues to impact both the coach and former player. Its memory helped Pitino keep faith in this season’s Cardinals after they lost three of their final four regular-season games before winning the Big East tournament.
“Because of what happened at Providence, I’ve always dreamed about being here,” Pitino said. “I’ve never stopped dreaming because of what Billy and that team did.”
Pitino, the first coach to take three different schools to the Final Four, won a national championship at Kentucky in 1996. Donovan won back-to-back titles in 2006 and 2007. After winning his first, Donovan waved Pitino down from the stands in Indianapolis to join him in celebrating the moment. Pitino soon was in tears.
“I was so proud of him,” Pitino said, “and I thought how lucky a guy I am that he wants to share this moment with me.”
Donovan and Pitino spent nearly two hours yesterday talking about how they have impacted each other’s lives and the basketball philosophies they share.
If you want to know what Pitino thinks of Donovan, consider what he said about his son Richard, who is on the Cardinals coaching staff after serving the previous two seasons under Donovan at Florida.
“I hope he turns out one day to be another Billy Donovan,” Rick Pitino said. “That would be terrific.”