Sports

Serby’s Sunday Q&A with … Rick Pitino

On the eve of Saturday night’s Final Four showdown between Louisville and Kentucky, Cardinals coach, and former Wildcats coach, Rick Pitino blocked out some time to chat with Post columnist Steve Serby.

Q: In a movie about your life, what are three or four scenes that would be in it?

A: Probably start [with] my senior year in high school. I was going out with my wife, and everything revolved around basketball. She was a Jones Beach girl, would always want to go to Jones Beach, and I would always go to Prospect Park and play with Bob McKillop, and Seth Greenberg and his brother … and she would always be there. [I would promise] if we win the next day, I’d take her to Jones Beach, and I would never ever take her to Jones Beach. It was always in the gym all the time … “If we win these three games, four games, we’ll go.” I always had the excuse not to go, and just keep her in the gym. And our life was the gym, everything revolved around the gym. Sunday mornings was C.W. Post, a run there, Monday through Thursday was Prospect Park, and then we’d go to Queens for games. … My first couple of years at Hawaii, no money, making $2,500, it was during the disco era. I recruited all New Yorkers — Reggie Carter, Henry Hollingsworth, George Lett, Edward Torres from the Bronx — I brought six guys to Hawaii from New York. That was a great time, of being 22 and 23. Then Providence probably would be the most powerful part. Because it was triumph, and tragedy.

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Q: On your way back to Providence from the Big East tournament, a state trooper pulled the bus over.

A: We just crossed the state line into Providence, he said, “Coach, you need to come with me.” And I said, “For what?” It was a Saturday, and Selection Sunday was the next day, so I was asking the trooper, “Who are we playing?” My wife was in the front seat. I said, “Listen officer, if there’s bad news, I need to know.” Back then they didn’t have cell phones. We went down the road, the bus followed, we went to a pay phone.

Q: Your 6-month-old son Daniel had been in a children’s hospital in Boston.

A: We were supposed to ask for this doctor, and he said [on the phone], “Coach, you need to come in here.” And I said, “Why?” … And my wife’s pulling, “What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” And he said, “Your son passed.” And I held the phone, and I said, “OK we’ll be right in.” And then she looked at my face, and just almost passed out in my arms, ’cause she knew, she heard, I said, “Daniel passed.” … It was the most difficult scene of my life, because we went to the hospital and on like an emergency bed, was a little baby, and my wife just grabbed him, and for the next hour, it was the most painful time of our life, just sitting there. … And then Providence, the whole college, the 23 priests, just helped our pain so much and just rallied behind us, and lifted us up, so we could coach. … Billy [Donovan] had Richard on his lap all the time, and just lifted us up. And then triumph got us through it. It just helped us ease the pain so much by distracting us with their love.

Q: Daniel was in the hospital?

A: Daniel was in the children’s hospital in Boston, my wife was commuting for six months back and forth from Providence every day. She spent 18 hours a day there.

Q: Another scene would have to be the loss of your brother-in-law Billy Minardi in the WTC attack.

A: That was unforgettable. And then we went to New York, and we still had hope he was alive. … And the we had other friends. And then it was the worst, probably three or four years. … We always say this: It’s never been the same, never will be the same. Fortunately for us, his wife and children actually moved to Kentucky, which was a shock to all of us, and they lived five homes down to us in Kentucky. And I’ve been able to help raise the two boys and daughter. … Willie went to IU. … Robert Minardi lives in his father’s dorm — Billy Minardi Hall — he lives in the dorm, where his father’s name’s on it. And Christine’s in high school. So that scene for all New Yorkers, especially those who lost ones, it’s hard for Kentucky people to even understand the pain. … None of us have ever recovered from it. We celebrate it, but we’ve never recovered.

Q: Why do you think you’re so driven, even now?

A: I think it’s just a competitive nature that everybody has, and once the game starts and the planning starts, you just try everything possible to get an edge in a game. And it’s always been that way when you’re not endowed with great speed or great athleticism or great something, you make up for it by being driven.

Q: Describe the perfect Rick Pitino basketball player.

A: It would be a Billy Donovan who plays defense.

Q: Who was your boyhood idol?

A: Probably Vince Lombardi. As an athlete, probably all those Knick guys, from Clyde [Frazier] to Earl Monroe to Dick Barnett, to [Dave] DeBusschere, [Bill] Bradley and all those guys.

Q: Who is your biggest coaching influence?

A: Hubie Brown.

Q: How do you get kids to believe?

A: Well first I show ’em certain facts, so it’s definitely believable. I show them what can happen if you do the following things. And I get them to visualize it first. And then, I deal with them individually. Each kid has a different motive for wanting to succeed. Some are money-driven, some are family-driven, some are ego-driven. I first want to find the motive of each individual before I try to turn it into action.

Q: Coaches in other sports you admire?

A: I’ve gotten to know Bill Belichick. He’s much different than I ever envisioned. He’s a very humble guy, but very confident, and very prepared. I get a big kick out of him with the media. He just stands there (laugh) and he just feels like he’s going to the dentist. … But when you see him in person, he’s really outgoing, he’s a great guy, very comfortable in his own skin. … I loved Coach [John] Wooden, got to know him a little bit. I thought he was the greatest coach in any sport. He’s a very simple man, but he was the best teacher, and he had the best qualities of any coach I’ve ever seen in terms of humility, he was very disciplined, he was a supreme teacher, he dealt with people in a firm way, but you knew all about him. I think everybody who goes into coaching, should study him first. I think he’s the coach’s coach.

Q: You also admired Joe Paterno. Were you saddened by how it ended for him?

A: Deeply because, it killed him. I think he’s sorta like Jim Boeheim with the initial stages of Bernie Fine — he didn’t believe it, couldn’t fathom a friend doing this. The same way when Jim went out on his tirade. Jim believed from the bottom of his heart — I worked with Bernie too. “It’s not true,” it’s the first thing I said. … Now looking back, we all say how could you not grab that guy and beat the hell out of him? Well, it’s easy to say now. But that man stood for everything great in the game. All of us wish we had 10 percent of his humility, integrity and fortitude. We hate to see the way it ended.

Q: Describe the night you won the championship at Kentucky in 1996.

A: You saw what [John] Calipari’s going through now. It was a relief that we got there, we were supposed to win. And then you’re just happy for your family and friends.

Q: Who are you more like, your mom or your dad?

A: A little bit of both. My mom had a great work ethic — she worked in Belleview Hospital, New York City. I grew up on 26th Street between Second and Third Avenue. Belleview’s on 24th and First Avenue. My dad’s building was 26th and Lex, so we were all right there, and the family was there. We lived in a brownstone of three floors — my aunt and uncle upstairs, my grandparents in the middle and us at the bottom. So it was really cool, back when they had the old brownstones. They were blue-collar people that never made any money in their life.

Q: How do you think you’re like your dad?

A: My dad’s ability to have a great time. He was always the first person at a wedding and also had the last dance (smile).

Q: Describe your wife Joanne.

A: My high school sweetheart. She’s seen the best and the worst, and has always been the Rock of Gibraltar for all of us. In good times and bad times, she’s the rock. She’s half-Irish, half-Italian. … She could sit there with “Will and Grace,” “Seinfeld” … watch the same episode 50 times, and hysterical. … She’s a comedian’s dream. Her laughter fills up the room. … I told her I was meeting you down here. … “Did he bring The Post?” [she asked]. She’s a New York girl.

Q: What is your oldest child Michael like?

A: The life of the party. Goes to every game, enjoys every moment. Enjoys people in the lobby. He’s like my dad, first one to the party, last one to leave.

Q: Christopher?

A: He’s the cerebral one in the family. He stays in the background and has a great time, but he’s the thinker in the group.

Q: Richard?

A: Richard is the coach who has a little bit of everybody. Richard is the outgoing personality, Richard is the caring one, Richard is the one that’ll look after his mother all the time. And he’s the one that we’re all gonna grow old with watching (smile) so it’s exciting for us.

Q: Ryan?

A: The two young ones, Ryan and Jacqueline, just try every single say to go out of their way to tell me they love me. They’re the two most emotional ones. They send me a loving text every day.

Q: How many grandchildren do you have?

A: I have four with two on the way.

Q: Is it hard to believe that you’re a grandfather?

A: Yup (smile). But it’s great, it really is great. It’s tremendous.

Q: How much longer do you want to do this?

A: You know, I don’t know. I want to see Richard move on and be a head coach. I say now I’m living vicariously through the joy of my players — I’ll live vicariously through him, and that’ll be a big dream for me. I see Mr. Donovan travel with Billy all the time, and I envision myself doing that with my son Richard. I think that would be a great way to spend your retirement years.

Q: Lou Carnesecca.

A: I love Lou. Lou’s another person, like Joe Paterno, like all these great ones. … I think the key to greatness, with any coach and any player -— unfortunately players have very little of it — is humility. Humility is the key to greatness, that’s why I loved Wooden so much. I wish I would have learned it a lot earlier in my life. … I’ll never forget in my life, we had a major, major argument at the Big East.

Q: You and Rollie Massimino.

A: Boeheim and P.J. [Carlesimo] set me up, it was over a ball deal. Back then nobody made a lot of money, and you were getting $2,500 for using McGregor basketball. John Thompson had his own deal with Voit, and he was running the meeting. Rollie won the championship, I was just hired at Providence. P.J. and Boeheim grabbed me and said, “Look. You’re a pro coach (Knicks assistant) coming into the league, everybody respects you.” Then Rollie gets up and says, “Look, McGregor wants these four teams, and the rest of you are gonna get this amount of money, that’s the way it is. You stand up and say we should all get the same ’cause they’ll respect you.” Rollie gets up and says, “OK, these four schools are gonna get $12,500 and the rest are gonna get $5,000.” I stood up and said, “Listen Rollie, you won the championship, the next year it could be Pitt. … I think we should all get the same, $7,500.” He goes [freaking] ballistic. He goes crazy. “Who are you to come in this league and start saying this?” And I see Boeheim and P.J. with their hands like this (covering their heads), they knew how Rollie was gonna react. I wanted to kill those two guys. They are slapping five under the table. Well we get in a fierce battle and argument — everything’s tabled ’til the fall. In the fall, Looie comes back, he was in Italy, giving clinics. Looie says, “I’ll solve it.” He says, “If you come over my house, and my mother bakes an apple pie, and there are eight of us — is my mom gonna cut three large pieces and then five small pieces? Or is my mom gonna cut eight pieces that are the same.” He said, “Guys, leave the chandeliers. We’re all in this together.” And everybody got the same amount of money. And that’s Looie. Looie was one of the ones that was gonna make the big bucks. He was one of the four.

Q: Red Auerbach.

A: Red was different. Red had a lot of bravado about him. But he was a great guy, great storyteller. Meeting [Bob] Cousy, [John] Havlicek, [Tom] Heinsohn, Red, [Bill] Russell — it was worth the bad experiences I had in Boston. Just spending time with those guys, especially Russell.

Q: Why Russell?

A: He taught me a lot about team, and what the team meant. He called it team ego. And he talked to my team and went around one by one and didn’t call ’em by name, he called ’em by number. And in the end he said, “That’s really what you guys are — points, rebounds. … I’m different.” He said it in a very humble way. He said, “I won 11 world championships … two back-to-back college championships … an Olympic gold medal in between … but my ego is team ego — the Boston Celtics. Yours is about points, rebounds, stats. But then again I’m Bill Russell, and you’re not.” It was a very powerful 20 minutes.

Q: What was it like coaching the Knicks, from 1987-89?

A: That was a dream come true. The only unfortunate thing is I got with a GM (Al Bianchi) that didn’t want to hire me in the first place. Nothing wrong with that — he wanted his guy, John MacLeod. … It never works out when the GM doesn’t hire his guy. Outside of that, it was great.

Q: You would never go back to the NBA?

A: I just take losing too hard. You could have a great season, and lose 30 games. I just can’t take losing 30 games (chuckle).

Q: Three dinner guests?

A: Jesus would be one … because I would find out how close to truth the Bible is (smile), and that would be an awesome experience. But, I couldn’t go to dinner with him because I would pass out, be so scared, so nervous, probably would not be a good dinner guest. … Two would be Pope John. My wife and I met him when we won the championship and we were visiting Italy. And probably John F. Kennedy. There were things about him that I loved. … He had a spirit about him that I loved.

steve.serby@nypost.com