Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/214077
U niversity of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino's weekly press conferences are always popular destinations for reporters — not just because he ofers lively answers to questions about his team and upcoming games, but also for the way Pitino sometimes adds historical anecdotes and broader social observations to questions that started out just about basketball. Working with an idea originally suggested by Louisville WTGK radio host Joe Elliott, writer Bill Doolittle recently sat down with Pitino in his ofce at the YUM! Center practice facility on the U of L campus to talk about . . . well, to talk about anything and everything – except basketball! I interviewed guard Terry Rozier on media day and he said you read the players a chapter from your book (Te One-Day Contract) on social media. And I thought you could talk about that a little bit — kids today, your players and technology. "I tell my players every time they go out in public, every time they meet people, every time they meet with the media, to do a commercial on your virtues. I'm afraid they can't do that because social media has so ruined their lives that they can't verbally communicate. Tey can't articulate their message the right way. So when it's graduation time, when the air is let out of their basketball, they can't go to human resources in an interview and impress. Because they've been so used to texting, so used to Instagram-ing. Every time they communicate, it's by electronic media." Even when they're in the same room. "When they're at the dinner table, they're doing it. At a party, they're doing it. Tey can't even interact at a party with each other because they're constantly texting. My players spend an average of four hours a day with social media, and they're impacting no one and their lives aren't being impacted. And my message to them was, 'Why not take a few of those hours and put them to good use, to get ahead in life?' Will they listen? Well, they'll listen to my 15-minute dissertation. But I want it to be food for thought for them. Why don't you be diferent from the rest? Because every basketball team in the nation, they're doing the same thing." And that goes for any kid today. "Oh, even more so than my players is the everyday high school student." Your players seem well spoken. "On Dec. 1, they're going to bring me anywhere from $200 to $300. I'm going to open up an Ameritrade account for them, and they'll learn to trade equities. And Will Scott, who played for us (2006-'08) and is now on Wall Street, he'll pick out the stocks for us." Will they have an interest in that? "It's their account." Do you fnd that kids today need somebody like a coach to guide them through life stuf? "I think so, because most of the kids that we have are from backgrounds that would not teach them these things. Tey're just trying to make ends meet, put food on the table, pay for their rent and housing. Parents of my players would never think of teaching them about the interest rates on a credit card, why you pay it of each month. Tose are things they're not going to get from their parents. Tey are going to get a lot of love, a lot of attention, but they're not going to get those things. Tat's where I come in." You're in homes where there's not a lot of wealth and then, as a person of stature in this community, you're in some of the richest homes. You see it. Do you notice a big divide in this country between rich and poor? "It's a caste system, more so today than ever before. Te wealthy have gotten wealthier and the poor have gotten poorer. And the middle class is not coming up; it's moving down. It's quite obvious. My world for 11 months a year revolves around people without means. I would say for two weeks a year — one week I go to Saratoga, one week I go to Del Mar — I see a whole diferent world out there." Student-athletes have no money, for the most part. Sometimes they're sitting in a classroom next to somebody who does. But is that a positive thing — throwing people into one melting pot? "Louisville is a little bit diferent from most universities. Louisville is basically a blue-collar school. If you were at Ohio State, that may be true. But at Louisville, I would say that maybe 90 percent of students are working to put themselves through college or come from blue-collar families who have to work hard to pay for tuition. So Louisville is a little bit of an exception. I would say that Kentucky is an exception, as a state. Because it's not an overly wealthy state." 12.13 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 43