- Rick Pitino coached his first game at Hawaii in 1976, under odd circumstances. Before Pitino ever won a game, a newspaper cartoonisted predicted his great career.
- NCAA probe resulted in Rick Pitino being elevated to acting coach at Hawaii. He left after that 1976 season finished for assistant job at Syracuse.
- Rick Pitino, coaching St. John’s, is trying to become the first coach to reach a March Madness Final Four with four different programs.
A newspaper cartoonist forecasted the legend of Rick Pitino, nearly 50 years ago.
“Personally, I’d like to see Rick Pitino get a good, fair, reasonably long-term shot … at coaching the UH basketball team,” Lyons wrote in a column that February, accompanied by a cartoon depiction of Pitino coaching the Rainbow Warriors.
Lyons wouldn’t get his wish. Pitino left the island state following the conclusion of that tumultuous season for an assistant’s job on Jim Boeheim’s Syracuse staff. But Lyons proved right in his prediction that Pitino would become something special.
If Pitino takes St. John’s to the Final Four, he’ll become the first coach ever to reach a Final Four with four different programs. His second-seeded Red Storm will play No. 10 Arkansas in the NCAA Tournament’s second round on Saturday.
Nearly all of Pitino’s career victories came while coaching teams in the Eastern Time Zone, but not his first victories. Those came at Hawaii, amid a wacky season that attracted an NCAA probe and a cartoonist’s praise.
How Rick Pitino’s coaching career began at Hawaii
Pitino began the 1975-76 season as an assistant for Hawaii coach Bruce O’Neil, but things quickly soured for O’Neil after the Honolulu Advertiser reported that four basketball players violated NCAA rules by appearing with O’Neil in a television commercial for a local car dealership.
O’Neil accepted responsibility for the commercial, and Hawaii relieved him of his coaching duties that February.
The university elevated Pitino to acting head coach. Hawaii lost its first game under Pitino by two points in overtime to Long Beach State. Next came a one-point loss to San Jose State in overtime, then a 15-point loss to UNLV.
With Pitino’s coaching career off to an 0-3 start, Lyons, the Honolulu cartoonist, had seen enough. He wanted Pitino as full-time coach.
“It isn’t often that a coach gets a pat on the back for losing three out of his first three games,” Lyons wrote in a column that published Feb. 24, 1976, “but here’s one. Rick Pitino, the acting coach of the UH Rainbows, has done a great job.
“Pitino took charge in a hurry when the whole program could have tumbled into a very deep, very dark hole.”
Lyons went on to praise Hawaii’s “admirable finishes under rugged odds.”
Harry Lyons: cartoonist, Hawaii sports fan, Rick Pitino supporter
The Advertiser’s 1989 obituary for Lyons described him as a whimsical man who enjoyed smelling the flowers, drinking Beefeater on the rocks and watching sports. Lyons, like Pitino, was a New York native – the coach from the city, the cartoonist from Scarsdale. Lyons came to Hawaii in 1959 to be the Advertiser’s cartoonist, back when local newspapers employed such positions. He stayed on in that role for 20 years and earned high acclaim. President Lyndon Johnson reportedly collected his cartoons.
Lyons also had a knack for the written word, and, in 1973, he started writing sports columns for the Advertiser while still a cartoonist. In this particular column in 1976, he threw full support behind Pitino.
“The majority of folks I’ve talked to think he’s something special,” Lyons wrote, “despite the fact that his team has yet to win.”
Lyons went on to quote a few Hawaii fans’ opinions of Pitino. One fan praised the coach’s cool demeanor and his interest in his players. Another lauded Pitino’s four-corner offense and the team’s improving defense, but one fan hoped Hawaii would swap Pitino for John Wooden.
Yes, even before internet message boards and social media, fans harbored visions of “big fish” hires during times of transition.
Lyons finished that column by opining on the Hawaii band’s musical selection for games. He quipped that the Hawaii band put the crowd to sleep with its music, in contrast to Missouri’s band that played ‘brassy pep songs.”
Hawaii would lose a fourth straight game under Pitino before finishing with back-to-back victories against Portland, giving Pitino a 2-4 record as acting coach.
And then he was gone, off to Syracuse.
Months later, the NCAA released findings that Pitino, too, broke rules at Hawaii.
NCAA found Rick Pitino broke rules at Hawaii; he says otherwise
The television commercial that landed O’Neil in hot water in 1976 wasn’t the only rule-breaking activity occurring within the program. The NCAA, in a 1977 infractions report, detailed a slew of violations involving improper recruiting inducements and extra benefits for athletes that occurred during O’Neil’s tenure.
Pitino, who was at Syracuse when the NCAA’s report published, committed several rules infractions, according to the NCAA. Hawaii basketball received two years’ probation.
Among its findings, the NCAA ruled that Pitino arranged for multiple commercial flights between New York and Hawaii for athletes and recruits, at no cost to the athletes. The NCAA also found that Pitino and O’Neil arranged for the same car dealership involved in the TV commercial to give two athletes used cars, in exchange for two season tickets. Also, the NCAA said, Pitino gave coupons to athletes so they could eat free meals from McDonald’s.
O’Neil and Pitino “acted contrary to the principles of ethical conduct,” the NCAA wrote, and “their involvement in various violations in this case demonstrates a knowing and willful effort on their part to operate (Hawaii basketball) contrary to NCAA legislation.”
The NCAA ordered Hawaii to sever ties with O’Neil, Pitino and former athletic director Paul Durham. By then, though, none of the three were working for Hawaii.
The Honolulu Advertiser, in an editorial, wrote that Hawaii basketball “got off easy” by receiving two years’ probation.
“I guess the ban won’t hurt me too much,” O’Neil quipped to the newspaper after the NCAA’s report. “I never expected to be a coach at the University again, anyway.”
As for Pitino’s part in the saga, he adamantly denied involvement in most of the infractions.
“The only one that’s true is the one about handing out McDonald’s coupons,” he told the Honolulu newspaper. He denied knowing anything about cars or flights for athletes.
Pitino maintained that stance when interviewing to become Kentucky’s coach in 1989.
“I didn’t make any mistakes (at Hawaii),” Pitino told reporters. “I don’t care what anybody says.”
Pitino accepted the Kentucky job, ending his NBA tenure with the New York Knicks after two seasons.
By then, it was becoming clear that Pitino’s career would become “something special,” just as a newspaper cartoonist in Honolulu had predicted.
Blake Toppmeyer is a columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.