Have you heard the rumors? If you live in Kentucky, you have. There's a new one every five minutes.
Rick Pitino has purchased 300 acres outside of Louisville. Rick Pitino's kids have been enrolled in the city's finest Catholic schools. Rick Pitino is arranging to have his thoroughbreds stabled at Churchill Downs. Rick Pitino was seen at Valhalla Golf Club, where he's a member, but 35 degrees and cloudy isn't ideal links weather.
|  | | Rick Pitino has created a love-hate relationship with Bluegrass hoop fans. |
There are four million Kentuckians, and all of them know somebody who knows somebody whose uncle used to wax Rick's Mercedes, thus becoming "a reliable source" on the only story that matters in the commonwealth: Pitino to Louisville. ("In other news, Martians landed in Lexington yesterday.")
And every Kentuckian has an opinion on this intriguing, intoxicating, borderline scandalous situation.
The Wildcat hardcore is ready to flick a lighter under Pitino's banner in the Rupp Arena rafters. To them, Colonel Sanders coming back from the dead and declaring that his secret recipe was invented by a Tennessean would be less treasonous than Rick in red.
The rest of the Cats' constituency is either annoyed or mildly amused, but not likely to turn this into a jihad. At least until Pitino materializes at U of L and beats his old school.
In the red corner of the state -- the city of Louisville and a very small surrounding area -- Cardinals fans who spent most of the 1990s ripping Pitino as an arrogant hot dog are doing some rapid revisionism. They know a winner when they see one. After four years of snorkeling with Denny Crum, they'd be thrilled to dance with the devil -- if the devil gets them back to the Dance.
Then there is cabal of Crum loyalists who are aghast at the thought of Denny's nemesis (series scorecard: Pitino 6, Crum 2) moving in. Crum didn't go happily to begin with, and he won't be thrilled to see a man he does not like and could not beat take his place.
Simply put, nobody is sure just how to react to this unprecedented proposition. Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Rick Bozich compared it to Ronald McDonald suddenly hawking Whoppers.
With the famously impetuous Pitino, nothing is done until five minutes after the ink is dry on the contract. Just ask the Nets, Lakers and UNLV, all of whom thought they had Pitino locked up in the past seven or eight years. Any and all reports of a "done deal" -- the two most frequently used words in the state this week -- remain premature for now.
But events certainly seem to be heading that way.
Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich will meet with Pitino in South Florida this weekend. Adidas kingpin Sonny Vaccaro, whose company outfits the Cardinals, is prepared to make Pitino the monetary star of his coaching stable -- part of a package that reportedly could make him the highest-paid coach in the college game. Papa John's Pizza mogul John Schnatter, a Louisvillian whose donation got the Cardinals' football stadium named after his product, is said to be lending his pocketbook to the cause as well.
Pitino is wary of sabotaging his own legacy, so he has sought the counsel of many friends and associates. Current Kentucky coach and former assistant Tubby Smith matters most, and he has given Pitino his blessing -- going so far as to say the situation might be good for him, too. Prominent horseman Seth Hancock, Florida coach Billy Donovan and former player Travis Ford (now the coach at Eastern Kentucky) have all endorsed the move.
Some others might be slow to come around. Beloved Kentucky equipment manager Bill Keightley, who sat to Pitino's right for eight years, hates Louisville the way Joe McCarthy hated Communists. Born-and-bred Wildcat John Pelphrey, an assistant to Donovan, reacted to questions this week about Pitino coming to Louisville as if he were being asked to solve the gun control debate.
"It would certainly be a unique situation," Pelphrey said, looking for the nearest escape route.
If you can somehow suck the emotion out of the equation, the move makes sense on several levels:
It is, at present, the best job available, and Pitino has made it clear he wants to coach in college next year.
Pitino came to love Louisville during his time at UK and has many friends there.
Louisville annually ranks among the nation's top five in attendance (this 12-19 year being the exception), and Cardinal basketball is The Show in town.
Those calling Pitino a turncoat should remember that he did more for Kentucky than Kentucky did for him. Pitino left a good situation with the New York Knicks to resurrect a program in horrible shape. And he stayed for eight years, which hardly qualifies as a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am relationship.
This isn't the Palestinians and Israels, for Pete's sake. Get over it.
Not to mention the spectacular spark it will give to what once rivaled Duke-North Carolina for World's Best Rivalry status. This year Kentucky-Louisville was only on ESPN2 because there is no ESPN3. Next year the entirety of Hoops Nation will stop to watch that one.
That is, if Pitino comes to Louisville.
Consult your local rumor mill for updates.
Pat Forde of the Louisville Courier-Journal is a regular contributor to ESPN.com Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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