Richard Pitinos public response to his Dads situation will be important & fascinating

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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Richard Pitinos public response to his Dads situation will be important & fascinating

I believe we have our media day this week, or very soon with practice starting. I know this has to be an extremely difficult time for the entire Pitino family. Say what we want about Rick's many indiscretions, at the end of the day, this is Richard's Dad, and a Dad he is very close to.

At the same time, Richard (hopefully) has a long and bright future in this game and hopefully at Minnesota. Richard needs to distance himself from his Dad's many indiscretions, show that he (Richard) is his own man, his own coach with his own program values.

If I was the PR person at the U, I would strongly recommend that Richard host a press briefing (but not take any questions) and issue a strong statement about the U's program (not a written statement, but on camera), our Pitino's values, etc. I would want Richard to do this before the team has their media day so this isn't the focus of our media day (it will be otherwise) and our players should not have to answer a single question about this situation.

In this press briefing, Richard can say upfront that after this statement he will not take any more questions about the Louisville situation and that all questions should be about his program at the U.

Richard doesn't need to throw his Dad under the bus, but he does need to address the situation on our terms, and not during our media day.

Go Gophers!!
 

Could you please call the PR person at the U?
 

100% I strongly agree in that you keep it brief, no questions and walk away. Richard doesn't need to go further with this at the U. This isn't Louisville.
 

He doesn't need to say anything. I think he will, but it isn't his job to address the fact that his dad is a shady dude. Might be easiest but if I was him, I'd just tell people who ask (media) that he is discussing his team and his team only.

Also, there is a chance he can't say much due to the FBI being involved. Right?
 

Richard Pitino will be asked about the situation at Louisville but he doesn't need to answer any questions about it nor does he need to get out in front of the story. The story at this time is about Rick Pitino, University of Louisville and the others named.
 


This is a dicey situation for a PR person that likely doesn't have all of the details.

A simple, "I'm not my dad, I love him and will continue to coach here" is fine, but if at any point you start to separate him from Rick and then if allegations/investigations occur and if he truly is the least bit involved in anything, you may end up with a Raffy Palmiero "I did not do steroids" fail of an interview in 3-4 months hindsight.
 

He needs to be proactive. He needs to say (truthfully) that standards have been set in the program and that he is confident that we didn't recruit this way. He needs to just say he knows nothing about the Louisville situation and won't comment on it. All coaches should be out there doing the same. Until such time every University fan base is going to have lingering doubt about whether their program will be in the news. Silence would cause the assumption that there is something to hide.
 

bga1 said:
He needs to be proactive. He needs to say (truthfully) that standards have been set in the program and that he is confident that we didn't recruit this way. He needs to just say he knows nothing about the Louisville situation and won't comment on it. All coaches should be out there doing the same. Until such time every University fan base is going to have lingering doubt about whether their program will be in the news. Silence would cause the assumption that there is something to hide.
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But what if there is some guilt? Either the Konate/Gaston recruitment or some dealings when he was an assistant?
 

Richard is very thoughtful and articulate. And as bad as some issues have been here he has a strong track record acting swiftly and decisively. I fully trust him to handle this well however he wants too
 



Richard was an assistant at Louisville. He needs to make a comment and answer at least a few questions. Yes it should be done before media day.
 

RickDornsby said:
But what if there is some guilt? Either the Konate/Gaston recruitment or some dealings when he was an assistant?
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Then he would be toast. The dirt is going to get out on this one - if there is dirt. Those who have been arrested will be talking about what they know about the larger scandal so they can reduce their own penalties.
 

bga1 said:
Then he would be toast. The dirt is going to get out on this one - if there is dirt. Those who have been arrested will be talking about what they know about the larger scandal so they can reduce their own penalties.
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The original post suggests that Richard make a statement about his values. Only he and others involved in his dealings know them for sure, but the U would probably like to avoid an egg on their face situation of him talking about values and 3 weeks later being implicated in some of this.
 

The whole situation is a joke and is why high level d1 athletes need to be paid.

The amount of money involved will corrupt if players are not compensated.

The financial guy who gave all this to fbi better watch out, I wouldnt want to be him...
 



Rick needs to do his son a favor and stay away from Minneapolis this winter. Don't need the circus.

Perhaps Rick should have spent more time monitoring his assistants, instead of making in-season trips to Williams Arena?
 

RickDornsby said:
But what if there is some guilt? Either the Konate/Gaston recruitment or some dealings when he was an assistant?
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Lordy. If we paid money for either of those two, he should be fired for negligence anyway.
 

SelectionSunday said:
Rick needs to do his son a favor and stay away from Minneapolis this winter. Don't need the circus.

Perhaps Rick should have spent more time monitoring his assistants, instead of making in-season trips to Williams Arena?
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Pretty much...

Sent from my SM-G360V using Tapatalk
 

howeda7 said:
Lordy. If we paid money for either of those two, he should be fired for negligence anyway.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there some sort of dealing with a travel agency that their handlers were a part of and the trip's money was funneled to them or they won the bid? And it was a company that dad used a lot.
 

He dosnt need a press conference that is picked up by every major sports news organization - sheddng bad light where it doesn't need to be. He should just release a statement with whatever he feels comfortable communicating and then close it by saying he will not discuss it with the media.
 

He doesn't need to say anything at all. Nor should be.

Neither his name nor the University of Minnesota was mentioned one single time in any report that I read regarding this issue today. All he needs to say is that until all of the details are known about the situation, he doesn't have a comment.

There is absolutely no need to have anything related to the University of Minnesota show up in any news report about something that he said about his dad or about the situation at Louisville.
 

Almost anything Richard says publicly right now would be to his detriment so keeping quiet until the dust settles is the best advice.

I bet he's not even calling his dad right now.
 

He's going to have to comment. His dad just got fired from one of the 10 biggest jobs in college basketball and the press is going to keep asking the question(s). It's a very difficult spot for Coach Pitino to be put in, but IF he can come out as Bleed suggests and make a statement/answer a few questions prior to the University of Minnesota's media day and make it clear he will have no further comment it would be in the best interest of Gopher Basketball. If that can happen, the headlines from the "U's" media day will all be about this team and it's expectations for what should be a very good 2017 season. It would be a downer if the headlines coming out of the media day for a team picked to finish top 3 in the B1G were about Richard's dad's indiscretions as opposed to Reggie Lynch looking to build on his DPOY season or Nate Mason trying to lead this team to a B1G title or Davonte Fitzgerald's role as an X factor after two years away from the action.
 



No more needed from Richard Pitino than what was said.
 

So far so good; but I hope Richard's answers to (I assume) Mark Coyle's questions need some detail beyond "talk to my lawyer".
 


As I said in another thread, Richard needs to call dad and tell him to stay as far away from MN as possible this winter. Imagine a Gopher game on BTN or ESPN, and the camera shows daddy Rick in the stands. Immediately, the conversation stops being about the Gophers, and goes to rehashing the scandal and Rick's role in it. Followed by conversation about how close father and son are - creating guilt by association.

No, the best thing Rick can do for his son is to vanish - like he was in the witness protection program. (now that I type that, it isn't so far-fetched. with this much dirty money floating around, is it so hard to believe that some organized crime types don't have a finger in this pie?)
 

I like to take people at their word. So when Rick said that Richard is more like Billy Donovan and learned from him, I'm hoping we'll be ok on this matter.
 

I think this thing is just getting started and a lot of coaches around the country will go down. Knowing what we know now, it's concerning when players come from unlikely places and, as gopher fans who finally have something to cheer about, we have to hope that everything is clean.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

I, too, have posted this elsewhere. Richard needs to keep Rick out of here, and Mark Coyle needs to give Richard the same message in the strongest possible terms. Hard for a son to do that to his dad, but it is a requirement based on the way this situation is playing out. I also cringe at the thought of Rick in the stands, TV camera on him, commentators spending the next 5 minutes talking about Rick and his downfall, how Richard was an assistant at Louisville and on and on and on.
 

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