Pitino Decides to Leave Providence and Accept Knicks’ Coaching Job

Rick Pitino, who earlier had turned down the job and signed a five-year contract extension at Providence, has changed his mind. He was named the New York Knicks’ coach Monday.

The 34-year-old New York native and former Knick assistant coach had been the first candidate interviewed by the National Basketball Assn. team after it fired Coach Bob Hill and General Manager Scotty Stirling April 20.

Pitino withdrew his name from consideration May 1, when the Knicks failed to meet his hiring deadline, but he changed his mind when the team offered him the job again last week.

Pitino, who turned Providence from a college doormat to a Final Four team in two seasons, said that leaving the school was the “most difficult decision of my life.”

He said he did not accept the Knicks’ offer until Monday morning, after meeting with his Providence players, adding that he would not have taken the job if any of his players had objected.

“I was 100% happy there,” Pitino said. “But I couldn’t turn down the challenge of coaching the Knicks. If I didn’t take the job, I would always have wondered about it.”

Pitino and the president of Providence, Father John Cunningham, said his contract at the school did not contain a buy-out clause.

“I had a long talk with him Saturday morning and told him Providence College would not stand in the way of his professional advancement,” Cunningham said. “He did not ask me to get out of the contract. I extended it to him.”

In his first year at Providence, Pitino took over a team that had posted an 11-20 record the previous season and led the Friars to a 17-14 record and a berth in the National Invitation Tournament. Last season, he guided the Friars to a 25-9 record and a trip to the Final Four, where they lost to Big East rival Syracuse in the semifinals.