Thursday, September 27, 2001
Pitino uses basketball to get through his grief
The Associated Press
LOUISVILLE — As he watched televised replays of the second hijacked plane crashing into the World Trade Center, Louisville coach Rick Pitino began counting floors, hoping his brother-in-law was still alive.
Bill Minardi, Pitino's best friend since high school and the brother of his wife, Joanne, was one of 670 employees of the bond brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald who died in the Sept.11 terrorist attacks. Minardi worked on the 105th floor of the north tower, the first one hit and the second one to collapse.
“It was so painful watching those planes, over and over. I knew Billy was high,” Pitino said at a news conference Wednesday.
Returning to work this week has given Pitino the diversion he has needed.
“I'm emotionally spent,” he said. “The only solace I get is when I'm on that court for four hours a day.
“What I have to do is to immerse myself in it, day and night, so I don't think as much. The only thing you have to do is go overboard and immerse yourself in your work and your family and just pass out at night.”
Pitino, who was hired in March, said his new team sent him a touching sympathy card last week. He joked Wednesday how he reciprocated by returning them to their usual exhausting workouts.
Pitino said Minardi's death won't change his perspective on basketball. He said that happened in 1987, when his 6-month-old son, Daniel, died from congenital heart failure.
“I had a perspective a long time ago,” Pitino said. “... (Basketball) is my passion, it's my professional life, but it's entertainment. It's always been entertainment to me since 1987.”
The Pitinos got false hope when Minardi's name turned up on a computer database that listed people working in the towers at the time of the attacks. Minardi was listed in critical condition, but Pitino found out through Cantor Fitzgerald's emergency hotline that the report was wrong.
Every Cantor employee who showed up for work on the day of the attacks died.
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Pitino uses basketball to get through his grief
