Rick Pitino enters Gael Nation!

Iona College will be seeing a new face on the campus. Rick Pitino, will be the new head coach for the Division 1 school in the upcoming season. The season this year was not at the level students and faculty wanted and know the team could do better. As a new student myself and coming from a division 3 school, it was an exciting thing to see the sportsmanship Iona undergoes.

With the basketball season taken out due to the corona virus, and this announcement giving even more attention to New Rochelle and Iona College, the question now arises, was now the right time to make this huge announcement. 

Rick Pitino was a major coach for some of the biggest D1 schools, however the “NCAA charged Pitino for failure to monitor his basketball program, which was involved in a sex-for-pay scandal. He was suspended for the first five games of the ACC season in 2017–18.” 

With this known fact, students, like myself are happy to have him on the campus. Although he has a scandal against his name, however the thought of having someone that has had a successful career in the Basketball world is worth holding onto too. I Believe the attention will soar for the school, which would be great. Iona already has a lot of attention but the more we increase the attention, the closer we can be to being elite. 

A concern is that Pitino is known for leaving or dropping teams. I do hope that he stays at Iona, as most people who enter the Iona campus does not want to leave, but yes there is no Guarantee, but the most we can do as a school is hope he does stay and he find s a bond with the students, the athletes, and the community. 

It will be a very interesting season, and I’m glad I will be able to spend my last year at Iona here, and experience the Pitino way.