What do you think?
Rate this book
The Last Temptation of Rick Pitino: A Story of Corruption, Scandal, and the Big Business of College Basketball
From acclaimed New York Times Magazine author Michael Sokolove, the full inside story of the NCAA's epic corruption scandal that exposed the rot and hypocrisy at the heart of big-time college sports.
In 2017, the FBI revealed that it had reached the endgame of a sprawling investigation of large-scale corruption involving Adidas, Louisville and a host of other colleges, in which large payments were laundered from Adidas through a network of coaches and fixers to athletes and their families to induce them to go to Adidas-branded college programs. In short order, Hall of Fame basketball coach Rick Pitino (salary: $8 million) and athletic director Tom Jurich were fired, and fear, trembling, and some high-profile litigation swept through the world of bigtime college athletics.
In THE LAST TEMPTATION OF RICK PITINO, Michael Sokolove not only lifts the rug on the Louisville scandal but also places it in the context of the much wider problem, the farce of amateurism in bigtime college sports. In a world in which even assistant coaches can make high-six and seven-figure salaries, as long as they keep the "elite" athletes coming in, shoe deals can reach into the nine figures, and everyone is getting rich but the players, can it be surprising that unscrupulous parties would pay athletes, creating in effect a black market in young men, a veritable underground railroad of talent?
But a few bad apples are one thing. In THE LAST TEMPTATION OF RICK PITINO, Michael Sokolove shows an elaborate, systematic machine, involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in illicit payments and connecting at least one of the largest apparel companies in the world with schools across the country. The Louisville-Adidas scandal has revealed a web of conspiracy whose scope has shaken big-time college sports to its core, delivering a devastating blow to the fantasy of amateurism, of "scholar athletes." A Shakespearean drama of greed and desperation involving some of the biggest characters in the arena of sports, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF RICK PITINO is the definitive chronicle of this scandal and its broader echoes.
In 2017, the FBI revealed that it had reached the endgame of a sprawling investigation of large-scale corruption involving Adidas, Louisville and a host of other colleges, in which large payments were laundered from Adidas through a network of coaches and fixers to athletes and their families to induce them to go to Adidas-branded college programs. In short order, Hall of Fame basketball coach Rick Pitino (salary: $8 million) and athletic director Tom Jurich were fired, and fear, trembling, and some high-profile litigation swept through the world of bigtime college athletics.
In THE LAST TEMPTATION OF RICK PITINO, Michael Sokolove not only lifts the rug on the Louisville scandal but also places it in the context of the much wider problem, the farce of amateurism in bigtime college sports. In a world in which even assistant coaches can make high-six and seven-figure salaries, as long as they keep the "elite" athletes coming in, shoe deals can reach into the nine figures, and everyone is getting rich but the players, can it be surprising that unscrupulous parties would pay athletes, creating in effect a black market in young men, a veritable underground railroad of talent?
But a few bad apples are one thing. In THE LAST TEMPTATION OF RICK PITINO, Michael Sokolove shows an elaborate, systematic machine, involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in illicit payments and connecting at least one of the largest apparel companies in the world with schools across the country. The Louisville-Adidas scandal has revealed a web of conspiracy whose scope has shaken big-time college sports to its core, delivering a devastating blow to the fantasy of amateurism, of "scholar athletes." A Shakespearean drama of greed and desperation involving some of the biggest characters in the arena of sports, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF RICK PITINO is the definitive chronicle of this scandal and its broader echoes.
288 pages, Paperback
First published September 25, 2018
108 people are currently reading
215 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
October 19, 2018
The best moments of this book make the reader question the entire college basketball system that is based on “amateurism” but is actually a corrupt money pit. The problem is it loses those thoughts almost as quickly as it raises them. Pitino seems like a minor player in the narrative despite being a titular character. Didn’t finish the book.
September 30, 2018
On page 241 of the eversion of Michael Sokolove's "The Last Temptation of Rick Pitino", there's a quote by Kylia Carter, the mother of a Duke University basketball player. The quote is quite long, but basically Ms Carter calls out the current system of college basketball where (unpaid) players make tons of money for colleges like Duke and the University of Louisville. Colleges and universities that use these profits to plow back into the athletic departments for the best buildings and facilities and, of course, insanely high salaries for the coaches and other athletic staff. Her quotation ends: "The only other time when labor does not get paid but yet someone else gets the profits and the labor is black and the profit is white, is slavery."
Now, Michael Sokolove's book is more than Ms Carter's statement, but what said in front of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, is a good ending to his book. Sokolove covers the monetary venality that runs through many of the NCAA's members' programs. Money was awash in many programs; kick-ins from alums, and corporate sponsors, in particular athletic shoe companies. And the buy-ins start early in a child who shows promise, from both college programs and the shoe companies.
Sokolove uses the University of Louisville and it's ultra-successful basketball coach Rick Pitino as a prime example of a university and officials who have lost their way on the road to athletic glory. Beginning in the late 1980's, officials of the commuter school wanted to expand their school's presence in the collegiate world. They hired Tom Jurich as the athletic director and he hired, among many others, Rick Pitino. The money was flowing and it seemed as if the athletic department was the major beneficiary, Pitino, who had bounced between the college and the NBA, worked his magic and eventually the Louisville program began winning. Everyone was happy but very few were asking HOW the program was winning. In the mid-2010's, after a personal scandal by Pitino in 2009, accusations began about the program's purported "pay for play" involving recruits at the school. The NCAA stripped Pitino and his team of their 2013 Final Four championship. Pitino and other Louisville coaches and officials were sacked and the school began their attempts to regroup.
But Sokolove's book is not just about the guys at the top, but he also looks at the young men, playing since children, who are looking for a school, a program, a chance to get to the NBA. These men, and their families, come in to the story as their talent is often exploited by those above them. Kylia Carter's quote at the beginning of my review is about these young men, who were providing the labor without sharing in the proceeds.
Michael Sokolove's book is not long. It's less than 300 pages but Sokolove manages to tell an important story we're seeing far too often.
Now, Michael Sokolove's book is more than Ms Carter's statement, but what said in front of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, is a good ending to his book. Sokolove covers the monetary venality that runs through many of the NCAA's members' programs. Money was awash in many programs; kick-ins from alums, and corporate sponsors, in particular athletic shoe companies. And the buy-ins start early in a child who shows promise, from both college programs and the shoe companies.
Sokolove uses the University of Louisville and it's ultra-successful basketball coach Rick Pitino as a prime example of a university and officials who have lost their way on the road to athletic glory. Beginning in the late 1980's, officials of the commuter school wanted to expand their school's presence in the collegiate world. They hired Tom Jurich as the athletic director and he hired, among many others, Rick Pitino. The money was flowing and it seemed as if the athletic department was the major beneficiary, Pitino, who had bounced between the college and the NBA, worked his magic and eventually the Louisville program began winning. Everyone was happy but very few were asking HOW the program was winning. In the mid-2010's, after a personal scandal by Pitino in 2009, accusations began about the program's purported "pay for play" involving recruits at the school. The NCAA stripped Pitino and his team of their 2013 Final Four championship. Pitino and other Louisville coaches and officials were sacked and the school began their attempts to regroup.
But Sokolove's book is not just about the guys at the top, but he also looks at the young men, playing since children, who are looking for a school, a program, a chance to get to the NBA. These men, and their families, come in to the story as their talent is often exploited by those above them. Kylia Carter's quote at the beginning of my review is about these young men, who were providing the labor without sharing in the proceeds.
Michael Sokolove's book is not long. It's less than 300 pages but Sokolove manages to tell an important story we're seeing far too often.
January 10, 2019
the three stars is more like 3.75 in actuality. this book highlights the growing problem in higher education and the uneasy marriage with amateurism athletics. From the sanctimonious love of the game to the high salaries, the true losers are the players who risk everything for a minuscule chance at changing their lives. It's a good read on how easily one can be corrupted in the high stakes world of college athletics.
March 15, 2019
Maybe the best of the books in recent years chronicling the immoral mess that is college athletics. It's all seen through the lens of Rick Pitino and the Louisville scandal(s), but there are innumerable other scandals the author could have chosen. This is a corrupt system and we cannot tolerate it much longer.
February 18, 2019
“The Last Temptation of Rick Pitino” is a book I heard about on Fresh Air and wanted to read. (Fresh Air adds a lot of books to my to read list!)
I went to a small liberal arts college, and by the time I got to Syracuse for my master's program and later moving to Lawrence, I feel like school spirit is a language I never learned to speak. So I don’t really follow sports (college or otherwise), but I do enjoy books about the culture of the fandom. Especially to non-fiction books about how corrupt they are and how we need to change the system. Maybe it goes back to all those formative years I spent touring various stadiums and halls of fame with my sports-obsessed brothers.
This looked at the college recruiting scandal through a focus on the University of Louisville, and Rick Pitino. The one weakness of the book is that it came out so close to the scandal and the court case that things are still unfolding.
Aside from that, I found it to be really thought-provoking especially about the relationship between the city and the university as fueled by sports. Also how ridiculous the NCAA rules are about “scholar-athletes” and not paying them, which essentially seems like a scam to make the NCAA more money. But I’m not a fan, so take that with a grain of salt, and maybe think about reading this. Also really recommend the book “Indentured” by Joe Nocera, about the NCAA and college athletes.
I went to a small liberal arts college, and by the time I got to Syracuse for my master's program and later moving to Lawrence, I feel like school spirit is a language I never learned to speak. So I don’t really follow sports (college or otherwise), but I do enjoy books about the culture of the fandom. Especially to non-fiction books about how corrupt they are and how we need to change the system. Maybe it goes back to all those formative years I spent touring various stadiums and halls of fame with my sports-obsessed brothers.
This looked at the college recruiting scandal through a focus on the University of Louisville, and Rick Pitino. The one weakness of the book is that it came out so close to the scandal and the court case that things are still unfolding.
Aside from that, I found it to be really thought-provoking especially about the relationship between the city and the university as fueled by sports. Also how ridiculous the NCAA rules are about “scholar-athletes” and not paying them, which essentially seems like a scam to make the NCAA more money. But I’m not a fan, so take that with a grain of salt, and maybe think about reading this. Also really recommend the book “Indentured” by Joe Nocera, about the NCAA and college athletes.
January 31, 2025
a pretty paint by numbers retelling of Rick Pitino’s exploits, and detailing of pay-for-play scandals in the NCAA. nothing particularly incisive or novel presented here, but still a decent read
February 5, 2019
I knew about the scandals and the corruption of college athletics, especially basketball, so it wasn't shocking to me, but a bit enlightening. The author does a good job or detailing what went on at Louisville, though at times I wish he was tougher on coach Rick Pitino.
After all these years I still laugh at the plausible deniability of college coaches and administrators. "Honest, I didn't know a major sex ring was going on in the basketball dorms, the ones where I place kids and helped raise the money for. I had no idea my assistants (whom I micro-manage like no tomorrow) were recruiting illegally." I've seen it 100 times. There are no bigger control freaks than college coaches and suddenly they're unaware of the small team (13 scholarship players) that they manage or the three/four assistants they oversee.
A.D. Tom Jurich is equally bad, eventually dipping into college foundation money for projects, almost costing Louisville its academic accreditation. Yet, in the end, Jurich says he was just doing what they asked him to do. Sadly, he's probably right, but they didn't ask him to re-hire ultra slimeball Bobby Petrino back as football coach; or ask him to keep giving Pitino free passes on each scandal -- including his own personal sex scandal.
In the end Pitino and Jurich may have lost jobs, but won in the end by pocketing big money. Yes, the world isn't fair when bad people keep cashing in, but in college athletics this is the norm. I'm glad this book was written.
After all these years I still laugh at the plausible deniability of college coaches and administrators. "Honest, I didn't know a major sex ring was going on in the basketball dorms, the ones where I place kids and helped raise the money for. I had no idea my assistants (whom I micro-manage like no tomorrow) were recruiting illegally." I've seen it 100 times. There are no bigger control freaks than college coaches and suddenly they're unaware of the small team (13 scholarship players) that they manage or the three/four assistants they oversee.
A.D. Tom Jurich is equally bad, eventually dipping into college foundation money for projects, almost costing Louisville its academic accreditation. Yet, in the end, Jurich says he was just doing what they asked him to do. Sadly, he's probably right, but they didn't ask him to re-hire ultra slimeball Bobby Petrino back as football coach; or ask him to keep giving Pitino free passes on each scandal -- including his own personal sex scandal.
In the end Pitino and Jurich may have lost jobs, but won in the end by pocketing big money. Yes, the world isn't fair when bad people keep cashing in, but in college athletics this is the norm. I'm glad this book was written.
November 12, 2018
Must Read for Fans & Insiders Alike
As a former professional in a D1 school and parent of a current D1 hoops assistant, I have read this book 3 times as the federal case has progressed. And, I have 'assigned' it to my son and his young cohort of colleagues - in the hopes they remain committed to the STUDENT-athlete but with eyes wide open.
As a former professional in a D1 school and parent of a current D1 hoops assistant, I have read this book 3 times as the federal case has progressed. And, I have 'assigned' it to my son and his young cohort of colleagues - in the hopes they remain committed to the STUDENT-athlete but with eyes wide open.
March 7, 2019
Basketball is not the innocent sport which people think it is. Shoe companies influence too many people. AAU has a very dark side. Rick Pitino is some kind of coach but pretty much lives in a dream world.
November 5, 2018
Evidently, the only way to deal with Temptation is to yield to it.
February 25, 2020
This was an interesting book, but I am not familiar with the author but I'm sure they know nothing about sports because the entire tone of this book seemed to center around absolute naive shock at the audacity of such things in big time college athletics, yet I would wager that most any college sports fan may not know all of the details pointed out in this book, but would almost certainly be familiar with this practice -- which is not at all new or original and which has been going on under the noses and eyes -- looking the other way -- of the college administrations, athletic directors and coaches, including the damn HEAD coaches, Pitino -- you narcissistic pathological liar!!! To say ANY head coach at ANY major sports school like Louisville, and especially when they're control freaks -- and most of them are -- doesn't or wouldn't know about ongoing events taking place, unofficially, on behalf of the team, such as obviously paying off athletes and their families to get them to go to a specific school, and in this case, holding parties with drugs, strippers and hookers for TEENAGE high school recruits, and more ... ANY head coach who has literally no idea at all that such things go on, like Pitino would have us believe as he sues everyone in sight, would be infinitely more naive and clueless than the author and therefore not fit to oversee a major college sports program!!! It's NOT POSSIBLE that these coaches DON'T know about this shit!!!!! I'm not endorsing this stuff or advocating it. I'm simply saying this has been a part of college sports for DECADES and to be a prominent head coach at a major sports university and having to recruit the best going against other "best" schools would indicate ANY and ALL head coaches would know damn well what goes on -- even for the few rare ones who likely don't engage in such behavior, such as Rick Barnes, the antithesis of Rick Pitino. I once had some respect for the man -- until who started asserting a little too strongly that he was totally ignorant, had no idea at all, etc., etc., things people do when they are the most guilty. Total fraud. It would have been a better book if the author hadn't acted like some church choirboy stunned at learning the "ugly" facts of life when, presumably, he should have damn well known better! Seriously, how can anyone take a person seriously when they're writing shock books about something everyone knows has been going on for their entire damn lifetimes? Where the hell has the idiot author been, in their ivory towers? I don't even want to give the book three stars because I'm so annoyed at this author, and I was going to, but the more I think about it, the more ticked off I become that the author seems to be claiming righteous indignation and total lack of knowledge, just like the subject of his book. And neither seem believable. Read it if interested, but be prepared to be stunned at the naivete of the author.
January 3, 2019
I found this book to be a bit disappointing. There really wasn't much new in this book that I had not read before either on sports social media or heard on sports broadcasting like ESPN etc. When I buy a book, like I did this one, my expectations to be better informed or entertained rise. Some of the book came off as repetition ( certain items were repeated twice or more.)
I never heard much more about some of the other colleges and coaches that got caught up in this scandal. This seems like big news for a few days and then just dropped off into a black hole. For example, I would like to have heard more about the situation at the University of Connecticut's basketball program. What got their coach in trouble and why was he fired?
Rick Pitino was a very good basketball coach. I never fully understood the issues with his one night affair and the subsequent trial. As a husband and human being, I'm not so sure how good he was or is. If you could borrow this book, it is worth a quick skim.
I never heard much more about some of the other colleges and coaches that got caught up in this scandal. This seems like big news for a few days and then just dropped off into a black hole. For example, I would like to have heard more about the situation at the University of Connecticut's basketball program. What got their coach in trouble and why was he fired?
Rick Pitino was a very good basketball coach. I never fully understood the issues with his one night affair and the subsequent trial. As a husband and human being, I'm not so sure how good he was or is. If you could borrow this book, it is worth a quick skim.
January 12, 2020
Ouch. We’ve always kind of known college basketball is a cesspool. This book takes you on a quick dip mostly through the lens of Louisville and Rick Pitino. But the book makes clear (including w/examples) that they aren’t especially unique. Bottom line - sneaker companies want to maximize exposure during March Madness so pay people associated with the talent primarily through AAU programs to attend their schools - Nike school or Adidas school - w/hopes of winning in March Madness. The sneaker companies are deeply integrated into the athletic departments. Everyone knows it and everyone profits… except the kids themselves. Figuring out how to compensate the players while maintaining the illusion of ‘student-athlete’ is very challenging. The ‘good’ news of the book- football is a bit less corrupt because there’s less impact of a single player AND apparently it costs a lot less to get a football player to attend your school (recall, even Cam Newton cost less than $200K). It’s enough to make you a fan of pro sports.
June 3, 2019
Sokolove is a very, very solid writer and he does a good job of delivering a fair and even-handed rendering of what at the time looked like the tip of the iceberg of a major college basketball scandal. His accounting of the culture of Louisville athletics-- Jurich, Pitino, and lunatic Kentucky governor Matt Bevin in a brief cameo-- is worth the price of admission. The book does ring a bit hollow at times, in that the tip of the iceberg now looks likely to become the entire iceberg. The scandal has been swept under the rug thoroughly by the NCAA, and the sea change that Sokolove seemed to see coming still hasn't come. That doesn't render the book moot-- in fact, it might make it more interesting. There was room here for a little more depth, a little more inside information... but then, anybody who follows college basketball is still waiting for that in general. A very interesting read, that feels a little thin to be definitive, but is still very much worthwhile.
July 14, 2024
A riveting tale of dirty money, coverups, and drama in college basketball that travelled outside of NCAA violations and into criminal investigations. As someone who isn’t a college basketball fan being introduced to Jurich, Bowen, and Pitino through the events of this book was so cool. More nba lore too with Pitino being a former Celtic coach. Crazy they make so much money in the administration and it still isn’t much different 6 years later after the FBI did all this except for like NIL stuff being allowed. Fun to follow the wiretaps and informant conversations and briefcases full of money. I think Christian Dawkins was a cool dude, a true american hustler that unfortunately got caught up in the wrong place. He deserves another change he would’ve been a great agent but that’s not the way the world works unfortunately.
April 8, 2019
A revealing look into the underworld of college basketball where high school basketball players are recruited/traded like commodities on the market driven by AAU basketball coaches, shoe companies, the recruits' parents, and college coaches who serve as "money runners".
While this book was not exclusively about Rick Pitino and Louisville basketball, it did shine a spotlight on the corrupt "win at all costs approach" that ran rampant within the Cardinals athletic department. In addition, this book also showcased the FBI's investigation which used wiretaps to link Louisville assistant coaches for paying a five star high school recruit Brian Bowen to play for their program in 2017.
While this book was not exclusively about Rick Pitino and Louisville basketball, it did shine a spotlight on the corrupt "win at all costs approach" that ran rampant within the Cardinals athletic department. In addition, this book also showcased the FBI's investigation which used wiretaps to link Louisville assistant coaches for paying a five star high school recruit Brian Bowen to play for their program in 2017.
Read
November 8, 2019For college basketball fans much of the start of the book is probably stuff that they already know about, but this was a good story that reaches beyond just the scandals at Louisville and roots of the Louisville program. The book talks a lot about the basketball recruiting culture as a whole. Parts of it are very toxic and people who are motivated by their own greed are heavily involved. For anybody who wants to learn more about the darker side of college recruiting, an often unspoken part of college sports, I would recommend this book. Even as a college sports fan I learned a lot of new information from the book.
September 16, 2023
Fascinating and very thorough read. Well-researched with interviews with primary sources. Of course, it's depressing to read what college basketball has become, with plenty of sleaze behind the scenes. Sokolove portrays reality well and doesn't pull any punches on what he discovers.
All sense of humanity and good faith appears drained from the recruiting process especially, with players getting screwed over in the long run. I wonder if Bowen Sr. and Jr. ever talk to each other. Being sold out by your dad - that is cold-blooded.
Sokolove sums it up well on page 256. "It's pretty f-cked up. There's no other way to say it."
All sense of humanity and good faith appears drained from the recruiting process especially, with players getting screwed over in the long run. I wonder if Bowen Sr. and Jr. ever talk to each other. Being sold out by your dad - that is cold-blooded.
Sokolove sums it up well on page 256. "It's pretty f-cked up. There's no other way to say it."
October 1, 2024
I found a used copy of this book in a little free library and as an avid college basketball fan had to read. It is WILD to compare how much has changed since the publication of this book with the launch of the transfer portal, NIL and now conference realignment as a result of huge TV deals. The comparison to the “simpler” times made this book more fun to read and even then i did learn a lot, particularly about recruiting.
For those curious though… Pitino is comfortably back in the NCAA after a stint coaching in Greece. He made two tournaments with Iona and is now back in the Big East where he belongs.
For those curious though… Pitino is comfortably back in the NCAA after a stint coaching in Greece. He made two tournaments with Iona and is now back in the Big East where he belongs.
December 21, 2018
My love of college basketball and the NCAA tourney will never be the same. A fascinating/shocking look at the ugly underbelly of college basketball. The corruption starts early--in AAU--and is fed by the shoe companies. As Lebron's HBO documentary "Student Athlete" revealed, folks are making salaries in the millions of dollars and it is not the talent. It's a broken system.
Pitino rode above the law for a long time, survived several sex scandals, and finally was taken down.
A fascinating, well-researched book.
Pitino rode above the law for a long time, survived several sex scandals, and finally was taken down.
A fascinating, well-researched book.
November 30, 2019
Great book
This book hits on many topics
The main topic is how to build a college athletics program
Louisville athletic director raised 100s of millions of dollars and brought in top talent for all of his sports to turn Louisville into one of the top collegiate sports programs in the nation
The main side story of the book is how high school basketball players get paid by agents and sneaker companies to go to certain schools
Very well researched
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in college sports
This book hits on many topics
The main topic is how to build a college athletics program
Louisville athletic director raised 100s of millions of dollars and brought in top talent for all of his sports to turn Louisville into one of the top collegiate sports programs in the nation
The main side story of the book is how high school basketball players get paid by agents and sneaker companies to go to certain schools
Very well researched
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in college sports
December 12, 2020
Rick Pitino is not necessarily the focus of the book, but rather the larger picture of Louisville athletics and the greater issues surrounding college basketball and the NCAA at large. Sokolove does not pull punches with regards to his view of the exploitation of NCAA athletes, but he does ask some very poignant questions surrounding the feasibility and logistics of paying players. Louisville is an excellent example as Somolove delves into the evolution of the university into an athletic power. Definitely worth the time.
February 11, 2021
The most damning quote was from a mother of a college athelete addressing the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics," When you remove all the bling and bells and the sneakers and all that, you've paid for a child to come to your school to do what you wanted them to do, for free, and you made a lot of money when he did that, and you've got all these rules in place that say he cannot share in any of that. The only other time when labor does not get paid but yet someone else gets profits and the labor is black and the profit is white, is in slavery." Enough said.
February 8, 2022
This book didn't contain anything mind-blowing in a macro sense, but it was a good inside look at the incredibly nefarious side of big-time college sports -- told through the latest, highest-profile scandal involving Rick Pitino and Louisville. If you want a quick read that delves into the shady world sports agents, shoe companies, middle men, desperate men in need of $$, rich college coaches, opportunistic ADs and parents, and players -- who may or may not have known about X discretion -- I recommend this book.
November 10, 2023
Excellent book for college hoop fans, especially if you are into how college recruiting works and the overall big business of the game. This is a clear-eyed and well-researched book that uses the several scandals of Pitino's tenure at Louisville to illustrate how corrupt and exploitative this system is. Not as engrossing a profile of Pitino as a person and coach as something like Feinstein's book on Bobby Knight, but def one of the better investigative sports journalism books I have come across.
November 26, 2018
I am not a big fan of sports and, this book is not for me. Still, I thought that this would be an interesting read about the college sports industry. While there is a lot about the unfair treatment of the college players, the author is a fan of sports, and the text reads like a love letter to Rick Pitino. I was hoping for more of an investigation and expose of the industry. The book was a disappointment, but sports fans should enjoy.
January 3, 2024
I made the mistake of judging a book by its title. This desperately needs an update after all the events of the last few year's involving college athletes being paid. Plus more could be said of how Louisville has fared post-Pitino as well as maybe following up on some of the players referenced.
This was really a story about corruption with Pitino as window-dressing. I think a biography on Pitino could be interesting, but the bulk of this would have worked just fine in a long-form article.
This was really a story about corruption with Pitino as window-dressing. I think a biography on Pitino could be interesting, but the bulk of this would have worked just fine in a long-form article.
June 18, 2024
I usually don’t love nonfiction, but I DO love basketball, history, scandals, and the idea of legacy. This book has all of those- it’s a really well written story that follows Rick Pitino and the final scandal that did him in- alleged payments to players like Brian Bowen Jr. and characters like Christian Dawkins (a self described non-agent). Highly recommend if you’re into college basketball- it’s super interesting especially in the context of the modern NIL deal.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 25, 2018
NCAA sports are completely venal-coaches and athletic directors make out like bandits and act like they are above the law and usually are.
Rick Pitino was a successful corrupt coach who was felled by sex and greed yet thinks he is a great "coach of men".
The system must change.
Louisville rose to the top by sinking lower than the other sports whores. Good for you!
Rick Pitino was a successful corrupt coach who was felled by sex and greed yet thinks he is a great "coach of men".
The system must change.
Louisville rose to the top by sinking lower than the other sports whores. Good for you!
May 18, 2019
When Olympic swimmer Kelsi Worrell Dahlia won a gold medal in Rio in 2016, she benefitted from having trained in world class facilities at her school, the University of Louisville. Just twenty years earlier, the university could barely afford chlorine for the pool. U of L's change in fortune can be traced to the arrival in 1997 of athletic director Tom Jurich. Jurich believed that a school can be built on its athletic department and that, at least at U of L, an athletic department can be built on the men's basketball program. He proceeded to turn Kentucky's second most popular basketball team into one of the most profitable college teams in the country. How Jurich achieved this success is the subject of Michael Sokolove's book. It is a tale of questionable university finances, a lopsided arena deal that benefitted U of L and fleeced Louisville taxpayers, and a corrupt men's basketball program that serves as a case study for all that is wrong with modern-day college sports.
Early in his tenure, Jurich recognized that in order to turn the basketball team into the lynchpin for the entire athletic department, he needed a transformational coach. He got his chance when Rick Pitino, who had already won a national championship at the University of Kentucky, retired from the Boston Celtics. Jurich, the consummate salesman, was able to convince Pitino to return to the state of Kentucky even though the Louisville job seemed like a demotion from his earlier position at UK.
Pitino came to Louisville with a mostly clean record and a solid reputation. Pitino's reputation took its first hit in 2009 when he became the subject of an extortion trial for a lady named Karen Sypher who demanded money from Pitino in return for her silence about their after-hours tryst at a Louisville restaurant. In the trial, Pitino was the victim, but when, in his testimony, he acknowledged both the affair and a payment for "medical treatment" that was in fact an abortion, his image was permanently tainted in the eyes of Louisville fans. His next disgrace came a few years later when it was discovered that recruits and players for the men's basketball team were entertained in their on-campus dorm by strippers and prostitutes that had been financed by a U of L assistant coach.
But the event that eventually brought down both Pitino and Jurich was a recruiting scandal that became the subject of an FBI investigation in 2017, and this event is the focal point of this book and the pretense for a greater examination of the corrupt practices that are overwhelming college basketball. Brian Bowen was a 5-star recruit from Indiana who had never made an official visit to Louisville and who had not listed U of L as one of his top five candidates throughout his senior year. When he unexpectedly announced his decision to attend U of L in June 2017, it delighted Louisville fans and raised the suspicions of federal authorities.
It was soon discovered that Bowen's father had been offered a $100,000 payment that had been allegedly pledged by Adidas, the official athletic equipment provider for U of L, and funneled through a group of shady characters who had insinuated themselves into the Bowen family. The story of how money from shoe companies is funneled to players' families through agents and coaches is complicated, and the author does a good job of untangling these squalid practices, but his failure to tell this story chronologically makes it difficult to follow the money trail.
At the heart of this story is the "grassroots" basketball leagues that have become the major recruiting grounds for college coaches. These summer leagues aren't affiliated with high school programs, and their loose structure presents opportunities to funnel money to agents and players' parents in exchange for the player's commitment to play college ball at schools sponsored by the big shoe companies.
In the author's telling, star recruits are preyed upon by corrupt coaches, agents and many others who can benefit from their unpaid services as college athletes. Although Pitino and Jurich are the ostensible subject of this book, the author ultimately uses their stories as a launching pad for an indictment against the NCAA and major college basketball programs. The author believes that the NCAA's concept of the "student-athlete" is little more than a ruse that allows the NCAA and big-time college programs to benefit from what amounts to slave labor.
While the author is straightforward in his diagnosis of the problem, he never fully commits to a potential solution. He seems to be an advocate for paying players, but he can never settle on a method for how this could be accomplished. And to his credit, he acknowledges that paying players has the potential to open a whole new Pandora's box of problems. Ultimately, the reader is given the impression that college basketball is an irredeemable mess.
This is a fascinating inside story of the squalid kingdom of college sports, but I began to wonder if this story couldn't have been told as a long-form magazine article. Much of this short book seems like filler, and, while it is interesting to hear various aspects of the story from different perspectives, the book eventually becomes repetitive. Regardless, it is a story that needs to be told, and Michael Sokolove has made an important contribution to sports journalism.
Early in his tenure, Jurich recognized that in order to turn the basketball team into the lynchpin for the entire athletic department, he needed a transformational coach. He got his chance when Rick Pitino, who had already won a national championship at the University of Kentucky, retired from the Boston Celtics. Jurich, the consummate salesman, was able to convince Pitino to return to the state of Kentucky even though the Louisville job seemed like a demotion from his earlier position at UK.
Pitino came to Louisville with a mostly clean record and a solid reputation. Pitino's reputation took its first hit in 2009 when he became the subject of an extortion trial for a lady named Karen Sypher who demanded money from Pitino in return for her silence about their after-hours tryst at a Louisville restaurant. In the trial, Pitino was the victim, but when, in his testimony, he acknowledged both the affair and a payment for "medical treatment" that was in fact an abortion, his image was permanently tainted in the eyes of Louisville fans. His next disgrace came a few years later when it was discovered that recruits and players for the men's basketball team were entertained in their on-campus dorm by strippers and prostitutes that had been financed by a U of L assistant coach.
But the event that eventually brought down both Pitino and Jurich was a recruiting scandal that became the subject of an FBI investigation in 2017, and this event is the focal point of this book and the pretense for a greater examination of the corrupt practices that are overwhelming college basketball. Brian Bowen was a 5-star recruit from Indiana who had never made an official visit to Louisville and who had not listed U of L as one of his top five candidates throughout his senior year. When he unexpectedly announced his decision to attend U of L in June 2017, it delighted Louisville fans and raised the suspicions of federal authorities.
It was soon discovered that Bowen's father had been offered a $100,000 payment that had been allegedly pledged by Adidas, the official athletic equipment provider for U of L, and funneled through a group of shady characters who had insinuated themselves into the Bowen family. The story of how money from shoe companies is funneled to players' families through agents and coaches is complicated, and the author does a good job of untangling these squalid practices, but his failure to tell this story chronologically makes it difficult to follow the money trail.
At the heart of this story is the "grassroots" basketball leagues that have become the major recruiting grounds for college coaches. These summer leagues aren't affiliated with high school programs, and their loose structure presents opportunities to funnel money to agents and players' parents in exchange for the player's commitment to play college ball at schools sponsored by the big shoe companies.
In the author's telling, star recruits are preyed upon by corrupt coaches, agents and many others who can benefit from their unpaid services as college athletes. Although Pitino and Jurich are the ostensible subject of this book, the author ultimately uses their stories as a launching pad for an indictment against the NCAA and major college basketball programs. The author believes that the NCAA's concept of the "student-athlete" is little more than a ruse that allows the NCAA and big-time college programs to benefit from what amounts to slave labor.
While the author is straightforward in his diagnosis of the problem, he never fully commits to a potential solution. He seems to be an advocate for paying players, but he can never settle on a method for how this could be accomplished. And to his credit, he acknowledges that paying players has the potential to open a whole new Pandora's box of problems. Ultimately, the reader is given the impression that college basketball is an irredeemable mess.
This is a fascinating inside story of the squalid kingdom of college sports, but I began to wonder if this story couldn't have been told as a long-form magazine article. Much of this short book seems like filler, and, while it is interesting to hear various aspects of the story from different perspectives, the book eventually becomes repetitive. Regardless, it is a story that needs to be told, and Michael Sokolove has made an important contribution to sports journalism.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews