The Stars Came Out for the Providence Coach's Legends Roundtable
If there was one thing that stood out above anything else during the Coach’s Legends Roundtable that Providence hosted on Thursday afternoon, it was the genuine love that everyone who presented has for the institution and its basketball program.
Roundtable moderator and PC graduate Doris Burke said she “felt like she could cry” a few minutes into the event.
Ed Cooley spoke of his memories as a junior in high school watching Rick Pitino, Billy Donovan and the 1987 Friars do the impossible by reaching the Final Four — and spoke passionately about how much leading this program means to him all of these years later.
Pitino shared that while he has been to seven Final Fours as a coach, none of them make him tear up like memories of the ’87 Friars do.
Donovan shared how he wouldn’t be where he is today without Pitino.
Rick Barnes, unable to attend after testing positive for Covid-19, was there via Zoom and detailed his respect for Pitino, shared how he tried to model his career after him as a young coach, and candidly reflected on how he later realized that he pushed his Friar teams almost too hard to overcome for his insecurities as head coach in his early 30s.
Tim Welsh spoke of an almost disbelief as a young coach fortunate enough to have legendary Friar coaches Joe Mullaney and Dave Gavitt mentor him throughout his tenure as the Friars’ coach. Welsh shared how Jim Boeheim told him he had to take the Providence job, and that Gavitt would be there to help him navigate through any challenges that arose.
And Pete Gillen did what Pete Gillen does best — regaling the crowd with humor and his unique ability and willingness to take the audience behind the curtain of PC’s run to the Elite Eight in 1997.
The list of attendees was impressive — from former PC assistants like Jeff Van Gundy, Stu Jackson, and Bobby Gonzalez, to generations of stars, including Austin Croshere, Eric Murdock, Kevin Stacom, God Shammgod, Jamel Thomas, Bryce Cotton, and Otis Thorpe (those were just a few that were spotted), as well as the families of Gavitt and Mullaney.
At one point, Doris Burke shared a conversation she had with her ESPN colleague Seth Greenberg this summer, who asked how such a relatively small institution could possibly have such an impactful track record of coaches.
There’s no one right answer to this, but it’s likely due to Dave Gavitt — a respected leader, basketball innovator, and Friar to his core who has touched every generation of Providence basketball coaches dating back to when Mullaney was winning national titles in the early 1960s to PC’s current head coach in Ed Cooley. Providence has been so fortunate to have that type of visionary either directly leading the program, or positively impacting it throughout the remainder of his life. He touched the lives of every person on the stage yesterday, and they all spoke of their gratitude.
As Pitino tweeted afterward, this lineage of coaching greats was all made possible by Gavitt:
The Roundtable kicked off a weekend of events that took tireless planning by the Friends of Friar Basketball, led by Harold Starks (Coordinator of Student-Athlete Mentoring/Athletic Alumni at PC).
Starks introduced newly minted Athletic Director Steve Napolillo, who spoke of both his passion and appreciation for the program and those who helped make it great. Napolillo’s comments also provided the first emotional moment of the day when he touched on Starks overcoming a tenuous battle with Covid-19 last year.
Starks, a Providence basketball player himself in the 1980s, was commended for his ability to connect Friars across generations.
In total, over 100 former players were in attendance, as well as 40+ former team managers, and several assistant coaches. The anecdotes shared were insightful, and the passion that came pouring out of the room served as a reminder of the genuine appreciation each of these guests had for the history of Providence College basketball, and their roles in creating it.