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I was a child when Pitino left Kentucky, but even then I understood that you leave a college job (even UK) for the Boston Celtics. Hindsight is 20/20, but the decision he made in that moment is a no-brainer.

I was glad to see him get his roses. I don't blame him for taking the Louisville job either-- it's not like he said no to Kentucky to go to Louisville and if anything, it added to the rivalry. That's how I've looked at it since the day he took the Louisville job.

I think there's a place for all of the coaches who've won a national championship to come back to Lexington, and I think that this would extend to Calipari once he's retired from coaching or at least isn't at a school that we're really competing with.

I have really never understood the Pitino hate. I didn't blame him for taking the Boston job or the Louisville job. Kentucky fans are so bad for things like hating on guys who leave for other jobs.

I never hated Pitino leaving for Boston, I was pretty young when he did, so I was mainly just sad. 

I always liked the Celtics growing up, so they instantly became my new favorite team, and still to this day, especially at that time having Antione Walker, and Ron Mercer. 

Money talks, and bullshit walks as they say, getting paid nearly $8-9 mill a year in the late 90's? Can't blame him for leaving to get his barrels full. He has openly admitted that leaving Kentucky was the biggest mistake he ever made, bc he flopped tremendously in Boston. I have always said that if he stayed, UCLA would be 2nd in National Championships, Pitino would have a statue in front of Rupp, they'd have to name something after him! 

I'll never forget when he took the Louisville job, I was more shocked than anything else, but being 12 years old at that time, and as I got older I knew he would build them into a perennial winner, and that he did in a quick time. I've never like Louisville, but never wavered as a Pitino fan. Despite the 2013 Championship being taken away from the record books, I'll never forget watching that whole tournament, and remembering him coaching his heart out every single game, probably his best coaching job that season. 

I got all the jokes, and people making fun of him, and the stain that he had on his reputation not only as a coach, but as a human, but nothing can take away how great of a coach he was and still is, everything he done for Kentucky Basketball, brought it back from the depths after it was on the brink of death. 

Rick Pitino is my all-time favorite. So glad he was back at Camelot.