Wait a Second: Penn State Once Turned Down Rick Pitino?

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There's a nice story on ESPN.com by Jeff Goodman about Louisville head coach Rick Pitino giving a job to a young assistant coach named Mike Balado, who, after a strange series of circumstances and miscommunications, suddenly found himself without a D-I home.

Pitino, after hearing the story of how Balado was about to take a job at a Division II program for $18,000, invited Balado to his home, told him about how he (Pitino) once got turned down by Penn State, gave the guy $300 to take his wife out to dinner, and only then told him he (Balado) was Louisville's newest assistant.

Wait a second -- Penn State once turned down Rick Pitino?

That’s when Pitino began reciting the story, the one in which former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno wooed a young Pitino way back in the early 1980s -- only to be disappointed when he didn’t get the job.

Finally, Pitino got to the point, telling Balado how it all worked out, and how shortly after being spurned by Penn State, Pitino was brought into the NBA by Hubie Brown as an assistant with the New York Knicks.

“Some things happen for a reason,” Pitino told Balado. “Good things sometimes come from misfortune.”

Could you imagine if Pitino was the basketball coach at Penn State, went through his extortion scandal, and then everything happens with Sandusky, and maybe Al Pacino plays both Pitino and Paterno in that movie he's making with Brian De Palma?

I'd see that movie.

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