B lack blazer , gray slacks , crisp white dress shirt open at the collar , Kim English stands off to the side of the basketball court at Madison Square Garden .
A few hundred journalists have gathered at the world ’ s most famous arena on this sunny autumn afternoon in midtown Manhattan for Big East Media Day . It ’ s the biggest turnout in a decade , a Big Eastpalooza celebrating a conference at college basketball ’ s summit . Three national championships in the last seven years . Three Final Four teams in the past four . A fraternity of coaches that has won more than 3,000 games in its collective decades patrolling the sidelines .
This tableau was once just the glimmer in the eye of a visionary college basketball coach in Rhode Island . Dave Gavitt , who coached the 1973 Providence College Final Four team starring Marvin Barnes and Ernie DiGregorio , went on to unite Eastern basketball ’ s independent schools and put their games on a fledgling sports television network in Bristol , Connecticut , called ESPN . The rest was history . Marquee Big East tournament games here at the Garden . Three teams in the Final Four in 1985 . Two more in 1987 , including a Cinderella Friars team starring Billy Donovan and coached by Rick Pitino .
English straightens the Friars pin on his lapel and steps onto the
court . The Big East commissioner , Val Ackerman , greets him with a hug and asks how he ’ s doing . “ I haven ’ t lost yet ,” he deadpans . Like students on the first day of school , the coaches assemble near midcourt for a class picture . English takes his place at one end of the line , next to his friend Shaka Smart , coach of Big East defending champion Marquette , and Dan Hurley , coach of the defending national champs at the University of Connecticut and , before that , the coach at the University of Rhode Island . Pitino , seventy-one , a Hall of Fame coach making his return to the Big East with St . John ’ s , stands near the center . Near the other end of the line is the avuncular , back-slapping new coach of Georgetown , Ed Cooley , the twelve-season ex-Providence coach whose departure last March sent shock and anger through Friar Nation .
The coaches head to tables spread around the perimeter of the court . Reporters hurry from table to table , like speed dating . A large crowd of reporters surrounds Pitino , who vows to jump in the East River if he fails to lead St . John ’ s to a national championship . Another big group surrounds the Georgetown table , asking Cooley about the angry mob he ’ s expected to face when the Hoyas visit Providence at the end of January .
English receives a smaller but steady stream of interrogators curious about the new Friars coach . How will the country ’ s youngest coach in a major college sports conference — he turned thirty-five four weeks earlier — fare in this land of giants ?
“ You are in awe , thinking about where you are ,” he says calmly . “ But I ’ m not having fantastical thoughts . I ’ ve played against these guys , coached against guys who have been in Final Fours . We ’ re not playing the pick and roll today — that would be a lot more stressful .”
English says his focus is on the next practice , the next workout , building his players into a tough , resilient group that has one another ’ s backs .
“ My feet are planted ,” he says . “ I ’ m not emotional . I ’ m actually boring .”
CAN KIM ENGLISH SAVE Providence basketball ? Can he maintain Ed Cooley ’ s level of success , and raise it ? These are the questions hovering over a program that has , in the absence of major league sports , been Rhode Island ’ s unofficial pro team since the days of Lenny Wilkens and Jimmy Walker in the late 1950s and 1960s .
Two days after Cooley bolted to Georgetown , the keys to Friartown were entrusted to a thirty-four-year-old coach with two years of head coaching experience , a onetime kid
FROM LEFT : Coach English during practice with the team ; English coaches the team at a game at the Amica Mutual Pavilion ; seventies ’ PC basketball legend Ernie DiGregorio ( left ), with English and fan Dominic Colletta .
52 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l JANUARY 2024