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NCAA tournament 2012: From afar, Rick Pitino’s biggest fan cherishes Final Four berth

By Steve Yanda,March 25, 2012

(Page 2 of 2)

Weiler met Pitino for the first time when he attended Louisville’s game against Memphis on Dec. 17. He got to shoot free throws with Tyler Miller, a Cardinals team manager who is from the same area of Illinois as Weiler, before Louisville’s game against Rutgers on Feb. 4. The Cardinals claimed a 78-66 victory and were in the midst of a six-game winning streak.

While waiting for Pitino to finish his postgame news conference that day, Sucher told Weiler that Louisville’s 2-5 stretch in late December and early January had been nothing to worry about.

“Teams that are coached by Coach P hit their stride in February and March because the offense that he runs is so complex that it takes the players time to figure it out,” Sucher told Weiler that day. “But once they figure it out, they’re going to make a long run in the postseason.”

Transcending basketball

Weiler lives in a dorm room by himself because he has so much equipment to help him through his day. His printer produces pages embossed in Braille. His calculator and his laptop speak to him in a digitized voice.

At 2:16 p.m. central time on Friday, Weiler’s computer made the “ding” sound that notifies him when an e-mail arrives. It was from Pitino.

A night earlier, Louisville had defeated top-seeded Michigan State and had advanced to the Elite Eight, where the Cardinals would face Florida. The Gators are coached by Billy Donovan, and Weiler knew how close Pitino was to Donovan, his former player and assistant.

Pitino “said he’d call me this week when he gets back to Louisville, because they’ve had a pretty hectic schedule,” Weiler said. “He said Florida was a tough team and that the Cardinals would have to be ready to face the Gators. And to be well. That’s how he always ends his e-mails: ‘Be well. Sincerely yours, Coach P.’ ”

After Saturday’s game, the Louisville fans in attendance at U.S. Airways Center screamed and cheered as Dieng climbed a ladder and cut off two pieces of netting. They were too busy cheering on the player who followed Dieng up the ladder to notice the 6-foot-11 center from Senegal hand one strand of netting to Pitino.

Weiler, who is 21, wants to do what Sucher does one day, be an executive assistant to a college basketball coach. He’s in contact with Stevens at Butler, and Travis Ford at Oklahoma State. He says he’s supposed to get a call from Billy Donovan at Florida sometime this offseason.

But if he had to choose, Weiler would prefer one day to work for a carbon copy of Pitino. Of all his interactions with the Louisville coach, the one that stands out to Weiler the most is the day he and Pitino sat for 90 minutes at a high school basketball game in Evansville and talked about a lot of things that were related to basketball, but only in a tangential sense.

“From that conversation, I figured out that the moments he likes best are moments that transcend basketball,” Weiler said. “Moments that you’ll think back on 20 to 25 years later that actually matter more than the game.”

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