For most of its history, college sports had to think outside of the box and get creative to pay their athletes. It was an open secret, and everybody joked about it for decades.
That finally changed when NIL arrived. Now, the players can finally legally get paid for their name, image, and likeness. Of course, that didn’t suit well with some powerhouses.
However, as much as some old-school fans and coaches might not be much of a fan of this new trend, St. John’s coach Rick Pitino believes there’s no point in complaining.
Rick Pitino says there’s no point in complaining about NIL
“I felt the change was here, and quitting, resigning, complaining is of no value,” Pitino said on ‘The Herd.’ “You have to win the day. You have to get the job done, and I just felt that ‘Okay, we’re going to use it to the best of our abilities at St. John’s.’ So, we’re an urban school; we’re a computer school; we play in Madison Square Garden as our home court: How can we maximize our potential by embracing the NIL and the transfer portal? We went away from high school basketball players, although we have taken one or two to develop, but by and large we’ve gone after older players.”
Rick Pitino
At the end of the day, everybody will just have to adapt and adjust. Programs that fail to do so will be caught behind and struggle until they decide to do something about it.
Everything changes at one point, and college basketball isn’t the exception to that rule. Purists may not like it, but there’s not much anybody can do about it anyway.
