Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Last-minute father’s day gift? How about a call from a title-winner?

Rick Pitino, Quentin Ghelardini

Louisville head coach Rick Pitino signs the shirt of 7-year-old Quentin Ghelardini during a visit to the Fort Knox military base, Wednesday, June 5, 2013, in Fort Knox, Ky. Coaches and members of the men’s NCAA national championship and women’s national runner-up team visited the base. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

AP

Father’s day is one of the most legendary goof-off holidays in human history. Does dad want a tie? No, but he’s getting one anyway. And the old man is so cool, he’ll smile fondly anyway.

Unless...

Unless dad happens to be a big college hoops fan, in which case you can throw a surprise curveball at him tomorrow. CelebCalls.com is offering up dad-to-dad phoners from John Calipari, Bill Self and even reigning national champion coach Rick Pitino.

If your pops isn’t so enamored of swapping stories with other old dudes, maybe he’ll enjoy the fact that one of his favorite players from last season is now out from under the NCAA thumb and able to make money off of his dialing skills:

Send your #BBN Dad the most unique Father’s Day gift under $5! A personalized #CelebCall from YOURS TRULY! try it http://t.co/i3CPbEimlF

— Nerlens Noel (@NerlensNoel3) June 15, 2013


I can personally vouch for the fact that Rick Pitino is a very understanding guy when it comes to fatherly duties. A few years back, I called to set up an interview with him over the summer, and his assistant took my number. And let me tell you, big time coaches NEVER call you back.

Except this one did. He called around 8pm, while I was sitting on the couch watching Pixar movies with my son. In other words, I was completely unready to conduct an interview. I stammered and stuttered for a few minutes as I tried to find my computer and recorder, and finally just admitted to him that I had been watching movies with my son and would take a second to get ready. I thought he’d be pretty annoyed, since he’d taken the time to call me back.

But he just said, somewhat wistfully, that he remembered those days, even though his kids are older now. I guess you don’t get too much time to sit and watch Toy Story 2 when your son is your assistant coach (as Richard Pitino was at that time), let alone head coach at Minnesota (as he is now).

Anyway, happy father’s day, dads, from all of us here at CBT.

Eric Angevine is the editor of Storming the Floor. He tweets @stfhoops.