On Saturday evening, St. John’s College basketball ended a 25-year drought, clinching the Large East Event.
Because the group reduce down the nets in celebration — of their title and a miraculous two-year turnaround beneath Coach Rick Pitino — Mike Repole watched in awe from the ground at Madison Sq. Backyard.
Headed to the airport after the sport, the Queens native’s journey was lit by the Empire State Constructing completed up within the college’s crimson and white.
The show was each poetic and plain. St. John’s is again.
“It was amazing,” Repole, who graduated from the varsity in 1991, instructed me. “Did I know how I was gonna feel? Did I know how New York was gonna feel? Did I know how it was going to make other people feel? I had no idea.”
Repole’s not simply any fan, although. The self-made billionaire has donated at the very least seven figures to this yr’s group and incentivized different devoted to open their pocketbooks.
His cash made it potential for Coach Rick Pitino to recruit athletes like Kadary Richmond and RJ Luis. Few have been as pivotal — or seen — as Repole, 55, on this wild new period of faculty sports activities, the place pupil athletes are capable of be compensated beneath NIL (Identify, Picture and Likeness) guidelines and transfer freely to different colleges by the switch portal.
St. John’s reportedly has an NIL payroll of round $4 million, believed to be No. 1 within the Large East.
“College sports has always been a business. Now it’s being shared in different ways,” mentioned Repole about turning himself into St. John’s human ATM.
However his help, he insists, is “not transactional.”
Nope. That is private for him. Rising up in Center Village, he dreamed of being the GM of the Mets or the coach of St. John’s — which, for many years, was a vaunted however gritty program beneath stars like Chris Mullin and Mark Jackson and legendary coach Lou Carnesseca.
As a substitute, the first-generation American — Repole’s dad and mom are Italian immigrants— studied sports activities administration and have become an entrepreneur, founding beverage manufacturers like Vitamin Water and Bodyarmor, each of which he bought to Coca-Cola, for $4.1 and $5.6 billion, respectively.
Not that he carries himself as a showy billionaire.
“Instead of wearing Tom Ford I dress like Adam Sandler. And I’m happy with it. I’ve got the same friends for 45 years. I call my parents every night,” mentioned Repole.
He’s all the time been a Johnnies fan, however he’s by no means held again his frustration over the varsity’s management throughout their time within the desert. (It is a man who owns an attire model known as Nobull, in any case.)
In a 2019 name with WFAN’s Mike Francesca, Repole lambasted college officers as they looked for a coach after parting methods with Chris Mullin — dubbing them “incompetent, clueless.”
He phoned in, he says, not as a billionaire booster, however as Mike from Center Village, dispensing robust love “from the heart.”
In 2021, a much-needed change got here when Father Brian Shanley, previously of Windfall Faculty, was employed as president and made a daring transfer. He employed Pitino.
The legendary coach got here with baggage. A sordid 2009 felony case revealed a girl had tried to extort him for intercourse and he had paid for her to have an abortion. In 2017, his assistant coach on the College of Louisville was discovered responsible in a sex-for-play scandal — resulting in the group’s 2013 championship title being vacated. (Pitino was later cleared within the federal investigation.)
However Shanley was keen to take an opportunity, and Repole and his pockets fortunately rejoined the fold.
As for the way a lot he’s keen to maintain spending, the billionaire instructed The Put up: “I’m going to commit whatever it takes.”
His different ardour is the ponies, and he’s taken 10 of them to the Kentucky Derby. However nothing has rejuvenated Repole just like the Pink Storm, he mentioned.
“I didn’t get any younger this year but I got a lot more youthful,” he mentioned of this season. “It introduced me again to a less complicated time … the power to return again and simply really feel New York once more and really feel what I felt as a child? It’s giving me chills.
“I haven’t had this feeling in New York in a long, long time,” mentioned Repole, who moved to Florida 5 years in the past.
He’s not alone. There’s the 75-year-old who stopped Repole on the road to thank him, tales of outdated associates who are actually reuniting for journeys to MSG, and a number of generations of members of the family bonding over the Johnnies — together with his 84-year-old father and 9-year-old daughter, Gioia.
Then there’s me: a lifelong St John’s fan who has remained defiantly crimson, although my beloved alma mater, Windfall, is a convention rival. Oh boy, I couldn’t cease thanking him.
In my 21 years at The Put up, there has by no means been a requirement for St. John’s tales to maneuver out of the sports activities pages.
However this season, their comeback has each dominated the backpage and captured the zeitgeist. The Large East champs repeatedly bought out Madison Sq. Backyard. Spike Lee has been courtside. Earlier this month, when Pitino was on “The Tonight Show,” Jimmy Fallon and the group even carried out a now viral Pink Storm-themed sea shanty.
The thrill is palpable.
“We’re the Kardashians of college basketball,” Repole mentioned with fun. However there’s no filler or filters. This group’s grit, ardour and relentless protection is 100% genuine.
He credit Pitino’s no excuses teaching fashion. And the nice Catholic boy, who repeatedly invokes Padre Pio, can’t neglect the heavenly help from this system’s patriarch, Carnesecca — who died in November, a month shy of his one centesimal birthday.
“It’s almost like he wasn’t ready to go until the team was in the right place. And finally after 25 years, the team is in the right place,” mentioned Repole, including that Looie “has been here the whole time” watching.
Up subsequent is the Large Dance. St. John’s, the West’s No. 2, seed will tackle Omaha in Windfall on Thursday evening.
Recalling his teen years sitting within the fabled blue seats of MSG’s nosebleed part, Repole joked there was only one drawback.
“Now I’ve spent the whole tournament either first or second row, you know, with Rick walking in front of me,” he mentioned. “That’s my biggest complaint. He blocks my view.”
The person whose guiding mantra is “think big, dream bigger” has a brand new one for March Insanity: “Why not us?”
