PROVIDENCE — It was time. It was just time for Ed Cooley to finally leave his hometown.
That is the bottom line in the basketball saga that’s unfolded in Providence over the last 10 months. It’s a story that will reach another emotional pinnacle this Saturday when the Georgetown Hoyas come to a sold out, raucous Amica Mutual Pavilion to face the Providence Friars.
The most popular beach/golf course/restaurant conversation topic last summer in Rhode Island revolved around coming to grips with Cooley’s exit from PC to Big East rival Georgetown. What happened? Why would he do this? How could he leave after preaching ‘Us, We, Together, Family, Friars’ for a dozen seasons? And what the heck happened to his final Friar team as it ran out of gas and lost its last four games in dis-spiriting fashion?
All good questions, many without clear answers. But the fact that Ed Cooley’s journey as PC’s coach had essentially played itself out for myriad reasons has been overlooked. It’s certainly not the popular refrain sung by the coach and the many national publications/web sites that have chronicled his exit and move to the nation’s capital. Cooley, with guidance from his personal and legal advisors, has enthusiastically pushed the narrative that the controversial, first-ever move of a head coach within the Big East Conference was all about ‘change.’
“People ask ‘why Georgetown?’ Why? Change. I think in all of our lives change is healthy for everyone,” Cooley said back in October at Big East Media Day. “I think when you live in an area for your whole life every now and then change is exciting, it’s invigorating.”
A quest for such change was a very real part of the equation, but it was also a solution to problems the coach was facing. The fact that Cooley was battling personal and family demands has been grossly overlooked. So is the largely unspoken ingredient in his thinking that he felt he had maxed out the job at Providence.
While that second item is certainly open to debate, the first is not. After 12 years of living and working in his hometown, the spotlight of coaching the Friars was wearing out Cooley and his family. It became a strain on his marriage, his children and his friends. Sources close to Cooley insist that his wife, Nurys, was ready to leave Rhode Island a few years earlier as she grew increasingly weary of the spotlight of being the Coach’s Wife. The couple’s children had left the family home in the leafy hills of East Greenwich and the suburban life grew lonely. That was one reason the couple purchased a condo in downtown Providence, just one block from the Friars’ home court.
“I’ve always said the basketball coach at Providence College is more famous than the Governor here in Rhode Island,” former PC athletic director Bob Driscoll once said.
Cooley faced other personal challenges. His son, Isaiah, became a popular voice on Twitter and rallied the Friar fans and support for his father’s teams. He also acknowledged a substance abuse challenge on the social media platform, and clearly welcomed support from the PC community. Cooley’s daughter, Olivia, literally grew up in PC fan’s eyes as she sat near the team’s bench. She eventually left town and went off to college at Georgetown, graduated in the spring of 2023 and chose to remain in the District and begin a career.
Then there were issues with Cooley himself. Almost every year in his tenure the coach dealt with some serious health issues. After his second season in town (2013), the coach felt, and looked, awful. He tipped the scales at 344 pounds and knew that weight, plus the stress of reviving a Big East program, was a deadly duo. That summer he underwent weight reduction surgery and would go on to drop nearly 100 pounds. The process wasn’t easy and came with assorted complications that still dog him today, but Cooley came out on the other side a much healthier person.
Other health issues persisted, however. One that lingers is a painful back ailment that’s required multiple procedures and caused him to miss games during his years at Providence.
While those health challenges could happen anywhere, other bumps in the road were unique to the coach living and working in his hometown. Cooley would famously say he had “over 100″ cousins in the state. He watched several very close relatives — including his wife’s side of the family — pass away in recent years, and their loss left a hole in the Cooleys’ hearts. But so did dealing with the pleas for help from family members, some close and some estranged. Needless to say, any relative or close friend of the coach knew he was pulling down a multi-million dollar contract every year.
There is no easy way for a successful, beloved college or pro coach to leave one job for another. New Englanders have seen drama play out with Bill Parcells leaving the Patriots for the Jets, for example. Rick Pitino famously signed a contract extension with Providence College after a Final Four run in 1987, and jumped to the New York Knicks only weeks later.
It happens. It’s a business.
It also hurts, and Cooley’s departure stung deeply. For one, it was that he was the local guy, the school’s first minority head coach who grew up poor in South Providence. He was the perfect fit, the All-Stater at Central High who dreamed of being a coach, and found a perfect mentor in Al Skinner at the University of Rhode Island. He found success as a head coach at Fairfield, and then promised to ”dream big” when he was hired at Providence in 2011.
When those dreams began coming to fruition with the Friars cutting the nets down with a Big East Tournament title in 2014, the story couldn’t have unfolded any sweeter. Cooley was a Cinderella in sneakers, complete with a Rhode Island accent, and he reveled in pushing the Friartown brand virtually everywhere in the Ocean State.
To the surprise of no one, Cooley’s success played well nationally. Georgetown was hardly the first school to come calling. Providence, after all, owned a well-earned reputation as a stepping stone job in college basketball. That’s why Rick Barnes left for Clemson and Pete Gillen for Virginia. But those are the stone ages of college hoops. Thanks in large part to Cooley’s success on the court and as a marketer, the Providence job is now a jewel. Cooley was earning well over $3 million in his final seasons, and the program is housed in the $30 million Ruane Friar Development Center that is the envy of everyone in the East.
When the coaching carousel spun every spring, Cooley benefitted from being a relatively young, Black coach. Athletic directors and search firms are always looking to interview a successful minority coach, and Cooley was one of the precious few who was shining at a Power 6 (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, PAC-12, SEC, Big East) program. Opportunities at Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech, Michigan and other schools came up, and Cooley and his agent, Dennis Coleman, skillfully leveraged those feelers into multiple contract extensions at Providence.
The choice to remain at Providence only endeared Cooley to Friartown even more. After all, he was OUR Coach, right? And isn’t life in East Greenwich, playing the state’s beautiful golf courses and dining at the choice restaurants, the best anyway? All on $3 million plus a year?
Lifelong Friar fans certainly felt that way.
Despite the personal and family challenges, let’s get one thing straight: Ed Cooley is no dummy. He wasn’t leaving Providence where he had the ultimate security, leaving his boyhood home and all his family and friends, for a basketball opportunity that he didn’t crave. So why Georgetown?
It is true that Cooley owned a mentor relationship with John Thompson, the legendary Hoya coach. He also counts Thompson’s son, JT III, as a close friend. But what Providence fans don’t want to hear is Cooley also felt his tenure in Friartown had reached a limit. He was tired of romancing high-level recruits for a year or so and being left at the altar come signing day. He told me too many times that he felt a particular recruit “loved the Friars” but ultimately didn’t feel Providence was a lofty enough platform to perform on.
That excuse cost the Friars a load of recruits, from Hunter Dickinson (who went to Michigan) and Wenyen Gabriel (Kentucky), to Noah Locke (Florida) and Bryce Hopkins (Kentucky). Even as the Ruane Center came on line, the ability to regularly attract four- and five-star players proved to be elusive, and while that didn’t stop the Friars from competing at the top of the Big East and making the NCAA Tournament for five straight seasons and seven times (eight counting the 2020 Covid season) in 12 years, eventually talent wins out.
That was certainly the case in PC’s frequent NCAA trips. The black mark on Cooley’s PC tenure came in hitting roadblocks in the NCAA tournaments with only three wins (3-7) in 12 seasons. The victories came over Southern California in an 8 vs. 9 game in 2016, and then wins as a favored 4 seed over 13 seed South Dakota State and 12th seeded Richmond on the way to the Sweet Sixteen in 2022.
Yet when it was time to step up a level (or three), the Friars were out-classed in the talent department. That led to NCAA losses to North Carolina (twice), Kansas and Kentucky, where those Blue Bloods clearly owned the better team. Cooley’s worst post-season defeat? As the 6 seed in 2015 against 11-seed Dayton, with a roster that featured LaDontae Henton, Kris Dunn and Ben Bentil.
They say time heals all wounds, right? Well maybe not in Friartown.
The wounds that PC fans feel from Cooley’s exit are real, and complex. Some reasons are legitimate, others based in jealousy. The one that owns more than a bit of reality is the perception that the Friars late-season tank last March came as the coach had one foot out the door. PC lost five of its last six games and while two came against a better team (National Champ UConn) and the final one vs. Oscar Tshiebwe and Kentucky, two other games raised deserved eyebrows.
How could Xavier come into the AMP and torch PC for 94 points, snapping a 17-game home winning streak and marking the most points allowed in a regulation loss during Cooley’s dozen years on the job? And three days later on Senior Day, the team put forth a complete No-Show in a 82-58 home defeat against Seton Hall.
“How that team, which was ranked in the Top 25, fell apart down the stretch just got so many people upset,” said Joe Hassett, the long-time PC radio analyst. “Why that happened, who knows. But it certainly didn’t reflect well on Ed, and people remember that.”
The day before the regular season-ending loss to The Hall, Cooley and his wife signed an agreement to put their East Greenwich home on the market. Cooley has said that downsizing to just the Providence condo was always the couple’s plan. But the timing has burned PC loyalists.
By the time the Friars arrived at the Big East Tournament, the cat was out of the bag. Big East officials were openly asking informed Cooley watchers if he would indeed leave Providence for Georgetown. That made things quite clear: Cooley may not have been talking directly with Hoya Athletic Director Lee Reed, but his representatives clearly had begun conversations.
Before leaving for Greensboro to face Kentucky, Cooley was fully engaged in the unavoidable coaching carousel dance. He may not have fully signed off on the move, but was about as far away from a denial as possible.
After losing to Kentucky in dispiriting fashion, 61-53, it didn’t take long for things to quickly unravel. In the coach’s post-game remarks he had already flipped the script, clearly opening the door for an exit by saying that “it’s a lot of decisions I need to make, a lot of thinking I need to do There’s a lot of reflecting I need to do.”
Three days later Cooley was gone. PC fans seethed at the decision and the pain came as much for being the jilted lover, the Providence kid leaving home for what he perceives as greener pastures in Washington, D.C. When asked at his press conference at Georgetown and before this season began why he’d leave home for a downtrodden program that currently only sits above lowly DePaul on the Big East’s power chart, Cooley wouldn’t blink. He certainly hasn’t cited his family and health challenges, the pressure to win in his hometown or the clean slate he welcomes in a new contract at Georgetown that could pay north of $5 million a season.
“I’m not apologizing for taking care of my life, end of discussion,” Cooley said. “No matter what the narrative may be, or the why, why, why. The why is change.”
Moments of true honesty have appeared in the interviews Cooley has completed on this subject. In one with Fox Sports’ John Fanta, Cooley said “when I did a deep dive of what’s important, I’ve always said yes to everybody, and I’ve always said no to Ed. Coach Cooley did everything. Ed needed a change and I thought Georgetown was the place for me to make that change.”
Decisions come with consequences and returning to the Amica Mutual Pavilion will bring some thorny ones for Cooley Saturday. He will get booed, and hard. Hopefully the PC fandom doesn’t cross the proverbial line, but extra security has been contracted and tickets for a game against a bad (8-11) Hoya team are going for hundreds of dollars above face value.
Most Friar fans now say that they’re thrilled that Cooley is gone, because they welcome the fresh feeling of his replacement, Kim English. Many fans have moved on but own long memories. Cooley has said he hopes that one day PC fans remember him for all the success the program enjoyed and not for his departure.
That day will eventually come. But it’s certainly not here yet.
Kevin McNamara is a longtime sports journalist in Rhode Island who covered college basketball, the Celtics, Patriots, Red Sox and the Bruins for more 30 years at the Providence Journal, and now writes at Kevin McSports.