Ed Cooley owes PC Friars fans nothing more than what he’s already given

Ed Cooley owes me nothing more than what he has already given me, which is a decade of joy, anxiety, elation, and despair that comes with rooting for a team and a program I care about.

In the 11 years Coach Cooley was the Mayor of Friartown, he reinvigorated a basketball program that was teetering toward irrelevance, and he elevated the broader recognition and reputation of Providence College, making my diploma more valuable today than it was when I graduated 18 years ago.

Seeing the public conversation among Friar fans turn against Ed Cooley so rapidly, so vitriolically, and so personally has been disheartening.

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Cooley deserves every bit of criticism he’s received for the way he allowed his recruitment to Georgetown to play out. The optics of getting his house ready to sell days before the start of the Big East tournament will rightly leave a sour taste in fans’ mouths. And I agree wholeheartedly that leaving PC for a Big East rival rather than an ACC or BIG10 program pours water on the “Us. We. Together. Family. Friars.” mantra that my kids and I wear on T-shirts throughout the season.

Georgetown also deserves criticism for approaching a rivals’ coach in the middle of the season while Patrick Ewing was on their sideline. The Big East Conference deserves criticism for not doing anything to shut the talks down. And even PC deserves a bit of criticism for appearing to take too much of a “see no evil/hear no evil” approach.

But let’s be honest: This isn’t the first time a big-time coach has left a big-time program. It isn’t even the first time a successful coach has left Providence for another gig.

Rick Pitino dumped the Friars after only three years (and appears ready to dump Iona to get back in the Big East). Yes, Pitino brought PC to the Final Four, and that 1987 team is rightly cherished. But the same fans and accounts that are trashing their Cooley bobbleheads and threatening to spit in his pasta when Georgetown comes to the AMP next season go through annual bouts of nostalgia for Pitino.

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Pitino left the program a shell of what it was. Except for the 1994 Big East Tournament and a Cinderella run to the Elite Eight in 1997, the Providence basketball program was unremarkable and unmemorable for nearly a quarter century. The program Cooley is leaving behind is stronger and more established than it’s ever been. Providence College is now an attractive job for a talented coach, as well as a destination for nationally ranked recruits. PC’s Athletic Department should have very little trouble bringing a great coach to campus.

So why is the Black coach villainized for leaving, but the white coach (who carries decades of baggage and scandal to every new job he accepts) lauded over and lusted after? In sports and everything else, we allow white leaders to make these kinds of decisions for themselves and their families, and we accept those decisions as a part of the business.

Is the Georgetown coaching job a better gig than PC? Probably not, especially not in its current state. But Ed Cooley is the only person who gets to decide what’s best for his family — his actual family, not those of us who know him through the TV.

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I would have loved for Ed Cooley to be on the bench with the Friars for the next decade. The business of college basketball has other plans. As disappointed as I am to see him leave, I’m not going to boo him next season. Nothing that has played out over the last month during the speculation about his future can deny me the core memories I’ve made with my kids watching his teams play over the last 12 years.

He might not get a statue outside the AMP, and his Friar legacy will undoubtedly change as he trades a Friars quarter-zip for a Hoyas polo, but Ed Cooley owes fans nothing more than what he’s already given, and we owe him a thank you for making Providence a program to care about.

We can also hope he never wins at the AMP again.

Mike Raia is a 2005 graduate of Providence College, Friar season ticket holder, and president of Half Street Group, a Providence-based strategic PR agency.