WhoRUSupposed2Be
August-13th-2009, 06:59 AM
http://blog.al.com/ray-melick/2009/08/melick_louisville_defines_itse.html
http://blog.al.com/ray-melick/2009/08/large_Rick%20Pitino%20apology%20081209.JPG Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino makes a public apology concerning his involvement in a scandal in Louisville, Ky., Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009. Pitino's comments were the first since news broke Tuesday that he told police that he and Karen Sypher had sex on a table at a Louisville restaurant six years ago. (AP Photo/Garry Jones)
"Success is a Choice" is the title of Rick Pitino's best-selling book from 1997.
You know what else is a choice? Having sex with a woman you've barely met inside a popular Louisville restaurant, and then two weeks later when she claims she's pregnant shelling out three grand for an abortion, er, "medical insurance."
Whatever else you've read or heard about the trials and tribulations of Pitino, the highly popular basketball coach at the University of Louisville, the crux of the story is that of a high profile, wealthy, powerful, married man having the most impersonal of physical relationships with a woman he'd only met a few hours before, according to a police report obtained by the Louisville Courier-Journal. (http://www.courier-journal.com/)
The woman, Karen Cunagin Sypher, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to extort $10 million from Pitino, and lying to the FBI.
This story has more plot lines than "Pulp Fiction."
And it reads just as sleazy.
You've got the owner of the restaurant tossing Pitino the keys, leaving Pitino and Sypher alone, and telling him to lock up when he leaves. Classy joint, huh?
You've got a Pitino aide laying low inside the restaurant during the "encounter," close enough so that everything sounded, at least to him, like nothing was wrong.
Then it really gets strange. Pitino and the then-single Cunagin later met at Pitino aide Tim Sypher's condo, where Pitino hands over the $3,000 in medical insurance-hush money. A few months later, Tim Sypher marries Cunagin, essentially bringing her into the fold of the Pitino athletic family. For the next few years, everything is fine -- until the day the extortion demands are made, delivered by, of all people, Tim Sypher.
Then Tim Sypher decides it's time for a divorce. Charges are filed against Karen Sypher. And now you throw in the idea of a popular coach, by all accounts a devout Catholic who keeps a priest with the team at every game, being willing to pay for an abortion ... well, it's enough to make your head explode.
No matter how you spin this story, no matter how crazy Cunagin Sypher sounds or how victimized Pitino appears or how Pitino's lawyers try to whitewash the $3,000 as not being paid to cover the cost of an abortion but for "medical insurance," it can't hide the sleaze in all this.
This is everything coaches spend so much time warning their players to stay away from, and punishing their players when they get caught up in situations like this.
You remember Larry Eustachy? He was fired by Iowa State for being photographed while drinking beer with some co-eds at a campus party. Inappropriate, yes. But more inappropriate than this?
Louisville has a standard morals clause in Pitino's contract that allows the university to fire him for this kind of behavior. But it's amazing how the more successful a coach is, the less enforceable such morals clauses seem to be.
Wednesday night, Louisville university President Dr. James Ramsey said Pitino's apology was enough, and now "we're all ready to move on. ... We need to get back to educating the next generation of Kentucky's leaders."
Part of that education should include examples of current leaders and how their actions can harm impressionable students who look to them as role models.
Success is a choice. So is how a university chooses to define success.
Louisville made its choice.
And the education of "the next generation of Kentucky's leaders" has clearly begun.
Listening to Mike and Mike this morning, I also overheard that he was caught drinking with some students and they were debating whether or not this was illegal.
http://blog.al.com/ray-melick/2009/08/large_Rick%20Pitino%20apology%20081209.JPG Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino makes a public apology concerning his involvement in a scandal in Louisville, Ky., Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009. Pitino's comments were the first since news broke Tuesday that he told police that he and Karen Sypher had sex on a table at a Louisville restaurant six years ago. (AP Photo/Garry Jones)
"Success is a Choice" is the title of Rick Pitino's best-selling book from 1997.
You know what else is a choice? Having sex with a woman you've barely met inside a popular Louisville restaurant, and then two weeks later when she claims she's pregnant shelling out three grand for an abortion, er, "medical insurance."
Whatever else you've read or heard about the trials and tribulations of Pitino, the highly popular basketball coach at the University of Louisville, the crux of the story is that of a high profile, wealthy, powerful, married man having the most impersonal of physical relationships with a woman he'd only met a few hours before, according to a police report obtained by the Louisville Courier-Journal. (http://www.courier-journal.com/)
The woman, Karen Cunagin Sypher, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to extort $10 million from Pitino, and lying to the FBI.
This story has more plot lines than "Pulp Fiction."
And it reads just as sleazy.
You've got the owner of the restaurant tossing Pitino the keys, leaving Pitino and Sypher alone, and telling him to lock up when he leaves. Classy joint, huh?
You've got a Pitino aide laying low inside the restaurant during the "encounter," close enough so that everything sounded, at least to him, like nothing was wrong.
Then it really gets strange. Pitino and the then-single Cunagin later met at Pitino aide Tim Sypher's condo, where Pitino hands over the $3,000 in medical insurance-hush money. A few months later, Tim Sypher marries Cunagin, essentially bringing her into the fold of the Pitino athletic family. For the next few years, everything is fine -- until the day the extortion demands are made, delivered by, of all people, Tim Sypher.
Then Tim Sypher decides it's time for a divorce. Charges are filed against Karen Sypher. And now you throw in the idea of a popular coach, by all accounts a devout Catholic who keeps a priest with the team at every game, being willing to pay for an abortion ... well, it's enough to make your head explode.
No matter how you spin this story, no matter how crazy Cunagin Sypher sounds or how victimized Pitino appears or how Pitino's lawyers try to whitewash the $3,000 as not being paid to cover the cost of an abortion but for "medical insurance," it can't hide the sleaze in all this.
This is everything coaches spend so much time warning their players to stay away from, and punishing their players when they get caught up in situations like this.
You remember Larry Eustachy? He was fired by Iowa State for being photographed while drinking beer with some co-eds at a campus party. Inappropriate, yes. But more inappropriate than this?
Louisville has a standard morals clause in Pitino's contract that allows the university to fire him for this kind of behavior. But it's amazing how the more successful a coach is, the less enforceable such morals clauses seem to be.
Wednesday night, Louisville university President Dr. James Ramsey said Pitino's apology was enough, and now "we're all ready to move on. ... We need to get back to educating the next generation of Kentucky's leaders."
Part of that education should include examples of current leaders and how their actions can harm impressionable students who look to them as role models.
Success is a choice. So is how a university chooses to define success.
Louisville made its choice.
And the education of "the next generation of Kentucky's leaders" has clearly begun.
Listening to Mike and Mike this morning, I also overheard that he was caught drinking with some students and they were debating whether or not this was illegal.