01-06-2010, 10:05 PM
Jim Donaldson: Pitino’s ‘too big to fire’
01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, January 6, 2010
By JIM DONALDSON Journal Sports Writer
You’ve heard a lot about banks, and car companies, and insurance companies, and even hedge funds that are “too big to fail.”
Well, the Louisville Cardinals apparently have a basketball coach who’s “too big to fire.”
How else to explain why Rick “Table for Two” Pitino still has a job, while the likes of Larry Eustachy, Mike Price, and George O’Leary all were fired for their, as Tiger Woods might say, “indiscretions.”
Evidently, a morals clause at sports-crazed Louisville provides lots of leeway to university officials apparently more concerned with wins than integrity.
The 59-year-old Pitino has acknowledged having what he described as consensual sex in 2003 in a Louisville restaurant after closing hours with a then-43-year-old divorcee while one of his assistants made sure the late-night tryst wasn’t interrupted.
When the woman, Karen Sypher, said she was pregnant and wanted an abortion, Pitino – a devout Catholic who often has a priest sit on the team bench during games – gave her $3,000 for, he says, health insurance.
Which is either more or less believable, depending on your point of view, than the idea that a previously faithful husband goes astray for the first time on a restaurant tabletop in his 50s.
The scandal became public last spring, when Sypher was indicted on extortion charges, after allegedly trying to shake down Pitino for millions.
“I’m a high-profile person…This is a very unfortunate situation,” Pitino said on a voice-mail recording taped by Sypher.
Consider how other high-profile universities have dealt with “unfortunate” situations regarding wayward coaches.
Larry Eustachy had won two Big 12 titles at Iowa State and was voted National Coach of the Year in 2000, but was fired in 2003 after the Des Moines Register published photos of the married, 47-year-old coach, drinking with – and being kissed by – college-age women at a party in Columbia, Mo., after the Cyclones had lost at Mizzou.
Witnesses said Eustachy had similarly misbehaved a year earlier at a frat party following a game at Kansas State.
Eustachy subsequently said he had an alcohol problem, but that didn’t prevent Iowa State from firing him, citing a clause in his contract regarding grounds for dismissal for “gross misconduct which is substantially likely to have a materially adverse aspect on the University or its athletic program.”
“We have to think about young people and setting an example,” said Bruce Van De Velde, director of athletics at Iowa State.
What Louisville athletics director Tom Jurich appears to be thinking about is the materially adverse effect that firing Pitino would have on the Cardinals’ basketball program.
The ‘Ville is vying for state supremacy with archrival Kentucky, where Pitino won an NCAA title in 1996. As part of the athletic “arms race” that inevitably accompanies such a quest in the wonderful world of big-time, intercollegiate sports in the 21st century, Louisville next season will move into a 22,000-seat arena downtown. Clearly, Jurich is counting on Pitino to keep it filled.
Even bigger than basketball at Louisville, however, is football at Alabama, where, in 2003, Mike Price was fired just a few months after he was lured to Tuscaloosa from Washington State by a seven-year, $10-million contract.
Unfortunately for the 57-year-old Price, he was seen throwing some of that money around at a strip club on Florida’s “Redneck Riviera,” after which a woman who was not wife attempted to charge nearly $1,000 in hotel room service to his credit card.
Citing Price’s failure to live his “personal and professional life in a manner consistent with university policies,” University of Alabama president Robert Witt handed Price his walking papers before he’d ever coached a game for the Crimson Tide.
Apparently, the powers-that-be at Louisville feel that Pitino’s behavior is consistent with university policies.
Price had a lengthy tenure at ‘Bama compared to George O’Leary’s at Notre Dame, where he was fired in 2001 just five days after he was hired.
His offense?
Lying on his resume, claiming he’d earned a master’s degree at NYU and had lettered three seasons in football at New Hampshire, when, in fact, he’d done neither.
“Many years ago, as a young, married father, I sought to pursue my dream as a football coach,” O’Leary said. “In seeking employment, I prepared a resume that contained inaccuracies regarding my completion of course work for a master’s degree, and also my participation in football at my alma mater. These misstatements were never stricken from my resume or biographical sketch in later years.
“Due to a selfish and thoughtless act many years ago, I have embarrassed Notre Dame, its alumni, and fans.”
“I understand,” said Notre Dame’s athletic director, Kevin White, “that these inaccuracies represent a very human failing. Nonetheless, they constitute a breach of trust that makes it impossible for us to go forward with our relationship.”
What the administration at Louisville trusts is that Pitino will continue to make the Cardinals a contender for the NCAA title.
The Cards have been invited to the Big Dance six of the last seven years under Pitino, including a Final Four appearance in 2005. In one of the all-time great achievements in college coaching, Pitino also took Providence College to the Final Four in 1987. And, in eight seasons as coach at Kentucky, he went to three Final Fours, winning one title.
That’s why, despite actions that would have cost many coaches their job, Pitino is “too big to fire.”
http://www.projo.com/pc/content/sp_bkc_d...113c9.html
01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, January 6, 2010
By JIM DONALDSON Journal Sports Writer
You’ve heard a lot about banks, and car companies, and insurance companies, and even hedge funds that are “too big to fail.”
Well, the Louisville Cardinals apparently have a basketball coach who’s “too big to fire.”
How else to explain why Rick “Table for Two” Pitino still has a job, while the likes of Larry Eustachy, Mike Price, and George O’Leary all were fired for their, as Tiger Woods might say, “indiscretions.”
Evidently, a morals clause at sports-crazed Louisville provides lots of leeway to university officials apparently more concerned with wins than integrity.
The 59-year-old Pitino has acknowledged having what he described as consensual sex in 2003 in a Louisville restaurant after closing hours with a then-43-year-old divorcee while one of his assistants made sure the late-night tryst wasn’t interrupted.
When the woman, Karen Sypher, said she was pregnant and wanted an abortion, Pitino – a devout Catholic who often has a priest sit on the team bench during games – gave her $3,000 for, he says, health insurance.
Which is either more or less believable, depending on your point of view, than the idea that a previously faithful husband goes astray for the first time on a restaurant tabletop in his 50s.
The scandal became public last spring, when Sypher was indicted on extortion charges, after allegedly trying to shake down Pitino for millions.
“I’m a high-profile person…This is a very unfortunate situation,” Pitino said on a voice-mail recording taped by Sypher.
Consider how other high-profile universities have dealt with “unfortunate” situations regarding wayward coaches.
Larry Eustachy had won two Big 12 titles at Iowa State and was voted National Coach of the Year in 2000, but was fired in 2003 after the Des Moines Register published photos of the married, 47-year-old coach, drinking with – and being kissed by – college-age women at a party in Columbia, Mo., after the Cyclones had lost at Mizzou.
Witnesses said Eustachy had similarly misbehaved a year earlier at a frat party following a game at Kansas State.
Eustachy subsequently said he had an alcohol problem, but that didn’t prevent Iowa State from firing him, citing a clause in his contract regarding grounds for dismissal for “gross misconduct which is substantially likely to have a materially adverse aspect on the University or its athletic program.”
“We have to think about young people and setting an example,” said Bruce Van De Velde, director of athletics at Iowa State.
What Louisville athletics director Tom Jurich appears to be thinking about is the materially adverse effect that firing Pitino would have on the Cardinals’ basketball program.
The ‘Ville is vying for state supremacy with archrival Kentucky, where Pitino won an NCAA title in 1996. As part of the athletic “arms race” that inevitably accompanies such a quest in the wonderful world of big-time, intercollegiate sports in the 21st century, Louisville next season will move into a 22,000-seat arena downtown. Clearly, Jurich is counting on Pitino to keep it filled.
Even bigger than basketball at Louisville, however, is football at Alabama, where, in 2003, Mike Price was fired just a few months after he was lured to Tuscaloosa from Washington State by a seven-year, $10-million contract.
Unfortunately for the 57-year-old Price, he was seen throwing some of that money around at a strip club on Florida’s “Redneck Riviera,” after which a woman who was not wife attempted to charge nearly $1,000 in hotel room service to his credit card.
Citing Price’s failure to live his “personal and professional life in a manner consistent with university policies,” University of Alabama president Robert Witt handed Price his walking papers before he’d ever coached a game for the Crimson Tide.
Apparently, the powers-that-be at Louisville feel that Pitino’s behavior is consistent with university policies.
Price had a lengthy tenure at ‘Bama compared to George O’Leary’s at Notre Dame, where he was fired in 2001 just five days after he was hired.
His offense?
Lying on his resume, claiming he’d earned a master’s degree at NYU and had lettered three seasons in football at New Hampshire, when, in fact, he’d done neither.
“Many years ago, as a young, married father, I sought to pursue my dream as a football coach,” O’Leary said. “In seeking employment, I prepared a resume that contained inaccuracies regarding my completion of course work for a master’s degree, and also my participation in football at my alma mater. These misstatements were never stricken from my resume or biographical sketch in later years.
“Due to a selfish and thoughtless act many years ago, I have embarrassed Notre Dame, its alumni, and fans.”
“I understand,” said Notre Dame’s athletic director, Kevin White, “that these inaccuracies represent a very human failing. Nonetheless, they constitute a breach of trust that makes it impossible for us to go forward with our relationship.”
What the administration at Louisville trusts is that Pitino will continue to make the Cardinals a contender for the NCAA title.
The Cards have been invited to the Big Dance six of the last seven years under Pitino, including a Final Four appearance in 2005. In one of the all-time great achievements in college coaching, Pitino also took Providence College to the Final Four in 1987. And, in eight seasons as coach at Kentucky, he went to three Final Fours, winning one title.
That’s why, despite actions that would have cost many coaches their job, Pitino is “too big to fire.”
http://www.projo.com/pc/content/sp_bkc_d...113c9.html