Why do I just smile and kinda laugh at thinking ky is now the mecca of basketball coach egomaniacs.....our ex and Louisville's current are 2 peas in a pod......should be interesting seeing them butt heads each year. With the size of each's egos it might be hard finding a place to sit in the gym.





Louisville's Rick Pitino decided a long time ago that the media was there to serve him
Mike Lupica

Sunday, August 30th 2009, 4:00 AM

Even in a week when he made things much worse for himself, Rick Pitino behaved the only way he knows how. Pitino was a big powerful guy thinking he could make the world do exactly what he told it to do. Or else. This is power Pitino has had and has wielded for a long time, given to him by team owners and school presidents and boosters and hangers-on and maybe even the priest at the end of the bench.

That power has also been given to him by the media, which has told him for two decades that he has insights into basketball that only a handful of geniuses have ever had. Up until now, Pitino always thought the media had it exactly right when the subject was his coaching. Now he doesn't like the way the story is being written, and so the media has to have it wrong.

It is a good thing Pitino stopped when he did the other day. If he had gone on a few minutes longer, he might have found a way to make it the media's fault that he had after-hours sex with a woman not his wife in a Louisville restaurant six years ago and then offered her $3,000 to help out with her "health insurance."

That night in the restaurant is where Pitino's problems started and that part of the story doesn't change no matter how hard he tries to change the subject.

In the last several months, the story has expanded, of course. Now there are criminal charges about extortion by a woman named Karen Sypher, who says Pitino gave her money for an abortion (his lawyer says it was for health insurance). There will be a trial about the extortion charge and an upcoming divorce trial as well, involving Sypher - Pitino's late date at the restaurant - and her estranged husband, Tim Sypher, who happens to be Pitino's equipment manager.

I know. You rarely get this sort of storyline away from "One Tree Hill."

The whole thing is a shabby mess, with or without the visuals. The innocent bystanders become Pitino's wife, Joanne, and his children, and Tim and Karen Sypher's young daughter, as well. That is always how it works out.

But Pitino's weird rip the other day wasn't about anybody else. It was about him. He wants the real victim to be him and for all of this to be somebody else's fault, Sypher's, or the local media's, even the New York tabloids.

"I'm a proud New Yorker," Pitino kept saying.

And his city on this day was sure proud to claim him, as he explained exactly what is news and what isn't. Pitino must have thought he could help himself by going on the offense this way, apparently under the impression that he was as dazzling as his own defense attorney as his players often are on a basketball court.

Only he was not.

He was a control freak coach trying to contain a situation that has been out of control for some time. The way he was out of control that night in the restaurant. It is why for all the games he has won at Louisville and will continue to win, Pitino is through there, sooner rather than later.

The president of the school and the athletic director who hired him can stand by him all they want to for now. Sypher can get the book thrown at her and her ex-husband can get the daughter and Pitino can say he was totally vindicated at the other end of this. The original story, from a restaurant the Louisville coach turned into the backseat of an old Chevy, doesn't go away.

"All of this has been a lie and a total fabrication of the truth, except for what I told you - the mistake that I made," Pitino said.

Then he was telling his fans in Louisville not to read the stories about him and Sypher in the newspaper and not to watch the reports about him and Sypher on television. As if he has the power to do that, too. The wisdom on this comes from old Lord Acton - even though he never made Final Fours with three different schools - about power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely. Only this time the corruption doesn't involve recruits.

Rick Pitino is one more guy in sports who decided a long time ago that the media was just there to take care of him. Even now, he drops "the mistake that I made" into the conversation and then quickly moves away, to the other side of the court, like one of his flashy guards swinging the ball back over to the weak side.

"On a day where Ted Kennedy died, we broke into the news here in Louisville with Karen Sypher audio tapes with a detective …" Pitino said. "That's a sad commentary on us."

It's kind of wonderful, actually, and totally predictable if you think about it. In his version of things, it's not so bad that Pitino let so many people down by acting the way he did. What's worse, at least in his telling, is that apparently we let him down.

Sad!!

(08-30-2009 08:42 AM)missjtiger Wrote:  Why do I just smile and kinda laugh at thinking ky is now the mecca of basketball coach egomaniacs.....our ex and Louisville's current are 2 peas in a pod......should be interesting seeing them butt heads each year. With the size of each's egos it might be hard finding a place to sit in the gym.
Louisville's Rick Pitino decided a long time ago that the media was there to serve him
Mike Lupica

Sunday, August 30th 2009, 4:00 AM
Even in a week when he made things much worse for himself, Rick Pitino behaved the only way he knows how. Pitino was a big powerful guy thinking he could make the world do exactly what he told it to do. Or else. This is power Pitino has had and has wielded for a long time, given to him by team owners and school presidents and boosters and hangers-on and maybe even the priest at the end of the bench.

That power has also been given to him by the media, which has told him for two decades that he has insights into basketball that only a handful of geniuses have ever had. Up until now, Pitino always thought the media had it exactly right when the subject was his coaching. Now he doesn't like the way the story is being written, and so the media has to have it wrong.

It is a good thing Pitino stopped when he did the other day. If he had gone on a few minutes longer, he might have found a way to make it the media's fault that he had after-hours sex with a woman not his wife in a Louisville restaurant six years ago and then offered her $3,000 to help out with her "health insurance."

That night in the restaurant is where Pitino's problems started and that part of the story doesn't change no matter how hard he tries to change the subject.

In the last several months, the story has expanded, of course. Now there are criminal charges about extortion by a woman named Karen Sypher, who says Pitino gave her money for an abortion (his lawyer says it was for health insurance). There will be a trial about the extortion charge and an upcoming divorce trial as well, involving Sypher - Pitino's late date at the restaurant - and her estranged husband, Tim Sypher, who happens to be Pitino's equipment manager.

I know. You rarely get this sort of storyline away from "One Tree Hill."

The whole thing is a shabby mess, with or without the visuals. The innocent bystanders become Pitino's wife, Joanne, and his children, and Tim and Karen Sypher's young daughter, as well. That is always how it works out.

But Pitino's weird rip the other day wasn't about anybody else. It was about him. He wants the real victim to be him and for all of this to be somebody else's fault, Sypher's, or the local media's, even the New York tabloids.

"I'm a proud New Yorker," Pitino kept saying.

And his city on this day was sure proud to claim him, as he explained exactly what is news and what isn't. Pitino must have thought he could help himself by going on the offense this way, apparently under the impression that he was as dazzling as his own defense attorney as his players often are on a basketball court.

Only he was not.

He was a control freak coach trying to contain a situation that has been out of control for some time. The way he was out of control that night in the restaurant. It is why for all the games he has won at Louisville and will continue to win, Pitino is through there, sooner rather than later.

The president of the school and the athletic director who hired him can stand by him all they want to for now. Sypher can get the book thrown at her and her ex-husband can get the daughter and Pitino can say he was totally vindicated at the other end of this. The original story, from a restaurant the Louisville coach turned into the backseat of an old Chevy, doesn't go away.

"All of this has been a lie and a total fabrication of the truth, except for what I told you - the mistake that I made," Pitino said.

Then he was telling his fans in Louisville not to read the stories about him and Sypher in the newspaper and not to watch the reports about him and Sypher on television. As if he has the power to do that, too. The wisdom on this comes from old Lord Acton - even though he never made Final Fours with three different schools - about power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely. Only this time the corruption doesn't involve recruits.

Rick Pitino is one more guy in sports who decided a long time ago that the media was just there to take care of him. Even now, he drops "the mistake that I made" into the conversation and then quickly moves away, to the other side of the court, like one of his flashy guards swinging the ball back over to the weak side.

"On a day where Ted Kennedy died, we broke into the news here in Louisville with Karen Sypher audio tapes with a detective …" Pitino said. "That's a sad commentary on us."

It's kind of wonderful, actually, and totally predictable if you think about it. In his version of things, it's not so bad that Pitino let so many people down by acting the way he did. What's worse, at least in his telling, is that apparently we let him down.

Take responsibility for your actions, and none of these issues would have happened. No one cares what day these reports came out, but rather your personal actions caused this extortion plot. Do Rick Pitino deserve to get extorted for all that happened to him over the last six months? Of course he does not. The cat is already out of the bag, and you can't change the affair he had with the woman. The equipment manager marryhing the woman after what happened to current Louisville Men's Head Basketball Coach to me is even more bizarre then the money he gave for the abortion. This seems more like a Days of Our Lives episode in the end.