Whether or not Rick Pitino knew what his former director of basketball operations was doing at the University of Louisville, many people seem to have made up their minds.
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The investigation into allegations put forth by Katina Powell against Andre McGee — who was Pitino’s director of basketball operations from 2012 through 2014 — will run its course. Friday’s story, first reported by Pat Forde of Yahoo Sports, that Louisville men’s basketball recruits and players might have had sex with prostitutes, with McGee arranging for money to be paid to Powell, isn’t shocking in itself.
We’ve seen the University of Colorado use sex (along with alcohol) to lure football recruits. This is what got Gary Barnett kicked out of coaching. (Many will say that Colorado losing 70-3 to Texas in the 2005 Big 12 Championship Game is what ended Barnett’s career. To be sure, that didn’t help. Yet, Barnett’s larger situation is what had become untenable. The 70-3 loss made it easier to cite football reasons as the source of the university’s decision.)
The idea of using “hostesses” to entice recruits has not exactly been rare in the history of college sports. Beyond the realm of concerted or organized efforts to lure recruits to certain schools, the simple coexistence of sex and sports is readily accepted by most. That someone in a big-time athletic program might have set up athletes with prostitutes is, again, not shocking.
As the pursuit of what actually happened — and how many people were responsible — continues at Louisville, what’s much more striking about the initial reaction to Pat Forde’s report is how much people think this is a natural occurrence for a Rick Pitino program. While the search for facts moves forward, one can’t shake the sense that Pitino is being shadowed by his past. There’s more than a little irony in this, but irony — and its close companion, schadenfreude — should not stand in the way of being fair to a human person.
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Strictly within the confines of fact-finding, evidence of misdeeds, and NCAA-based punishment, the most central drama of this episode will be if Pitino and Louisville are hammered for what took place. This particular mystery could become a(nother) test of NCAA governance and leadership — while also being fresh in the public’s collective field of awareness — due to what just happened with Larry Brown at SMU.
Brown — just like Pitino on Friday — claimed to have no direct knowledge of what happened in his program, particularly with the assistant coach who ran afoul of NCAA rules. Yet, coaches are responsible for what happens in their programs, and Brown — a previous violator of NCAA rules at UCLA and Kansas — was shown no mercy, given the severity of punishment handed down against SMU.
If the core allegations made by Ms. Powell against Mr. McGee are true, Pitino and Louisville could be in huge trouble as a program. This, right after the Brown news and with Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim in a huge mess as well. It ain’t easy being a Hall of Fame coach these days.
We’ll just have to wait to see what facts emerge. We’ll also have to wait to see if — in the event that McGee is the guilty party and Pitino knew nothing about it — Pitino takes the hit.
This leads us to the center of this particular story, just one of many topics to consider after Friday’s major allegations by Ms. Powell.
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No strong denial of events. No bunker mentality. No slick statements. No attempt to lash out at Andre McGee. We’ll wait to see what facts emerge in this Louisville mess, but if Rick Pitino really did know what McGee was doing, and university officials had any slight sense that Pitino was involved, Pitino probably wouldn’t be employed right now (or at least, the wheels would be turning for an exit/endgame in the next 24 to 48 hours). The idea that if it’s a Rick Pitino program, sex scandals must be par for the course, is understandable in a world of knee-jerk reactions. However, it’s certainly not fair.
As said above, plenty of people think it’s only natural that Rick Pitino and/or a Rick Pitino program would be ensnared in a(nother) sex scandal. There was this whole Karen Sypher incident you might have heard of from 2003, with the matter going to court several years later and becoming the darkest moment in Pitino’s career.
Full personal disclosure: I felt that since Pitino paid for an abortion, stemming from his relationship with Ms. Sypher, he should have been fired by Louisville when the revelation emerged. This makes what’s said below very counterintuitive, but very much a part of life’s sometimes-immense complexities:
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It’s true that when tragedy strikes, it’s not an excuse for people to do awful things. Lots of people endure tragedies and continue to live their lives decently, sincerely, quietly — feeling great pain but doing what they can to survive. When people fail to handle enormous pain properly, they shouldn’t be given a free pass.
Empathy and forgiveness might feel like free passes, but they’re not. When people fail to handle pain well, they shouldn’t get off scot-free… but they certainly can be viewed with understanding.
Most people know this, but younger college basketball (sports) fans might not: Rick Pitino lost his brother-in-law and best friend, Billy Minardi, on September 11, 2001. Minardi worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in one of the Twin Towers. This came after Pitino lost another brother-in-law in a car accident.
Is there a speculative quality to what’s being hinted at here? Sure there is. Yet, Pitino’s relationship with Sypher didn’t occur in 1997 — at the height of his Kentucky tenure — or two years ago, when he won a second national title in the Commonwealth, this time with Louisville. The relationship didn’t occur after he made the Final Four at Providence, or when he hit the big time in the pros with the New York Knicks.
Pitino has been a coaching rock star in several places, but it just so happened to be that his descent into a dark place with Karen Sypher happened no more than two years after 9-11. The idea that tragedy and loss did not have anything to do with a flawed man’s attempt to fill those voids with something adventurous (and highly inappropriate) seems unconvincing.
This leads to a fundamental thought:
Pitino — still married to Joanne, the sister of Billy Minardi — was brought to a very low point, but he was still accepted back into his household by his wife. As much as I think he shouldn’t have been allowed to keep coaching at Louisville, Pitino has become a very happy family man in recent years, as son Richard gained the head coaching job at Minnesota and won an NIT title, a title Rick was there to help celebrate.
Maybe it will be revealed that Pitino had more knoweledge of events than any of his statements on Friday actually represented. Definitely, a lot of people don’t really care and aren’t in the mood to do so.
Yet, this point of (possible) distinction is raised to establish the idea that if Pitino did know more than he’s let on, he’s done something truly vile — vile on a scale which calls Penn State (and another very accomplished Italian-American coach, Joe Paterno) to mind. Do some people do really vile things? Yes… but that’s not commonplace for human persons.
Moreover, Pitino is a guy who has had his heart ripped out (on 9/11), descended into waywardness and infidelity shortly thereafter, was forgiven by the person closest to him, and — because of Joanne Pitino’s enormous grace — was able to maintain this second act in the Commonwealth of Kentucky at Louisville, the very successful latter-day portion of a Hall of Fame career.
The idea that Pitino would — and did — know about Andre McGee’s actions and not report them to school officials? It doesn’t stick… at least not right now.
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As much as Pitino harmed his most important relationships, his professional reputation, and much more in 2003 with Karen Sypher — to the extent that, yes, he should not have been allowed to continue at Louisville — the idea that he’s the same person he was in 2003 doesn’t carry much weight. Yet, mass reaction to Friday’s initial report would suggest that’s exactly how much of America views this man.
Pitino — so known for his hubris and for the accompanying inclination to be very testy and defensive whenever things don’t go his way — is certainly a public-perception victim of his worst tendencies right now. He is also a public-relations victim of his identity — very much in the Pat Riley mold — as a motivational speaker who wears slick suits and talks about finding personal power within.
So many people justifiably and accurately associate a scheming slickness with Pitino in small matters that they feel he’d naturally be aware of this sex scandal, which is an anything-but-small matter. Pitino’s past sins — at a time when he was a much different person and had not come to terms with the deepest pain of his life — are being held against him, as measured by public reaction.
Yes, perhaps the facts of this case will ultimately cast Pitino in a much more negative light, but we haven’t reached that point yet… not even close.
Pitino has received some pretty large breaks that less successful and powerful men wouldn’t have gained over the years. This is true. Yet, such a reality doesn’t — and shouldn’t — mean that a man should be met with a presumption of guilt in response to his worst moment as a human person.
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The drama of Rick Pitino’s life and career has been constant and complicated.
How the American public reacts to and regards Pitino isn’t as important as the investigation that will continue at the University of Louisville, but it has a lot to say about how human beings are able to recognize the fragility of life behind (and beyond) the public persona of someone who has won multiple championships and earned a boatload of money.
Even with ample wealth, fame and achievement, Rick Pitino is still — like the rest of us — made of mortal flesh and blood, no less subject to this life’s temptations and sorrows than anyone else. Reflexively thinking he’s a sex-scandal magnet — instead of waiting for the entirety of this situation to unfold — does no one any favors.
In keeping with the Golden Rule Pope Francis invoked when he spoke to Congress, none of us would ever want the past — something 12 years ago — to be held against us.
