College Basketball a Breeding Ground for Prostitution

Imagine coming home one day, walking into your bedroom, and finding your wife sleeping with the University of Virginia.  “Oh, UVA, I loved it when you had Sean Singletary and Chris Long on campus at the same time,” your wife would moan just as you walked in.

“What the *bleep* is going on here?!” you’d scream.  “Why is Al Groh firing his son in our bathroom?!  And was that Ralph Sampson making a sandwich in the kitchen?”

“It’s not what it looks like,” she’d say. “We’re just friends...”

But, in reality, it is what it looks like, and they aren’t just friends.  They’ve been sleeping together, cheating on you for some time now, pulling the wool over your eyes. 

In the end, they’ll run off together and make millions of babies like jackrabbits in a beautiful meadow, while you’re left to wallow in your own self-pity and contemplate whether or not your unwillingness to live outweighs your desire to make a quick run to McDonalds for 12 Big Macs. 

It sounds horrible, and it is. 

No one deserves to feel like this, but today, that’s exactly how fans of Washington State basketball feel. Yesterday, in a stunning move, they lost their cheating head coach, Tony Bennett, to the Virginia Cavaliers.

As a fan of the Washington Huskies, you might expect me to be full of glee over our archrival’s sad state of affairs. 

No glee here. 

Just shock and utter disappointment in the increasingly cold-hearted business of college basketball.  This could happen to anyone.  It’s the way of the world right now, where coaches are solicited by new institutions of academia on a seemingly daily basis. 

Where the next scantily-clad Virginia or lusty, buxom Kentucky can walk right up to you on the street, grab your crotch, and say, “Hey big boy, let me have a piece of that a...”

What’s a man to do, right?  We all have our breaking points.  None of us is perfect.  I’m sure Bennett didn’t wake up Monday morning, smile, and think to himself, “Today is the day I screw over Washington State University.” 

No, it was the almighty dollar that persuaded him.  UVA dangled money in front of Bennett like boobies in a strip club.  And Bennett went straight for the teat.  He was victimized by his own temptation, a sin we’re all guilty of at some point.

In this offseason of discontent, temptation and money are the two storylines that have emerged, bringing otherwise-powerful coaches to their knees, and testing their will to remain loyal. 

Beyond Bennett, Memphis’s John Calipari has been wooed by Kentucky; he was planning to sleep on the Wildcats’ offer and make his decision today.  Missouri’s Mike Anderson, formerly of Alabama-Birmingham, and not one week off a loss in the Elite Eight, has already been offered a job at Georgia. No word yet on his plans. 

Louisville’s Rick Pitino has been rumored to be the next head coach at the University of Arizona.  Others, like Florida’s Billy Donovan, have been courted by outside forces but remained on the straight and narrow, instead opting to stick with their current employer. 

The current basketball season hasn’t even concluded yet, and we’re already witnessing major changes for next season.  It never ends.

While the Jim Calhouns, Jim Boeheims, and Mike Krzyzewskis of the coaching ranks remain content with their place in the world, a large majority of their constituents view each coaching gig as a stepping stone to the next big thing.  They’re quickly sold on the next school to come their way, influenced by the bigger paycheck, the prospect of greater fame, and more abundant fortune. 

It’s one big slut fest, where the universities work the corner, and the coaches seek the goods and services of these institutions of ill repute.  Prostitution at its finest.  What’s a fan to do?