Rick Pitino: No Penance

Another fallen skirt-chaser in the sports world will not be disciplined.

University of Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich reiterated his school’s unwavering support for men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino yesterday following the conviction of Karen Cunagin Sypher, 50, for attempting to extort millions from the Cardinals’ high-profile coach after their tawdry tryst.

The skirt-chasing Pitino’s foolish philandering in 2003 has caused him and his school public embarrassment and national ridicule. However, Slick Rick won’t face any disciplinary action from the university or, at this time, from the NCAA.

Astonishingly, the Big East school earlier this year awarded Pitino with a four-year contract extension through 2017. As many Catholics expressed, “What a Cardinal sin of epic proportions!”

This torrid tale would not be so tawdry and worth retelling had it not been for Pitino presenting himself as a paragon of family values while parading around with a Parish priest and piously pontificating about Catholic principles.

The media has had lots of fallen skirt-chasers to report on these days and Rick Pitino hasn’t been the only adulterer asking for forgiveness for his duplicitous decisions. Pittsburgh Steeler QB Ben Roethlisberger regretted running after a Georgia vixen, and iconic golfer Tiger Woods apologized for his serial indiscretions.

While NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Big Ben for the start of the 2010 season, the PGA Tour took a much different approach and never even attempted to discipline the wayward Woods—the PGA Tour’s cash cow.

So it’ll be interesting to witness which philandering philosophy the NCAA embraces now that the lurid details of Pitino’s frolicking and subsequent cover-up have publicly unfolded. Will the NCAA face Pitino’s foibles straightforwardly and formally kick his can to the curb for violating the collegiate organization’s morality policy?

Or will the NCAA support Louisville and staunchly stand by its “stud” coach, just as the PGA Tour shows laughable loyalty to its lecherous lout? After all, aren’t there 20,000 seats in Louisville’s downtown arena that need to be filled?

The University of Louisville had the opportunity to take a stand and set the example that wanna-be womanizers need to keep their zippers zipped.

Now it’s the NCAA’s turn to prescribe penance for Pitino’s pathetic hypocrisy.
Straight talk. No static.

MIKE—thee American-made voice on sports.