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[Art Deco]

Posted: Wednesday August 12, 2009 10:10 PM
      Lots to be learned from sordid Pitino affair 

           
      Tim Dahlberg

      AP Sports Columnist

      There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the lurid revelations about Rick Pitino, not the least of which are that moral depravity and dishonesty may not mean what you think and that the president of the University of Louisville should be a little more careful in choosing his words.

      Perhaps the most important, though, is this: A coach is only as great as the assistants underneath who work for him.

      Vinnie Tatum was such a good soldier that he kept guard over Pitino in the back of a restaurant even as the coach was having drunken sex with a woman he had met just hours earlier. Tim Sypher valued his job so much that he gave Pitino the keys to his condominium, then kept watch as the coach gave the same woman $3,000 so she could go across state lines and get an abortion.

      Oops, scratch that.

      The latest word from Pitino's lawyer is that the basketball coach was simply so concerned Karen Sypher had no health insurance that he reached into his pocket for a wad of bills to pay for it. Sypher was apparently posted upstairs at the clandestine rendezvous to make sure Pitino got a receipt for his largesse.

      Not a problem. If only every rich person in America were as generous as Pitino, there would be no need for President Obama to campaign for health care reform.

      Tim Sypher took it even further, though, if you believe the woman whose accusations shattered the pious facade of the coach who, to many, is the face of college basketball. According to Karen Sypher, Tim Sypher not only took her to get the abortion and coached her in what to say, but later married her, hence the same last name.

      None of this seems to particularly bother the people in charge at Louisville, who spent much of Wednesday hiding from questions about a hugely popular coach who went 31-6 last season and came within one game of the Final Four. The athletic director issued a statement praising Pitino for being truthful, while president James Ramsey said only that some details of the whole sordid mess were "surprising.''

      Disgusting would be a more accurate description, but, hey, Pitino wins games and lots of them. No reason to jeopardize that, especially now that archrival Kentucky has its own superstar coach.

      Sure, Pitino's contract lists moral depravity and dishonesty as possible causes for termination. But let's get real.

      Winning basketball games is a lot more important than taking the high moral ground at most universities. Besides, where is Louisville going to get another coach who can win and win big?

      No need to even look. Pitino said Wednesday he was at Louisville "as long as they will have me'' and, by the muted response of the university to the scandal, that figures to be as long as he keeps winning.

      Pitino's attorney was quick to remind everyone that the worst of Karen Sypher's accusations - that Pitino raped her not once, but twice - were not found credible by police and that the woman faces charges for allegedly trying to extort money from the coach. He then dusted off the old law school playbook to blame the media for creating a "feeding frenzy'' around the coach.

      Sadly, a lot of the blame lies with Pitino himself.

      He's a father of five who wears his religion so openly he sometimes has a Roman Catholic priest alongside for counsel and support. He's paid millions to coach basketball and win games, a job that includes leading impressionable young men and teaching them the value of making good judgment calls.

      Yet he's drunk in a restaurant having sex with a woman he just met while his assistant listens in? He's giving her money in a secret meeting at another assistant's place after she tells him she's pregnant with his baby and plans to get an abortion?

      Say what you will about Bobby Knight, but this wouldn't happen on his watch. He might throw a few chairs in a restaurant, but he wouldn't be having sex on top of one.

      Pitino's apologists - and there are many - will surely try to spin the whole sordid mess and make it all about Karen Sypher. She, after all, waited six years to bring up a claim of rape to police.

      Just how far they get may determine how long Pitino stays. Read her police interview and she sounds a lot more together than some have made her out to be, but there will likely be a trial on the extortion charges and new details will just as likely emerge about both her and Pitino.

      Ultimately, the people in Louisville will decide for themselves whether winning means more than anything else. So will parents of recruits, who will be faced with decisions of their own about leaving their sons in the care of a man whose moral compass went awry.

      They can only hope that Pitino has now learned a few lessons of his own.

      ----

      Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org
     
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