Greetings, RLGL listeners/readers. I decided to write again this week, as you can tell by the length of this post. Some of you are happy to see me writing, others prefer the blogcasts. Quite frankly, your opinion is irrelevant to me at this point in time, especially since the overall feedback has been underwhelming for the past few weeks. If you want me to take your preferences into consideration, you'd best be able to get my attention by actually sending me some suggestions. Anyway...
I figured I'd touch on this Rick Pitino thing. For those that don't know who that is, Rick Pitino is one of the most popular coaches in college basketball. He became popular back in 1987 when he took the pathetic Providence Friars to the Final Four. Since then, he's taken three separate teams to the Final Four, becoming the first NCAA coach ever to do so. Currently, he coaches at the University of Louisville.
OK, now that you know his background, here's the actual story: Six years ago, Pitino was at a restaurant when some woman approached him and starting gushing about how awesome he was. After the restaurant cleared out, the owner left Pitino the key, and he had sex with this woman in the empty restaurant. Classy? I thought so. As you could have guessed, he wasn't wearing a rubber, and she ended up getting pregnant. As you also could have guessed, Pitino is a married man. After he found out that she was pregnant, he met up with this woman at one of his assistant coaches' house to, you know, get rid of the problem. (In the irony of all ironies, the woman actually ended up marrying Pitino's assistant coach six months after meeting him that day. Needless to say, they are currently estranged and going through a divorce.)
After they agreed that there was no way she would be having his baby, Pitino agreed to pay her for an abortion. He gave her $3,000, which sounds exorbitant to me. Aren't abortions like $300? I don't know if they charged her so much because she had no health insurance, but I'm under the impression that he just hit her off with the extra $2,700 as comp for the restaurant sex.
In any event, the same woman, who already had four children of her own, decided to extort him to keep their little secret intact. As we all know, college basketball coaches get paid some pretty healthy checks (half of which is probably spent on hair products). So she started asking him for cars, house payments, and college tuition for the four kids she already had. He refused to pay her, and she decided to accuse him of rape. Obviously, anyone would much rather be an adulterer than a rapist, so Pitino finally came out and admitted what actually happened.
Now that the truth has come to light, Pitino has been under all sorts of scrutiny, and the question has been raised of whether or not he should retain his coaching job. Here's my thing: When did we all become so righteous in this country? Obviously, cheating on your wife with a stranger isn't a commendable thing to do. But what does it have to do with coaching basketball?
Pitino released a public apology (as expected), and the president of University of Louisville said today that Pitino was still "our guy." I just wonder where everyone comes off having an opinion about his sexual escapades. I was never a part of the camp that believed that all public figures are supposed to be role models. Quite frankly, the only person who should be concerned about his infidelity is his wife. Why should the fans or the journalists or even the players care about who he's sleeping with? The only thing we should be concerned with is whether or not he's doing a good coaching job. If it doesn't affect his coaching, than we have no reason to care or voice our opinions.
It's kinda like that whole Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky thing. The President copped some dome in the Oral... umm, Oval Office and skeeted on Lewinsky's dress. Big deal. JFK was probably doing all kinds of unmentionable things to Marilyn Monroe back in the day, and no one cared about that. But Clinton fingers some intern with a cigar, and we want to impeach him? (Actually, I don't even think that's called fingering anymore... cigaring??) So far as I'm concerned, that doesn't interfere with his ability to run the country. To be honest, it might have helped him to release some stress and perform his job better, because we all know Hillary wasn't putting out.
All I'm saying is that not all public figures are supposed to be role models. They're just regular people. If their personal activities don't affect their performance, we have no reason to care. Get off your high horse, America.
2 comments:
Women like that waitress make it harder actual rape victims to reach out for help by crying wolf. it's quite disgusting and disturbing that anyone would lie of such a thing. if I were Pitino I would sue her for slander. I personally feel like this whole story was blown out of proportion (not saying that's he isn't dead wrong for cheating on his wife)but for someone to actually possibly lose everything they've worked for over a night of sex is a bit ludicrous. I feel like the media waste too air time on nonsense that really isn't of any of our concern. there is simply too much real stuff going on for that to be considered news. well then again that's only my opinion.
Rick Pitino is, ostensibly, a teacher. As a basketball coach, he also takes a mentorship role for the players that end up in his program. That's why people care.
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