The latest on Rick Pitino

UPDATE: Pitino spoke to the press late Wednesday, and said apologized profusely for his "indiscretion", saying that he already apologized to his family and he wants to apologize to his Louisville family. He said that he wanted to coach at Louisville for as long as they would have him.

Before I get into the bulk of this post, I feel I should mention that Pitino's lawyer has said that the $3,000 he paid out was not for an abortion, it was for Karen Sypher's health insurance. Which she needed to get the abortion.

Umm ... is there a differnce? I guess so. Its called semantics.

The bigger news, however, is that Rick Pitino has a morality clause in his contract with Louisville (Andrew Wolfson of the L'Ville CJ needs to get a raise for his work on this story). According to Wolfson, he can be fired for "moral depravity", lying to the school, or for "generating disparaging media publicity, if it is caused by his 'willful conduct that could objectively be determined to bring (the) employee into public dispute or scandal, or which tends to greatly offend the public.'"

Yikes. This could be bad.

Calipari may not be the sleaziest coach in the Commonwealth anymore.
(photo credit: ESPN)

As far as moral depravity is concerned, I don't think there is much of an argument. Cheating on your wife, getting a woman pregnant, and then paying for her abortion insurance is just about as depraved as you can be morally without catching a felony charge.

The bigger issue is "generating disparaging media publicity". Now, I'm not one for legalese, but I don't think it is a stretch to say that Pitino "willfully" paid Sypher $3,000, or that this act "brought the employee into public dispute or scandal" and "greatly offended the public", especially when the public is a state as red as Kentucky (we're talking politics here people, not UK vs. UL).

From this blogger's perspective, it seems like Louisville has every right to terminate Pitino's contract.

The question is will they (UPDATE: Louisville president James Ramsey and athletic director Tom Jurich will meet to discuss the issue).

As Gary Parrish points out, coaches have been fired for much less. Remember Larry Eustachy? He was the head coach of Iowa State that was fired after photos surfaced of him partying with some Missouri undergrads after the Cyclones game in Columbia.

Both Sypher and Pitino are going to look like morons once this blows over.
(photo credit: Deadspin)

Eustachy was canned, and all he did was pound a few with some college kids.

Pitino knocked up a woman on a restaurant table and then paid for her abortion medical care whatever.

Which seems worse to you?

So should he be fired?

Personally, I don't believe so. This is an incident from six years ago in which nobody actually got hurt (I'm operating under the reasonable assumption that Sypher is lying about being raped).

If I found myself in Pitino's shoes (I like to believe that I won't cheat on my wife, let alone knock the other woman up, but for argument's sake work with me), I can't say that I wouldn't do the same thing.