Will The Louisville Sex Scandal Dunk Pitino?

As many college basketball programs are celebrating their Midnight Madness events, one storied program seems to be mired just in madness. In fact, the madness is such a scandal that it has shifted focus from the Lamar Odom story, which is hard to do considering his association with the media darling Kardashians. Maybe the interest shift is because this scandal has all the sordid details of the Odom story, only this time involving college basketball players, not the NBA.

The scandal involves the University of Louisville, strippers and other alleged “perks” that probably won’t pass NCAA scrutiny. Head coach Rick Pitino, who for most of the last quarter century, save a few years in the pros with the Celtics, has been the reigning king of Kentucky basketball, both at the University of Kentucky and at Louisville.

As the story goes, and has now been corroborated at least to some degree by several participants, Andre McGee, who was a graduate assistant, assistant coach and director of basketball operations, solicited strippers for former players, recruits and, according to some, the recruits’ fathers. The strippers, according to the “madam,” provided some more “personal” benefits that probably fall outside those authorized by the NCAA. Some of the information comes from Katina Powell, the madam, in her book titled Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen, which no doubt was written to profit financially (in addition to the reported $10,000 she received from McGee for about two dozen parties over four years).

But also consider that her co-author Dick Cady is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been in the newspaper business for over 40 years. He said that the claims in the book are based on evidence such as receipts and pictures. And many of the scenarios she recounts have been confirmed by at least five players or recruits in various media outlets including ESPN’s Outside the Lines.

Pitino has denied any knowledge of the activities but, given all of the known and confirmed facts at this point, it is hard to believe the veracity of his position. In order to have the winning record for 25+ years that he has had, it is hard to believe that he has that little control over his program.  And if he does, why would he relinquish that control and risk the possibility of NCAA sanctions without any clearance through him of how recruits are entertained during campus visits?

Consider these confirmed facts:

1) McGee left Louisville after the 2013-2014 season (allegedly the year the incidents ended) to take a job as an assistant coach at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He was placed on paid administrative leave on October 2 when the allegations hit the media and then resigned on October 23 because he didn’t feel that he could do his job amid the investigations;

2) At least some, if not all, of the alleged activities took place in Billy Minardi Hall (named at Pitino’s request for his brother-in-law who was killed in the 9/11 attacks);

3) JaQuan Lyle, who was recruited by Pitino but now plays at The Ohio State University, recently met with the NCAA as part of their investigation and confirmed the “gist” of the allegations, according to CBS Sports. Ohio State confirms that he spoke with the NCAA;

4) Pitino has declared himself unavailable for ACC media days beginning October 28, although he did release a six-minute video (with no mention of the scandal); and

5) Not to make light of a potential health issue, but it does raise suspicion under all other circumstances that Ralph Willard joined the staff in June as the Cardinals “pseudo head coach” while Pitino was coaching the Puerto Rico National Team, and left in early October, just as the scandal was breaking.

Just last year the NCAA revised its rules to hold coaches more accountable for “all institutional staff members who report, directly or indirectly, to the head coach.”  This one clause could be enough to spell doom for Pitino. His contract with Louisville specifies that he “diligently supervise compliance of assistant coaches and any other employees for which (he) is administratively responsible” but is even more specific, holding him responsible for activities at the dormitory which was built at his request and where at least some of the parties were held.

Even if these contractual clauses are not enough to incriminate him, the concept of imputed authority in the law may be. If McGee was given carte blanche to oversee recruiting efforts without Pitino’s involvement, Pitino’s trust in McGee may be his own undoing.

Many examples of “imputed” responsibility have been sanctioned by the NCAA in recent years. One of the most infamous was the firing of Joe Paterno for “failure of leadership” during the Jerry Sandusky scandal after an employee told Paterno about one of the incidents. His failure to report it to a higher authority practically negated his legendary career. One of the most recent is Larry Brown and SMU, which surely proves that (alleged) ignorance is no excuse for violation of NCAA rules. (Of course it probably didn’t help Brown’s case that this is the third school that has been sanctioned by the NCAA due to activities while he was head coach.)

Then there is the pattern of Louisville being something of a “halfway house” for coaching professionals. Consider these examples:

1) Bobby Petrino was hired as head football coach only 3 years after being asked to leave Arkansas after an ill-fated motorcycle ride with a football team assistant who was allegedly hired over more qualified candidates because she and Petrino were having an affair;

2) Clint Hurtt was hired despite a show-cause penalty for being involved in the Nevin Shapiro incident at the “U” (which bears more than a passing resemblance to McGee’s recruiting activities at Louisville)

3) Even Pitino has not been immune to scandal: in 2003, the wife of Louisville’s equipment manager had a tryst with the coach in a restaurant which ultimately resulted in him giving her $3,000 for an abortion and her serving prison time for extortion.

At a recent press conference, Pitino said “Let the Lord judge” the goings-on at Louisville. While that may happen, other authorities are involved as well. So far, at least four separate investigations have been launched: the campus police and the Louisville police department are cooperating together; the Kentucky Attorney General’s office is involved; the University of Louisville Foundation has hired a law firm; and, of course, the dreaded NCAA inquisition.

Pitino is between the proverbial rock and hard place. If he denies involvement, he and the athletic department could be slapped with lack of institutional control sanctions for failing to know that his recruits were being entertained by prostitutes. If he admits to knowing what happened, his career as a college coach could be over (although he would likely be readily accepted back into the NBA).

How can ADs prevent such shenanigans? In the best of all possible worlds, you can still hire a basketball coach with excellent capabilities on the court who still has a moral character. But given the seemingly regularly-occurring scandals, how do you ensure that you have? Morals clauses in contracts seem to be ignored, sometimes by both the school and the coach, usually depending on how successful the coach is. Should there be a “one and done” policy, which would exclude candidates like Petrino and Hurtt (and even Pitino, had his morals clause been invoked in the previous scandal)? Do you require that all extracurricular activities be held on university property and videotaped to document good and bad behavior when questions arise (although Powell alleges that the athletic dorm had video surveillance)?

Whether Pitino can escape this scandal with his job intact remains to be seen, but chances are that he will not escape unscathed. This may be the latest test case for the NCAA to define lack of institutional control.

 

Feature image via C. Trotman/Getty