With Petrino Debacle, Not Being a Judge of Character Bites Louisville Again

He'll get millions in a buyout, and then be hired elsewhere for millions - necessary to pay all those legal fees. That's the way the good 'ol boy college football system works. Dave Bliss, who admittedly condoned, or at least ignored, murder at Baylor, was eventually employed. Art Briles, who allegedly ignored rape at Baylor, remains out of a job. Doubtful that a female athletic coach could behave like these guys and remain employable, anywhere.

A debacle for sure but why no outrage directed towards grossly overpaid university administrators and tenured faculty?

Michigan State should be looking for a new OC. Their Number 1 (or close to it) defense is being wasted by an third rate OC in Dave Warner. Petrino is interesting but too much baggage?

I don't know why these large universities don't just set a professional league that they license their names to and from which they collect a royalty. With that settled they could back to educating real students.

Petrino was a known quantity when they hired him and now he's gone after one bad year? I don't think Louisville's expectations are realistic. Just who do they think they are, especially in football?

Maybe “part of the problem” is that the powers that be define “character” as winning—and a lack of character as “bad publicity.” The supposedly necessary linkage between character and athletics is long gone and pretending that it exists is nothing other than propaganda. When’s the last time you saw even individual athletes commended for their “sportsmanship?”

Much like the top 25 poll, there should be a pool published weekly that ranks the same school's sports programs for graduation rate, player eligibility, gpa, misdeeds (hard to qualify but prostitution in last two years is an example), coaches salaries, etc. Such a similar poll exists, but it should take weekly prominence next to the ap and coaches poll. Any parent willing to drop their kid off into the hands of a system that hires prostitutes, probably have expectations for big cash payoffs too. Also, fans of these programs (loiusville, Penn st, msu, etc) should be horrified, but they generally are not. Truly beyond comprehension.

All these coaches are in the network,they never fall far before they are picked up by one of their cronies, dusted off, and handed an assistants job in some program while they plan their next scam on some other university.

What is missing here a short discussion on the role of athletics in any educational setting. Athletics is an educational program that is supposed to augment the developing mind. At its best, athletics is used to teach a process of success. Set a goal, evaluate the progress, reset goals. This process teaches resilience, and persistence. Two character needed in a human being. Now we have athletics as full blown entertainment, forgetting that sports are for the participants, not the people watching.

Poor judge of character maybe, but it at least Louisville wasn’t involved in publishing a story about a dream to assassinate the President of the US.

Not that it's terribly relevant, but there was no motorcycle crash.

We don't have a pro basketball or football team in KY. So college sports are the obsession of many who never darkened the doors of any university, or at least not out state's. It is what KY lives for. There are many here that think the entire reason for a state university system is for sports. Who the heck cares about math and history or engineering? It's about a winning football and basketball team. Very few ever cared about Pitino's misdeeds. He had a winning team. No one would care about about Petrino if his team was winning. He has players on his team that regularly are arrested on serious, felonious charges. Who cares? The team is winning! Tom Jurich, the former AD, was a big part of the problem. One can only hope that perhaps Tyra will be a bit better, but I'm not holding my breath. This simply reflects the culture of the state, which is sports and winning at any price.

Since when did good character and sports go together? Any college would prostitute itself to win. How can people have forgotten Penn State? Win at all costs even if the coaches and players commit felonies. The real question is why people who are totally unqualified to be in college are coddled by a coach who is frequently the highest paid person on staff?

Razorrback fans will probably never forgive Petrino for what he did to us. He set us back years by his misconduct as head coach, the second highest paid state employee. (Second to the Athletic Director, that is.)

So the athletic director is driving the university's mission? Obviously the ability to judge character is pretty low on the list of priorities for the AD position at U of L. What's the school motto? I'll bet it's something like "We'll supply the women and you supply the wins".

It is amazing that Petrino was hired back after his disgrace at Arkansas. The promoters of big time success in college football (and basketball) tend to overlook lying and cheating as long as the coaches win. Public colleges and universities are the worst and this $14 million payout is unconscionable. In deference to the value placed on winning, schools pay based on performance incentives in the contracts with no payouts beyond the year of the firing.

What a disgrace that students’ tuition dollars, and state taxpayers’ money is thrown at athletic programs, whether here, Maryland, Rutgers, and many others. Tens of millions of dollars that could go toward scholarships, academic programs and facilities are instead directed to outrageous coache’s salaries and sports facilities. While academic budgets are cut, these morally questionable people are paid millions to bring glory through athletics, and generally fail while bringing disrepute to the schools that hired them. Rutgers stadium is all but empty as the football team embarrasses itself on the field week after week. At Maryland, a student had to die on the football field before the toxic culture within the program came to light and then the Board of Trustees voted to retain the responsible coach! Petrino and Pitino are morally challenged men, who have no business around college students, given the example they set. How can taxpayers rise up to prevent the diversion of funds from academics to athletics?

Stepping off the plane in Louisville when returning to my home state last fall in the midst of the Pitino scandal, I was greeted by a huge banner hung from the ceiling: "IT IS HERE, THE FUTURE OF SPORT WILL BE WRITTEN" Got it.

Wow. what others might describe as "giving people an opportunity despite some mistakes" this author writes off as "not being a good judge of character." What an incredible level of sanctimony, I think I'll pass on this author in the future and stick with less judgmental people.

Great article especially the last sentence. It's easy to forecast that Louisville will spend whatever it takes just to be on the same field with the "big boys", and some school will offer Petrino a job with no regard to his "notorious past. Game on!