Pitino Has Lost All Cred, Should Resign

We take you to a living room someplace in America, where Rick Pitino is sitting with a mother, a father and a talented high school prospect. He is staring at the family with those dark, penetrating eyes, selling the tradition and virtue of University of Louisville basketball, trying to convince them why Jimmy Jumpshot should avoid the temptation of John Calipari and his rejuvenated program at Kentucky to sign with the Cardinals.

Suddenly, inevitably, Mom pops the questions: How can you take care of my son when you, Rick Pitino, acknowledged having sex with a woman at a table inside an Italian restaurant after closing time? And how can I respect your morals, Rick Pitino, when a married father of five and a devout Roman Catholic discreetly pays the woman $3,000 because she needed, uh, health insurance to cover an abortion? And why would I send Jimmy to Louisville, Rick Pitino, when you could be fired for cause at any time if the university decides you've violated a contracted morality clause for acts of dishonesty, "moral depravity" or "willful conduct that could objectively be determined to bring public dispute or scandal" during your tenure?

With some serious explaining to do, Pitino appeared at a university news conference Wednesday and vowed to remain in a program where he has restored prominence. "As long as they'll have me," he said, not taking questions. "When you have a problem, if you tell the truth, the problem becomes part of your past. If you lie, it becomes part of your future."

He apologized to the town and to the university, saying, "You need a community to get over that." He bled as he spoke about his family, saying, "I let them down with my indiscretion six years ago. And I'm sorry for that and I tell them that every day ... The past seven months have been very difficult on the people I love."

But no matter how Pitino sweats and spins, the conclusion is that no, he can't survive this, regardless of his standing among the college game's elite coaches. If he were thinking straight, he'd offer his resignation, but he is too combative for a common-sense exit. Unlike professional sports, where adultery is a fact of daily life, a collegiate coach is required to be a multi-year father figure, administrator and mentor for the young men he recruits. He also is expected to be a pillar of a university and cornerstone of a community, especially in a city such as Louisville, where Pitino and his program rank with the Kentucky Derby and Churchill Downs as proud civic symbols and national identity sources. There will be some pro-Pitino influences, such as athletic director and close friend Tom Jurich, throwing support behind him. "I'm one million percent behind Coach Pitino," he told ESPN.com. But ultimately, the stain on the university will be too much to bear. To wit: Examine the statement issued Wednesday by school president James Ramsey, who was aware that Karen Sypher is being accused of trying to extort Pitino but apparently had no idea about the Bottle of Red, Bottle of White sexcapade at Porcini, an upscale restaurant where the "Pitino table" now becomes a Louisville tourist stop.

"Several months ago, Coach Pitino informed me about the alleged extortion attempt. I've now been informed that there may be other details which, if true, I find surprising," Ramsey said.

"Surprising" as in, Pitino wasn't completely forthcoming with his top boss when explaining how Sypher, the estranged wife of longtime Pitino associate Tim Sypher, became his sex partner and $3,000 health-insurance beneficiary. The details simply are too scandalous and close-to-home for the school to forgive Pitino and allow him to carry on. I mean, did it ever occur to the man to get a room? Who has sex in a restaurant after hours, other than maybe college-age bartenders and waitresses? What coach actually lets the restaurant owner give him the keys and lock the doors when he's finished? Did it occur to Pitino that Porcini might have had a surveillance camera, which could have turned the love romp into the first mass-circulated sex tape featuring a national-title-winning coach? And how humiliating that Pitino's former executive assistant, Vinnie Tatum, testified to the FBI that he was waiting at the restaurant to serve as a designated driver -- the coach had been drinking -- when he heard "the sounds of two people that seemed to be enjoying themselves during a sexual encounter."

Somehow, I don't think UCLA had to worry about such problems when John Wooden was coaching.


In the creepiest twist of all, the police report says Pitino had a curious request when Sypher -- her name was Karen Cunagin at the time -- called two weeks later to report she was pregnant. He said they should meet at the condo of Tim Sypher, the team's equipment manager.

This was one of two places where she claims she was raped by Pitino, making it odd that she still would find the condo comfortable enough to befriend Sypher, who would become her husband in 2004. (I couldn't possibly make this stuff up). At one point, while Tim Sypher continued to serve on the Louisville staff in a career that included four years under Pitino with the Boston Celtics, he came to his boss with a written list of demands from his wife. Among them: College tuition for her children, two cars, $3,000 a month and money to pay off her home mortgage. But Tim Sypher was not part of the siphoning, or so it appears. Protecting his job, he said in April of the alleged extortion attempt, "I am devastated by the bizarre allegations that my estranged wife is making against both Coach Pitino and myself." Not surprisingly, Karen Sypher filed for divorce last spring.

In the end, Pitino's adultery may be forgiven. But the presence of abortion in this wild story -- even if Pitino says the $3,000 was specifically for health insurance, which sounds like semantics to me -- will gain him no mercy in the Catholic community. His faith is so important to him, he has a priest and spiritual advisor, the Rev. Edward Bradley, sit on the Louisville bench and travel with the team. Yet even the priest would agree that Pitino is a Grade-A hypocrite.

Of course, Pitino's legal team is painting its client as a victim. "I can't see any reason why the coach would take a leave of absence for being victimized by a woman like this," Steven Pence said. "He doesn't deserve to be punished for something he hasn't done. I can see no reason why he would take a leave of absence when he was being extorted. He has done nothing illegal.

"The coach is a witness. He's not subject to any penalty. He'll show up one time and that will be it. This is not Pitino vs. (Karen) Sypher. It's the United States Government vs. Sypher."

Yet in the court of public opinion, it's Rick Pitino vs. Himself. It's some crazy mess for a man who won a national championship at Kentucky in 1996, resurrected the Louisville program, had moderate success with the New York Knicks and was a disaster with the Celtics. He lost his best friend in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and admits his head hasn't been the same since. But he'll be the first to say that's no excuse for a scene at an Italian restaurant that his fellow New Yorker, Billy Joel, never had in mind.

And to think Porcini was the place where he always took his wife, Joanne. There's just too much emotional baggage for a mid-sized town in Kentucky to get by all this. The program will take a step back, and in the not-too-distant future, the coach who was wearing white suits last season will fade away.

As he should.