From Bluegrass State to Bluegrass Stain

Is it me, or is the bluegrass spiked with cannabis? In Louisville, there stood Casanova Rick Pitino, lambasting the media for reporting "a total fabrication of the truth" when, in truth, he lived an extraordinary lie for years and didn't reveal his sin -- having unprotected sex with a woman in a restaurant -- until his legal mess required it. In Lexington, you have Long John Calipari, earning a record $31.65 million to coach the Kentucky Wildcats after fleeing another scandal in a career filled with them.

And on a highway in Lawrenceburg, there was Billy Clyde Gillispie, Calipari's deposed predecessor, so intoxicated according to a police report that his speech was slurred, his eyes were red and glassy and he had trouble opening the glove compartment of his 2009 Mercedes to retrieve his insurance card. "He was confused about how to unlock the vehicle and took several tries to unlock the glove box," the report said of Gillispie, who spent the wee hours Thursday in Franklin County jail after his DUI arrest.

This convergence of wrongdoing isn't coincidental. Rather, it reflects the madness, pressure and self-destruction that accompanies college basketball in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, as the natives snootily like to call it. I'm not saying Pitino wouldn't have done his linguini-and-vino tryst at a table inside an Italian joint in Boston, New York, Providence or his other workplaces. I'm not saying Calipari wouldn't have been hired by another program seeking an outlaw who reaches Final Fours, then vacates berths. And I'm not saying Gillispie wouldn't drink and drive elsewhere; he was cited for driving under the influence twice before, in Oklahoma and Texas. But the fact these three situations are ongoing, in the same six-day offseason span in the same state, provides a harsh, revealing glimpse into Kentucky's foremost source of pride and national identity, unless we're counting racehorses and fried chicken.

Some call it a religion. I call it a sickness. And if you disagree, ask Tubby Smith, who merely won a national championship at UK, only to encounter cruel treatment and hints of racism from a demanding fan base that eventually ran him out of town. The university's response was to hire Gillispie, who went 40-27 in two seasons, lost to Gardner-Webb and San Diego at home, lost by 41 points at Vanderbilt and was fired in March.

What exactly was Pitino trying to accomplish Wednesday, anyway? As his own lawyer advised, it wasn't very wise to assemble the media to smack down the claims of Karen Cunagin Sypher, his sexual partner at Porcini that night in 2003. We've been aware that Sypher has accused Pitino of sexually assaulting her. We've been aware that prosecutors chose not to press charges against him. And we've been aware that she faces federal charges of extortion and lying to the FBI. Put it this way: On any credibility meter, Sypher has little shot in the court of public opinion. So when video of her interview with police was released -- she reiterates claims that he raped her -- Pitino should have ignored it like a bad jump shooter jacking up three-point attempts.

Nothing was new that she hadn't already said. He could achieve nothing by talking except further irritate a country already disgusted by his soap opera.


Stubbornly, as is his way, Pitino talked anyway. All he did was embarrass himself again. "Everything that's been printed, everything that's been reported, everything that's been breaking in the news on the day Ted Kennedy died is 100 percent, a lie," he said. "All of this has been a lie, a total fabrication of the truth, except for what I told you -- the mistake that I made. Everything else is a lie.

"Enough's enough, everybody is tired of it. We need to get on with the important things in life like the economy and really some crucial things in life like basketball. I admitted to you I made a mistake, and believe me I will suffer for that mistake. I'm asking all fans that if this is on the news anymore, and you're a fan of anything we've accomplished, to just change the channel. And if the newspapers want to write about it, then just read something else, wait for the trial and the truth will come out. This is blackmail. I was told seven months ago that if I fought it, my life would be pure hell. I went home to comfort my wife because it has been pure hell for her and my family."


Oh, if moving ahead was only that simple, Casanova. Once he went public with the one-night stand and $3,000 payoff so Sypher could have an abortion in Cincinnati, Pitino guaranteed himself little sympathy. He is 56, a married father of five, a devout Roman Catholic who asks a priest, Rev. Ed Bradley, to sit on the Louisville bench and take road trips. He always has emphasized family and faith, writing in one of his now-dubious self-help books -- Success is a Choice: Ten Steps to Overachieving in Business and Life -- how he made each player in the Providence program stand up and tell about his family. Pitino wanted players to know the answers to intimate questions: "How many brothers does Steve Wright have? What does Billy Donovan's father do for a living?"

"Something wonderful happened," Pitino wrote. "What had been twelve individuals suddenly became a cohesive unit."

But once he had sex in the restaurant with another woman, betraying a wife of 33 years who shared dinner tables with Pitino at Porcini, he lost all credibility regarding family and faith. Or, for that matter, his opinions of the media. In asking people to turn the channel or stop reading the newspaper, Pitino is trying to control a situation beyond his control. He lost control when he let his libido overwhelm common sense. In Kentucky, no two human beings are bigger than Pitino and Calipari. The media may work in small towns, but they're inundated every day by the importance of Kentucky and Louisville basketball. When a coach is embroiled in scandal, they should report the news dutifully, which would include any police tape of a Karen Sypher interview.

Pitino should know better and lay low. By responding, he looks too emotional, too defensive. He also had the gall, while ripping the media, to say he'd like to work in the media someday. That day may be coming sooner than later. "Look, I understand your business very well. I hope, some day when I'm done coaching, I can enter your business because I don't want to just retire. I understand the competitiveness of it and I understand, with these economic times, how difficult it is for everybody," he said. "What I don't understand is why you keep fostering this behavior. On a day where Ted Kennedy died, we broke into the news here in Louisville with Karen Sypher audio tapes with a detective, which had already been put out. That's a sad commentary on us. And it's also a pretty sad commentary when you look at the things that have been said from day one and even yesterday, which didn't make me too pleased, that the U.S. Attorney asked for psychological testing for this person and that bothers me very much because I need this thing to go to trial."

He needs it so Tim Sypher, Karen's estranged husband and Pitino's longtime friend and colleague, can testify about the bizarre threesome. If I have the story right, Karen grew close to Tim after her sexcapade with Pitino, which, I must point out, was overheard by another Pitino underling, former student manager Vinny Tatum. Asked by the police to describe the night in the restaurant, where Pitino's pictures hang on the wall, Tatum said he had "lain down out of (sight) of (Pitino) and Sypher" and that he heard "the sounds of two people that seemed to be enjoying themselves during a sexual encounter." Two weeks later, Pitino was giving her $3,000 for health insurance so she could have an abortion. Tim drove her to the clinic in Cincinnati, and shortly afterward, they were married and had a daughter a year later.



"Now, I will wait for the trial for all of the details,'' Pitino said. "I will wait for the trial because that's what this is all about and I'm not going to continue to talk about it anymore. But I will say this is the definition of the person that you keep reporting on. It's someone who lies inconsistently to get their way and does so with little concern for others. And I will make one further statement to all of you about this because whatever has been written in New York -- again, I'm a proud New Yorker and the writers there have always treated me with great respect -- but my family and friends had to read this garbage. And it's the same thing here in Louisville, where I've spent the last, going now on 17 years, and I can't love a state anymore than this.

"Tim Sypher has not come forward to tell the truth because he'll have to do it at the trial because he's in a custody battle for his child. So nobody really can stand up. I couldn't say anything because my lawyer said 'don't say anything.' And the university says 'don't say anything.' And the authorities said 'don't say anything.' Well, enough is enough and I am saying something. It's a lie. It's a 100 percent lie. You've known it was a lie. You've all known it."

As I've written, it eventually will prove impossible for Pitino to remain at Louisville. He'll be worn down by the media reporting, the small-town gossip and the negative recruiting by rivals such as, well, Kentucky. "I will tell you this: it hasn't hurt recruiting one bit," he insisted. "We will still bring in top-10 players. This program has been a top-10 program the last two years, and it will continue to be a top-10 program. Our fans are the greatest in college basketball -- that's my opinion and I work here. We'll continue to bring in great players. We will still run this program with great integrity. No question. I admitted to you that I made a mistake. And believe me that I will suffer for that mistake."

He is not the first. Gillispie, who was clocked going 63 mph in a 45 mph zone, hasn't been hired by another program and isn't helping his chances with this latest incident. "Billy had a strong fruity smell coming from his person," Lawrenceburg police officer Michael Corley wrote in his report. As for Calipari, his every move is being watched by the NCAA and the media after his scandal at Memphis, where his star point guard, Derrick Rose, is the new poster child for academic fraud and cost the Tigers their runner-up finish in the 2008 Final Four.

Elvis Presley crooned about Kentucky rain, Neil Diamond about a Kentucky woman. "My Old Kentucky Home" still draws goosebumps on Derby Day. Bill Monroe, father of Bluegrass music, wrote about a Kentucky blue moon.

I think we need a song about college basketball insanity in Kentucky. Rob Zombie can perform it.