Oct 21, 2015 4 min read

There’s an old saying that “the fish rots from the head down,” and something sure smells funny in the upper echelons at the University of Louisville.

A former “escort” named Katina Powell has written a book in which she alleges she was paid $10,000 by then-Louisville graduate assistant basketball coach Andre McGee to provide strippers to “entertain” basketball players and recruits.

Powell said McGee also coughed up cash for “side deals” that, according to a report by ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” included “sex with some recruits, guardians who accompanied them on visits and some Louisville players.”

Of course, Louisville head coach Rick Pitino was shocked to hear this news. He claims he saw none of this and never even heard tell that such things were going on. For the record, McGee has been mum about the story, but it was confirmed by about a half-dozen people who were in attendance, and Powell has email records and Wells Fargo receipts.

Maybe we should cut Pitino a little slack. It probably was just a couple of wild parties in some downtown bar. Au contraire! According to Powell, there were nearly two dozen of these fun fests, over four years, right in the basketball players’ dormitory.

Still, should one incident (or 22 of them, if you’re counting each party) involving sexual hanky-panky bring an end to Pitino’s long and illustrious career? Wait! Don’t answer yet! You should know that it’s not the first sex scandal at Louisville under Pitino’s watch, and last time, he was the one doing the “hankying” and “pankying.”

In case you’ve forgotten, it was just more than a few years back that Pitino was at the center of a blackmail case centering on his brief but sordid relationship with a woman named Karen Cunagin Sypher. You see, the esteemed coach had sex with Sypher after hours in a booth of a Louisville restaurant owned by one of his pals. And wouldn’t you know, she got pregnant. Sypher said Pitino, a married, supposedly devout Catholic who has a priest near his bench during games, paid for her to have an abortion. Pitino reportedly told police the same thing, but when asked about it after the mess became public, he denied that. The coach said he gave her money to help pay for “health insurance.”

So, what we have here with the Powell allegations is the second sex scandal of Pitino’s career at Louisville. Perhaps Pitino is telling the truth in this case. Maybe a coach who is known for his relentless attention for detail, for being a micromanager, really didn’t know anything about the repeated sex parties in his players’ dormitory. Maybe the assistant coach came up with that 10 grand on his own to pay the dancers/hookers. Maybe in all the years that these crazy goings-on were going on, not once did word of anything untoward reach Pitino’s ears. But that doesn’t absolve him from blame. Pitino is the leader of the program, the head of the fish. He is paid to run a tight ship, to be the ultimate parent away from home for the boys and young men put in his charge. If all this was going on and Pitino knew nothing, he’s guilty of what the NCAA likes to call a “lack of institutional control.”

Surely, then, Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich will, at least, suspend Pitino while this whole mess is looked into. That’s a laugh. When Pitino was in trouble the last time, it was Jurich who said he was “one million percent behind coach Pitino.” You see, Pitino, as an ultra-successful hoops coach, brings millions into Louisville’s coffers and helps keep Jurich gainfully employed.

Also, Jurich is the same guy who last year hired Bobby Petrino to return as Louisville’s football coach. Yes, he’s the guy who, while coaching Arkansas a few years ago, wrecked a motorcycle he was driving with his mistress on board, the one he hired for a job in that school’s football program. And then he lied about the crash, until the evidence buried him. It cost him that job, but the folks at Louisville apparently don’t mind his baggage because, like Pitino, he tends to win games.

Thus far, in the wake of the reports about the sex parties, the powers that be at Louisville haven’t had much to say.

Does anyone at the school have any concern about the reputation of the institution? Do they care about anything more than the almighty dollar? Do they have any interest in integrity, or requiring that the people who represent Louisville have even an ounce of it? We should have our answers in the next few weeks.