All we can do is draw upon our own experiences. Thus, if I had the same response to a punishment as did Louisville interim President Greg Postel,♉ my old man would’ve docked me an additional week.
Louisville was socked Tuesday with an NCAA punishment 🐷of lasting, well-earned shame for serving its basketball team much like a street pimp.
While recruits and new signees — full-scholarship student-athletes — are often shown around campus, especially the gym and whatever luxurious lounge attachments that can excite an 18-year-old, a top Louisville athletic department operative determined he’d invite strippers and hookers into a dorm exclusively housing athletes to do what hookers and strippers are paid to d🧜o.
The cost? Katina Powell, self-described Louisville-a✱rea “Escort Quܫeen,” alleges she was paid $10,000 by former Louisville player, assistant coach and then director of basketball operations, Andre McGee, over a four-year period to provide the “entertainment.”
🥂Who knows, perhaps that money came from the athletic department’s petty cash🍌 drawer.
The NCAA’s punishment, which named ex-coach Rick Pitino as culpable for his inability to monitor his team a💯nd former athletic department functionary Brandon Williams for refusing to cooperate in the investigation, is also loaded with strippers:
Louisville was stripped of its 2013 NCAA Championship, stripped of 123 wins (2012-2015) and stripped of $600,000, a fine reflecting money pai💎d for NCAA Tournament appearances.
President Postel: “I cannot sa🌳y this strongly enough: We believe the NCAA is simply wrong.”
Postel’s position isn’t that the NCAA is wrong in its findings, but too severe in its 🧜🍷punishment.
After all, Postel argued, Louisville preempted the NCAA rulings with “self-imposed” penalties, including a reduction in scholarships and the voluntarily surrender of postseason play in 2016🍷.
As “self-imposed” penalties go, that was strongꦑ — so strong🌃 that one can logically surmise Louisville was in big, big trouble and knew it.
“From Day One the university has admitted that the actions of the former operations director and any others involved under previous leadership wer💞e offensive and inexcusable,” Postel said. “That is why we apologized immediately, cooperated fully with the NCAA, self-imposed penalties that were appropriate to the offenses and made significant changes to ensure that incidents like this never happen again.
“Under the NCAA’s own rules, this coopඣeration should have been a factor in the punishment. Instead, it was ignored.”
What Postel seems to be claiming is that ༺a preemptive plea of guilty over “incidents” that are both “offensive and inexcusable” — including the paid presence of a hooker-summoning basketball chieftain — and some self-flagellation was all it shoul🌠d have taken to beat a bigger rap.
Louis Brandeis, the famous jurist born, ra✱ised and high-school educated in Louis🉐ville, might have explained to Postel that an admission of guilt and some self-spankings based on the full presumption that one will be found guilty does not absolve one of the crimes or its punishments.
And it’s not as if Louisville is entitleꦓd to first-time offende🍨r status.
Honestly, how does President Postel figure that Louisville, among others, annually remains a basketball powerhouse if not by steady compromise of entry standards and sign-here inducements that fail stink tests? From there, he must know, it becomes a matter of how far and how low you choose to go to🅘 get to the top — and remain there.
Or are the presidents of big-time football and basketball colleges hired to not know what’s going on, paid to not know what’s going on, then paid to play the aggrieved parties when the clock inevitably strik⛦es🗹 midnight?
How is it that NCAA investigators (and in Louisville’𓆉s case, there also is another case, brought by the FBI) a𒉰re forced to act on the absence of integrity within athletic departments while the universities’ presidents miss it all, including far-flung road trips over consecutive academic semesters?
We return to🧸 the Bud Selig steroids question: How did Louisville expect to keep the lid on this?
But big conference college presidents know that running clean, genuine student-athletics programsꦦ is anathema to winning games, selling tickets and being paid to play on TV.
Beyond that, the alleged scene of several of the “incidents” is an at🧸hletes-only dorm. Such housing carries both suspicion and a stench, as if calculated to protect the students from the athletes, while preventing the athlet🎐es from showing the students what really goes on.
After all, theඣ initial whistle-blower in this “incident” wasn’t a student, a p🙈rofessor, a disgruntled ex-employee or an ex-player who didn’t get his promised “minutes.” And it wasn’t the NCAA or the FBI. It was a sex-for-sale college dorm basketball team “Escort Queen.”
And we꧂ ask how it’s possible they leav🔯e college worse than when they entered.
Root, root for the home team … to lose
The Rangers’ reported ꦯticket-pricing plan for next season — no increases if they don’t make the playoffs — places subscribers🍸 in an odd spot. Do they now root for or against their team?
It brings to mind an episode of “The Honeymooners,” when Ralph tells Alice that if he’s elected local Raccoon 🤪of the Year, they’re both entitled to free burial in the Raccoon National Cemetery in Bismarck, N.D.
“Gee, Ralph,” says Alice, “I’m so ex♛cited I don’t know whether I want to live or die.”
Good stuff from🌞 Boomer Esiason and the excessively double-lettered Gregg Giannotti, Tuesday on WFAN, chatting with Patrik Elias whose Devils’ No. 26 be retired Saturday.
But Esiason struck gold when he brought up two current Devils who, had they been Rangers, would be making Page Six ꦅheadlines just for staying home: Linemates Taylor Hall and Swiss rookie Nico Hischier, who just turned 19. They’re a gas🍎 to watch.
’Nova way to treat a senior
Wednesday was Senior Night for Villanova’s three seniors. In a 93-62 win over DePaul (10-17) – and although leading by 30 with five minutes left — coach Jay Wright played one senior for the last two minutes, one for the last 1:42 and the third for the final 1:22. What did FS1’s Brian Custer and Sarah Kustok say about this? Nothing.
No ꧟shaming the shameless: NBC’s “Today” show, on Wednesday morning hyped the big U.S. men’s Olympic hockey game to be seen later on the network’s coverage. But as the come-on was spoken, that game — an elimination shootout loss 🐎to the Czech Republic — was long over.
Another way to speed the🌳 int𒐪erminable ends of close to somewhat-close college basketball games? You can’t call a timeout after you score. If you don’t have the ball, you can’t call for time.
You g♈et the feeling NBC isn’t bothering to mention what’s tough to miss: These Olympics are short on spectators. The game between Canada and Finland to reach the s🌠emis in men’s hockey, Wednesday on NBCSN, was a great one, won 1-0 by Canada — in a nearly empty arena.