By now surely everyone knows about the lurid sex scandal involving the University of Louisville basketball team.
The gist of the story is that basketball aide Andre McGee, a former player, brought prostitute Katina Powell and some of her employees, including her two daughters, into Billy Minardi Hall, the on-campus dorm where players live, so they could dance and strip, which led to, well, what you would expect it would lead to, at least in some cases. Powell made the allegations in a book published last fall
Last Friday the university announced it had imposed a post-season ban on its team, apparently because at least some of her charges had been substantiated. There is no other rational conclusion. This triggered a firestone of commentary on a local, regional, and national level.
I have followed U of L basketball since the early 1950s. Ironically, in fact, I was a fan of the 1956 team that was honored before last Saturday’s game against Boston College. That championship, more than other, marked U of L’s arrival on the national stage.
I am proud to acknowledge that I know U of L President Jim Ramsey, Vice-President for Athletics Tom Jurich, and Hall of Fame Coach Rick Pitino. They all are giants who have done much for the community and university, and I hate to see them being drug through the mud at this stage of their careers.
However, I am a journalist first and foremost. I believe in the truth, and the pursuit of it, to the core of my soul. Sometimes this pursuit has put me at odds with people I like and care about. This is the part of the job that sucks. Yet it’s as much a part of the job as heaping praise on these same people when they do something extraordinary. And so…
This I believe:
1. President Ramsey made the decision to penalize his basketball program with the full support of his three-person faculty investigative committee, although that can’t be ascertained because nobody seems to know who’s on that committee. So far it’s a secret, apparently to protect these three distinguished and sensitive academic souls from being confronted by some scurvy dog from the media who will not bow at the hem of their academic robes.
2. This is the first time in NCAA history that a university has voluntarily removed its basketball team from post-season play at this late stage in the season. Got that? The FIRST time.
3. Dr. Ramsey made the decision as part of a tacit understanding with the NCAA. He also made it to make himself look like a stand-up guy at a time when he’s under severe attack because of his handling of the Foundation, the FBI investigation into his aides, his compensation package, etc.
4. Jurich and Pitino were not members of Dr. Ramsey’s secret investigative committee. They were informed at the last moment about what the secret investigative committee had discovered and worked out with the NCAA. They signed on, albeit reluctantly.
5. When Dr. Ramsey’s public-relations strategy backfired and he became the target of great unrest on campus and in the community, Jurich even agreed to take the heat for a decision that Dr. Ramsey said was his (Ramsey’s) at the Friday press conference.
6. Pitino did not know about anything going on in Billy Minardi Hall. If there’s one thing I know for sure about Pitino, it’s that he holds the name of his late brother-in-law sacred.
7. Nobody likes it, but this team is collateral damage when you step back at look at the big picture — the big picture being the deal between the NCAA and Dr. Ramsey’s secret committee to bring this mess to the most palatable ending possible, long-term.
8. Pitino will stay as long as Jurich wants him. Those two have supported each other through a lot of stuff, beginning with the ugly UK backlash that began when Pitino was hired and continues to this very day.
9. The local Commonwealth’s Attorney may let McGee and Powell skate because he doesn’t have enough credible evidence to bring charges against them that will stick in a courtroom. This means the only active legal cases are the ones where Powell’s girls are suing her, and those could go away with the wave of a few greenbacks
10. Andre McGee was not the mastermind of this scheme. He was doing the bidding of somebody who had something on him. This mysterious person provided him money to stage parties for Louisville players and recruits, even after McGee had gone to Kansas City. Unfortunately, the identity of this person may never be known.
This I believe.
Today.
I reserve the right to change my beliefs based on subsequent revelations.
Billy Reed is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the Transylvania University Hall of Fame. He has been named Kentucky Sports Writer of the Year eight times and has won the Eclipse Award twice. Reed has written about a multitude of sports events for over four decades, but he is perhaps one of media’s most knowledgeable writers on the Kentucky Derby.