Another Year, Another Review

As I enter my third year of posting, and with the recent migration of this blog to a new host (thanks Bulldog Creative and Chris Michael!) it seems a good time to look back at the evolution of the issues and events that I addressed over the past year.

With the exception of the occasional post about music, this blog has evolved primarily into one that examines stories in the sports headlines from the perspective of a coach, parent, fan, citizen, and lawyer. I don't intend any posts to be particularly controversial, although apparently sometimes they are. 

Neither do I intend to offend. Quite to the contrary -- I detest columnists and bloggers who transparently set out to stir the pot. But I would do you, or at the least myself, a disservice if I didn't bring my perspective to the issues that I examine. You can read about the latest employment law case or the most recent views of a particular coach's or player's deeds, or misdeeds in a variety of places; you don't need to come here for that and, frankly, it would bore me to tears to post about it. 

My perspective, more often than not, is shaped by my belief (to quote the character Mike Schwartz in the excellent book "The Art of Fielding" who, in a pre-game pep talk, quotes his teammates Schiller) that "Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man. And he is only completely a man when he plays." And that applies equally to women as well.

Here are the updates:

After I declared the U.S. Men's and Women's National teams not dead but at least ailing, the women reached the finals of the World Cup, only to lose in excruciating fashion to Japan and apparently deprive Abby Wambach of her last chance at a world championship. The good news for the women is that they qualified for the Olympics and that Wambach will be there, along with Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, and Sydney Leroux, among others.

The American men failed to qualify for the Olympics, bombing out of the U-23 qualifying tournament by first losing to Canada then allowing a last-second goal from 25 yards out that tied its match with El Salvador 3-3 and sent El Salvador to the semi-finals. The U.S. effort in the tournament was marked by bad defending and atrocious goal tending, which is usually a strength of U.S. teams.

No description needed. El Salvador was wearing blue.

After getting off to an indifferent start under Jurgen Klinsmann, however, the U.S. full team is undefeated in 2012, including a 5-1 thrashing of Scotland last week, highlighted by a hat-trick by Landon Donovan and a stunning strike by midfielder Michael Bradley. The U.S. is playing five matches over the next two weeks to begin preparations for World Cup qualifying. The match Wednesday against Brazil will tell us more about how that preparation is coming, and whether Klinsmann is starting to get to team to a level where it can compete consistently against the best in the world. Highlights of the Scotland match are below.

Lionel Messi capped a record-breaking personal season with a goal in Spain's Copa Del Rey ("King's Cup") bringing his total on the season to an unimaginable 73. The victory was the fourth trophy this season for Barcelona (adding to the Club World Cup, European Super Cup, and Spanish Super Cup already won), but the two biggest prizes, the Champions League and La Liga titles, eluded Barca in its final season under Pep Guardiola, who had already announced his retirement at the tender age of 41. Fortunately, Real Madrid and Christiano Reynoldo also crashed out of the Champions League in the semi-finals.

Meanwhile, in American football Bobby Petrino lost his job as Arkansas coach, to be replaced by John Smith, who never coached a game for his alma mater Weber State, which had just hired him over the winter. Stan Van Gundy is gone as well, apparently at Dwight Howard's behest, although the "NBA insiders" now believe it almost a certainty that Howard will not return to the Orlando Magic after he plays out his next and last season under his current contract. At least in the NFL the foxes are not yet running the hen house as Roger Goodell laid heavy fines and suspensions on the New Orleans Saints, their players and coaches, and former defensive coordinator Greg Williams. But an arbitrator has yet to rule on the players' suspensions, and we know how that could turn out.

In State College, Joe Paterno's son announced 11 days after my post about his reign at Penn State that his father had lung cancer. Two months a day later, Paterno died. While his sudden decline was tragic, it is made all the more so by his tarnished legacy, caused by hubris, inattention, or implausible deniability.

Finally, and sadly, back to soccer where my Blackburn Rovers were relegated from the Premier League, going out with a whimper and two last dismal performances. The club is in greater disarray now than before, with a decision regarding the future of manager Steve Kean (who would be long gone from any professional organization) still up in the air. News of Rovers will be much harder to come by next season on this side of the Atlantic, but that may not be a bad thing.

It's Still a Game

Two recent injuries to high-profile athletes, in situations that could have easily been avoided, have caused some folks (me included) to examine the coaching decisions that played a role in the injuries, or more precisely in what could have been done to avoid them.

In the first, the Saturday before last, the Chicago Bulls' Derrick Rose (the reigning MVP of the NBA) tore the ACL in his left knee with 1:20 left in the game and his team up by 12 points in a win over the Philadelphia 76ers in the first game of their playoff match-up. Rose's presence in the game that was essentially wrapped up led some to question whether his coach, Tom Thibodeau, should have kept him in the game and risked any injury, let alone a season-ending one that will require surgery and months of rehabilitation.

A week later, Mariano Rivera, who is almost certainly the greatest relief pitcher in the history of baseball, tore the ACL and meniscus in his right knee while shagging balls pre-game last Thursday in Kansas City. Catching outfield flies before a game is not standard operating procedure for relief pitchers, let alone 42-year-old relief pitchers, and others have questioned the wisdom of his manager, Joe Girardi, in allowing Rivera to, well, act like a kid when he's now middle-aged.

As is too often the case these days, when sports opinionators (it's hard to call many of them "journalists") weigh in on every coaching decision, some have questioned whether Rose should have been in the game when he was, and whether Rivera should have ever been allowed to tempt fate by shagging balls in the outfield.

In response to the questions, Thibodeau, who has a well-earned reputation for exhaustive, even obsessive, preparation, replied that he thought that Rose, who has struggled through a number of injuries this season, needed to be on the court at the end of the game so that he could acclimate himself to finishing games if the need would arise (and it almost certainly would have) in a close game later in the playoffs.

The best defense of Rivera's actions came not from his manager but from former Yankee pitcher Ron Guidry, to whom Rivera was compared (or mirrored, since Rivera is right-handed and Guidry a lefty) when he first came to the Yankees two decades ago. Guidry shared with Rivera not only sneaky-fast stuff, but a longing to play the outfield. Guidry actually realized his dream, twice, while in a Yankee uniform.

Rivera never made an official appearance in the outfield for the Yankees, but, in a recent New York Times interview, Guidry expressed the belief that that dream, or at least allowing Rivera to foster it by catching flies in warm-up, may have extended rather than shortened Rivera's career. “We’re people, not just pitchers,” Guidry said. “If they didn’t let Mo enjoy the game, maybe he doesn’t pitch this long.”       

Rivera in action.

I'm with Thibodeau and especially Guidry on this one. Sometimes, coaches just have to let players be players. The word "player" itself has a connotation that we too often ignore. It is a game, and players play it. Sometimes coaches coach best when they let their players enjoy what it is they're doing. As long as it's not disrespectful of the other team, or designed solely to pad statistics, then players should be allowed, at least sometimes, to acknowledge that they should have some fun, to express themselves whether on the field of play or just preparing to play.

Perhaps there's a lesson there for businesses outside of the sports world as well. Too often management feels compelled to require employees and even executives to conform to their idea of what a position requires. Employees are required to dress as an account executive or administrative assistant "should" dress; to act like a like a manager or a agent "should" act, to express themselves as a salesperson or an lawyer "should" express themselves.

Once in a while, perhaps a square peg will fill a round hole, as long as it's not forced and there's a little elbow grease that eases the fit. Sometimes we should let employees be who they are, and by doing that let them enjoy more what they do. Understanding that there are certain situations that require particular behavior or even attire, employers ought to be willing, in general, to adapt to the way employees and even management can go about their business in the manner that is most appealing to them, as long as that business and that conduct aids the greater good.

Let players play.

Indentured Servitude

Unlike my positions on many other topics, I often vacillate when it comes to college sports in the U.S.

Perhaps my favorite spectator sport other than soccer is college football. There's nothing quite like a crisp autumn afternoon in a packed stadium cheering for your team with thousands of other fans. The spectacle simply can't be beat.

College basketball is close too, although, because its games are indoors and the crowds are smaller, it's not quite as scintillating. But in its heyday (i.e., back when, in any given year, every school had a shot) the thrill of going to an ACC basketball game in old Winston-Salem Memorial Coliseum or Cameron Indoor or Carmichael Auditorium was second-to-none.

One of the draws of college sports when I started following them decades ago, other than the obvious allegiance to a school that one grew up supporting or attended, is that it was an amateur endeavour. While pro sports were increasingly subject to athletes changing franchises and franchises changing location, college sports remained a bastion of those who were playing the game for the joy of playing.

Thirty years ago that was a simplistic, but somewhat valid, belief. Today, it would completely ignore reality.

Let's face facts. The only thing that's amateur about college football and basketball these days is that the players aren't paid. The coaches, the schools, the conferences, and the NCAA make millions and billions of dollars from the television rights based on the sweat of their athletes. And, under that completely ridiculous guise of amateurism (in the correct sense of the word), all refuse to allow the players to share in the bounty.

The quid pro quo is supposed to be that the athletes receive an education "for free." Others argue that, considering various available grants and stipends (including board) players are actually paid (although this theory broadly asserts that all athletes are eligible for, and receive, these various grants and that most are not equally available to non-athletes).  But it's hard to ignore the fact that while the compensation that the athletes are receiving from the schools is at best in the tens of thousands of dollars, the schools are making millions and millions of dollars off of them.

The distinction between the way players and coaches are treated under the NCAA's current system was driven home by two recent events.

In the first, University of Wisconsin basketball coach Bo Ryan initially blocked his player, Jarrod Uthoff (who had determined that his style of play didn't fit into Ryan's system) from potentially transferring to a number of schools. The universities that Ryan prohibited Uthoff from contacting to determine his ability to transfer there included all of those in the Big Ten (somewhat understandable), Marquette (as a local rival, somewhat defensible, although Uthoff is from Iowa and thus does not appear to have any obvious ties to the state of Wisconsin), Iowa State (apparently vindictive) and every ACC school (completely inexplicable and nothing but petty and vindictive).

Uthoff practicing while a Badger.

While Wisconsin ultimately modified Ryan's restrictions, allowing Uthoff to discuss transferring to any school other than one in the Big Ten, the damage had already been done. While Ryan attempted to defend his decision as one that had been recommended by other coaches whose opinions he sought because he was unfamiliar with a transfer request (despite the fact that he had willingly accepted a transfer from Iowa, and defended the decision, in 2010) and one which the school could decide to modify (which it ultimately did), his position never appeared anything other than a master telling his servant where and when he could pursue his educational and vocational goals.

Meanwhile, in college football, John L. Smith, who was hired by his alma mater, Weber State, to be its head coach beginning with the 2012 season, never coached a game for the school, jumping ship to become the head coach at Arkansas after it fired Bobby Petrino.  Presumably, Weber State had neither the foresight nor the ability to place restrictions on Smith regarding what schools he might potentially abandon his alma mater for, or Arkansas would have likely been on the list since Smith was its special teams coach for the past three seasons.

The cavernous gap between the ability of players to change schools as opposed to that of coaches highlights the disparity between the way the two are treated by the NCAA. The players, who earn the institutions millions of dollars through their play, have restrictive covenants placed upon them by the schools, while the coaches that they play for earn millions of dollars (Ryan, after the Uthoff debacle,  received a contract extension that will presumably pay him more than the $2.11 million per year he was earning before) and apparently can severely limit their players' options for movement according to their inclination toward or displeasure with a particular player.

If schools and the NCAA continue to treat players as employees, they ought to pay them as employees.  Not necessarily in the same manner as professional athletes, but as employees of the schools. While the NCAA recently allowed conferences to vote on allowing payments of $2000 to all scholarship athletes, part of the requirement is that a school pay the same stipend to all scholarship athletes. While presumably this  reflects the NCAA's mantra that the majority of college athletes are going to "go professional" in a pursuit other than sports, it's just a smokescreen to avoid talking about the two sports that rake in all the money for the schools and the NCAA - basketball and football.

My proposal is that the schools make a rough calculation of the number of hours that an athlete will spend in games, practice, training, travel, media appearances, etc., in football or basketball in a given season and pay them, per hour, the same rate that students at the school are paid for work-study programs (I presume at or near the minimum wage). I would end the charade that all college athletes are created equally in terms of their value to produce income to the schools and make this payment available only to football and basketball players (I know, there's likely a Title IX issue here, but let me ignore that for the moment).

The least that the schools that make millions of dollars through the work of these athletes can do is pay them in the same manner as they pay other students who are also employees at their institutions. That may make it a little more tolerable when the next Jarrod Uthoff rolls around and his request to transfer away from the school, which would never be necessary for a "normal" student, is refused.

Patriotic Correctness Redux

I am not a fan of Ozzie Guillen. Nor of Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez, despite what some of my more conservative friends may think. And unlike my attitude towards Rick Pitino, I don't see those inclinations changing anytime soon.

Nevertheless, I am perplexed by tone of the criticism by Major League Baseball and head shill Bud Selig (you can add him to that list in the first paragraph as far as I'm concerned too) to a statement that Guillen recently made regarding Castro that led to a five game suspension from his new job as manager of the Miami (formerly Florida) Marlins.

In an interview with Time Magazine, Guillen, who has a notoriously large mouth which one foot or the other often seems to occupy, allegedly made comments that supported Castro. While initially saying that he "love(s) Fidel Castro" even Guillen immediately saw the danger in that comment and amended it somewhat.  "I respect Fidel Castro," Guillen said. "You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for he last 60 years, but that mother____ is still here."

Let me be clear: while I am not privy to Guillen's contract with the Marlins, I assume that the team is perfectly within its rights to suspend him for the comments he made as not in the best interest of the team. In fact, given Guillen's past history of stupid utterances reflecting his homophobia and, indeed, expressing his admiration for Castro, I would be astonished if Guillen's contract did not have a clause allowing him to be disciplined or terminated for comments deemed detrimental to the club.

While Guillen has (unconvincingly) tried to explain his comments by saying that he was thinking in Spanish and talking in English during the interview (so, Spanish for the word "love" really means "hate"?), I think we're missing something a little more fundamental here. 

It's clear that Selig didn't see Guillen's punishment as sufficient to quell the uproar in Miami over his comments. So, instead, he went out of his way to proclaim Guillen's opinions as, essentially, un-American in a transparent attempt to pander to the city's Cuban-American community (and to avoid losing their support at the turnstiles, on which Selig is banking to turn around the moribund franchise and fill its brand-new $515 million ballpark).

In his statement, Selig intoned, in part: "As I have often said, baseball is a social institution with important social responsibilities. All of our 30 Clubs play significant roles within their local communities, and I expect those who represent Major League Baseball to act with the kind of respect and sensitivity that the game's many cultures deserve."

So, basically, whatever your largest potential audience is in any location, pander to them. Only offer opinions with which they agree. And that bit about social responsibilities? Well, as long as the First Amendment isn't included, we're all for them.

Selig's hypocrisy is compounded, of course, by the fact that he took no action, and made no proclamation, about Guillen's comments regarding Castro in 2008. And most significantly, by his own appearance in Havana, seated beside Fidel himself, in 1998 at an Orioles-Cuban All-Star team exhibition.

Orioles owner Peter Angelos, Fidel Castro, and Bud Selig.
I know what you're thinking. It's not Photoshopped.

And so, we have the 2012 Selig, trying to sell tickets in Miami to the Cuban-American community by denouncing Guillen as not meeting MLB's "important social responsibilities" while we gaze at the 1998 version of Selig sitting next to the man Guillen is criticized for admiring. Why? 

Money. It was okay for Bud to sit next to Fidel in 1998 because, well, because Bud thought it the best way for baseball to make a few bucks at the time. And, now, it's okay for Bud to eviscerate Guillen for admiring the man he once sat next to because, well, because Bud thinks that's the best way for baseball to make a few bucks.

At least Joesph McCarthy had an ideological basis for his witch hunt. Trampling an entire nation's First Amendment rights in the name of freedom, while horrifying and divisive, had a patina of patriotism. Selig's trampling of an individual's rights has no such gloss. It's just business as usual for Bud, according to what he believes is best for his business. And if that pesky Constitution gets in the way? Well, just place yourself on the side of "social responsibility" and everything will be fine.

Hurray for the Uncoached

As this blog has evolved it's largely taken the form of commentary on timely events regarding soccer and sports in general and the possible lessons to be learned for society as a whole and coaches and athletes in particular.

As a former coach, I obviously believe that coaches are, at their best, essential to the development of players and teams. This is always true of team sports, where individual brilliance may be present, but has to be integrated into the machinery of the team in order for there to be collective success.

In individual sports, coaches used to be the exception, not the norm. But these days every tennis player has a coach, and every PGA player has at least one, and often more: swing coach; short game coach; psychologist; not to mention caddies and agents. 

I believe that all this coaching has taken some of the magic out of those sports. We now seem to have cookie-cutter formulas for success. In women's tennis, in order to be a star you apparently have to grunt/scream in agony on every shot (and it doesn't hurt to have a last name ending in "ova"). Men's tennis is now just a series of baseline displays of power, with two players firing ICBMs at each other until one succumbs. The players then move on to the next point, indistinguishable from the last, where the sparring renews. 

It's the same in golf where most of the players, especially those in the middle-of-the-pack, seem interchangeable. I'm always amused when a commentator analyzes some player's swing with the super-slow-motion camera and breathlessly describes the takeaway or the downswing or the follow-through. They all look exactly the same to me (except, of course, for Jim Furyk's). But maybe that's why I'm watching and they're playing.

I pine for the days when you could tell a player just by his/her swing, whether on the court or the course. Just saying the name Borg or McEnroe or Evert or Palmer or Player conjures up a very clear image in my mind, not of the player's face, but the player's stroke or swing and the way they played the game.

The classic Palmer follow through.

Which is why Bubba Watson's triumph at the Masters this past weekend came as such a breath of fresh air. As I'm sure you've read by now, Watson has never had a golf lesson and is mostly self-taught. His pairing with Louis Oosthuizen for 20 holes on Sunday provided the perfect contrast between the always-in-control-never-out-of-balance swings taught and learned by almost everyone these days and the swing-from-your-heels-or-toes-it-doesn't-matter-when-you-hit-the-ball-350-yards thrashing of Bubba.

Bubba's follow through. While with a driver -- look familiar?

Watson has commented before that he in all likelihood has Attention Deficit Disorder (which his wife readily confirms) and that he relies on his caddie to keep him on-task during a round. But he has consistently refused to hire a swing coach or even seek much advice regarding his swing. And, as far as I'm concerned, we're all better off because of it.

While the psychologist quoted in the article above likens an athlete with ADD to those individuals who used to be described as having an "artistic temperament", nothing about Bubba's game is particularly artistic. In his all-white outfits, wielding a pink driver with a pink shaft, hair flowing out of his visor like a frat boy at Ft. Lauderdale on spring break, the image is much more that of a mad scientist or a wizard. And all of us are enchanted.

Tell me you can't see Gandalf with a pink driver in his hands.

While Bubba evidently identifies most with the late Payne Stewart (who also likely had ADD), their games aren't much alike. The golfer who Watson most reminds me of is Seve Ballesteros, another mad genius whose imagination could help him escape the most unlikely of circumstances. Although, in Seve's case, it was usually much farther from the green than Bubba normally finds himself.

More than most, I understand the value of coaches and coaching, especially in team sports. And I certainly understand, particularly with my flawed golf swing and more flawed psyche, that coaches can benefit players in individual sports as well. But I also appreciate artistry or mad genius, particularly in individual sports. And that's why we all should celebrate Bubba's triumph.

He is every kid, who, hitting a ball he tossed to himself, shooting a three-pointer, or hitting a practice ball (on a vacant lot, or hoop without a rim, or sandy spot in his backyard) dreamt of hitting a walk-off home run, or making the last shot in the NBA finals, or sinking a putt on the 74th hole to win the Masters. It can happen. And you can do it all by yourself.

An Awkward Day for Coaches

Three events regarding American coaches were revealed on Thursday were so surreal I can't let them pass without offering a word about each.

In the NFL, the release of audio tape of Greg Williams, the former New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator, and now in all likelihood a former coach in all respects, presumably sealed not only WIlliams' fate but also that of his former bosses, the Saints and head coach Sean Payton, with regard to the fines and suspensions placed on them by the league in the wake of the bounty program that Williams installed and Payton not only tacitly allowed but actively tried to cover up.

Meanwhile, in the NBA, Orlando Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy had apparently decided enough was enough and outed his superstar, Dwight Howard, who has been working behind the scenes to get Van Gundy fired. In the height of awkward moments, immediately after Van Gundy had completed his comments to the media about Howard, Howard appeared at the press gathering and put his arm around Van Gundy.

And, finally, news came from Arkansas that the University's football coach, Bobby Petrino, hadn't been as forthcoming as Van Gundy in his recent dealings with the press. Petrino informed the press on Tuesday that he had been involved in a motorcycle accident Sunday. What he didn't tell the press (and in fact lied about) was that there was another rider on his bike. A 25 year-old female employee (and former volleyball player) at the school, with whom he was, according to the school which has now suspended him, engaged in an "inappropriate relationship."

Petrino at his press conference. One can only assume
that the neck brace and scrapes are from his accident,
not what his wife did to him when he got home.

If one were to pick one word to describe each of the three coaches and their unusual circumstances, the word I choose for Williams is arrogant. Stupid and evil would work too. While NFL players and commentators debate whether what Williams said in his "pep talk" went beyond the bounds of decency, or at least normality where the NFL is concerned, there's something more simple at play in my mind. 

Williams knew, or should have known at the time that he made the speech, that he and the Saints were under investigation for their bounty program. He knew that they had been told to stop offering money to defensive players for injuries to the opposing team. And Williams knew that there was an individual from outside of the team (filmmaker Sean Pamphilon, who was making a documentary on Saints player Steve Gleason) present during his speech.

All of which has to lead one to conclude that Williams thought he was above the law. After all, he had gotten away with his antics for years before, first with the Buffalo Bills, then with the Saints. It was pure arrogance that led Williams to conclude that it was business as usual when it came to his the defensive tactics his Saints would employ against the San Francisco 49ers. That arrogance will surely cost him any chance to ever coach again. And rightfully so.

Good riddance Mr. Williams

My word for Van Gundy is honest. Coaching and honesty don't always go hand-in-hand, and sometimes it is almost inevitable that the two cannot coexist. In preparing a team for a game a coach will often have to stretch or ignore the truth, whether to convince his or her team that they have a chance, or that the other team has a chance. It's the same in dealing with the media, when coaches often have to defuse tension within the team, or not say what's really on their mind ("the referees didn't cost us the game" comes to mind as a statement that is often the exact opposite of what a coach is really thinking).

Yet Van Gundy chose to confront a question about Howard in a straightforward and honest manner. He could have chosen to plead ignorance, simply ignore the question, or shoot the messenger, but he gave an honest answer and then an honest assessment of the situation. And he was absolutely right. Many of us don't particularly care for some of the people we work for or with, but it doesn't, or shouldn't, stop us from doing our jobs as best we can.

Slimy has to be the word for Petrino. Not because he was apparently engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a woman half his age with a wife and four kids at home (history is littered with men and women much better than Petrino who have done the same or worse). Not because he abandoned his previous employer, the Atlanta Falcons, in mid-season.

But because he lied about the accident, first to his boss and then to the media, and then by all appearances made an appearance that was meant to draw sympathy to him (or attention away from the circumstances that surrounded his mishap). And asked a Good Samaritan who drove by the scene of the crash not to call 911. And because the week before his companion was hired as his team's "student-athlete development coordinator."

Head football coaches, especially those at big state universities, expect to and can get away with a lot when they win. But the way Petrino handled this situation, in an apparently calculating manner from the moment it happened, can only be seen as the acts of a selfish, and, yes, slimy man.

One day, three unusual and awkward moments for three coaches, who can be described in three words. How can a blogger be so lucky?

A Shot at Redemption

"A man walks down the street, he says 'why am I soft in the middle now?

Why am I soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?

I need a photo opportunity; I want a shot at redemption.

Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.'"

I used to dislike Rick Pitino. Not a little. A lot. 

But they say that everyone deserves a second chance. And Pitino has earned one with me.

Sure, he and his Providence team were darlings 25 years ago, the little engine that could, the collection of gym rats and castoffs that made it to the Final Four.  After that, though, Pitino had shown his true colors by jumping ship to the New York Knicks, then Kentucky, then the Celtics, then Louisville. And with his fancy suits and fancier loafers he always seemed a little too slick, a lot too confident, to inspire much of anything other than dislike in the casual fan and especially the fan of any team other than the one he was coaching at the time.

The former Slick Rick?

I have to admit to a certain smug satisfaction several years ago when Pitino was excoriated after news of a dalliance with Karen Sypher (apparently straight out of casting for Fatal Attraction) led to sordid speculation in the press and forced Pitino to announce that he had been the target of an attempted extortion. 

Whether due to that sobering incident or simply maturation, Pitino seems a changed man and a changed coach. The press has been full of stories in this week leading up to the Final Four of how Pitino has mellowed, transforming himself from an unapproachable dictator to a likable mentor. Even seniors on his current team remark on how he has changed just in their time at Louisville, that he talks to and jokes with the freshmen players in a manner that they couldn't have imagined three years ago.

Perhaps most impressively, Pitino neither portrays himself as a victim in the scandal brought on by Sypher's allegations, nor does he point to it as playing a role in his change. Instead, he points with pride to the fact that he learned during that time to simply turn the other cheek, something he certainly hadn't been known for in the past.

Pitino's maturation has been amplified this week as Louisville has prepared to play Kentucky, his former team and in-state rival.  The noise gets even louder, or the suits a little whiter, when he is compared to Kentucky's coach, John Calipari, who seems to have many of the same traits as the old Rick.

It may be unusual, or even uncomfortable, for Pitino to find himself in the role of both underdog and sympathetic character. But his actions over the past three years, and those of his team in the Big East and NCAA tournaments to this point, have earned him the right to both.

Pitino was dangerously close, as Paul Simon said, to becoming "a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard." I, for one, am glad he didn't. Regardless of how Saturday's game turns out, this NCAA tournament has been Pitino's shot at redemption. And, as many of his teams have been famous for, he drained the three.