What Would be a Fitting Penalty for Rick Pitino?

The Louisville Cardinals’ Basketball team is under fire for it’s recent scandal that has come out of the woodwork.

There has been former players that have come out and said that when recruited to the school, they attended parties where strippers performed those strippers were available to sleep with.

Former escort Katina Powell was given upwards of $10,000 by former graduate assistance and director of operations Andre McGee to provide strip shows and escorts to prospective recruits during campus visits.

This happened over the course of four years where she provided these girls, including her teenage daughters. One time one guy was offered a bottle of whiskey that was signed by Rick Pitino, allegedly.

Andre McGee stepped down last Friday from being the assistant coach at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. McGee said,“The university deserves a full-time assistant coach and I am not able to provide that to the basketball team while the false allegations against me are being investigated.”.

Now, some will say that all the blame shouldn’t be put solely on McGee. They would suggest that head coach Rick Pitino should be equally to blame. I’m also having a hard time believing that he had no idea that this was going on with his program.

I just don’t understand how you can be the head coach and yet you do not pay attention to the recruiting process.

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If I were the head coach of a team, then I would want to know everything that is going on with my program. I would also want to know what was going on with the new guys that could potentially be coming to my program, but that’s just me. Pitino has been doing this a lot longer than myself.

Others would have a stronger opinion on this subject then me. Professor and Chair of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Louisville Nancy Theroit had this to say,“If Pitino didn’t have knowledge about this sort of thing, then he should not be a coach at all, if he did have knowledge, then he shouldn’t resign. He should be fired.”.

This becomes a tricky subject. Do I think Pitino should be punished for this, regardless of if he knew or not? Yes I do.

Do I think he should be fired for it if he didn’t know? No I don’t.

If he didn’t know then it wouldn’t be fair to fire him for something that he wasn’t aware of. Now that also doesn’t mean that he should be punished for it. A fine and a suspension would be a more fitting punishment.

Louisville Cardinals /

Louisville Cardinals

Now there is all sorts of documents out there that can prove that there is some credibility to the report that is out right now. How Rick Pitino had no idea that this was going on, is unreal.

He is a future Hall of Fame coach, I would have thought that he would know all the “Ins and Outs” of his program, but again that’s just me.

I never would have thought that this would happen under Pitino’s watch, but I guess this isn’t only school where this type of thing is happening.

It’s something that needs to be stopped, and shouldn’t be happening in the first place. No school should need to go to this level in order to get high, middle, or low level recruits to come to their program.

They should come there because of the program, and because they want to play for that coach and school.

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Louisville Basketball: What Would be a Fitting Penalty for Rick Pitino?

By Michael Bonaventura | Oct 28, 2015

Louisville Cardinals

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