You know the saying about quitting while you’re ahead, right?
Well, Rick Pitino should’ve quit while he was already behind. With his decision to let it rip at the media for their coverage of the saga involving the Louisville hoops coach and the now-infamous Karen Sypher, he put himself in an even more unfavorable situation than he was already in.
True enough, all that has come out about Sypher doesn’t exactly paint her in the most favorable light. And if it was a simple case of Pitino being taken for a ride by a stranger that he‘d never had a single thing to do with, then it’d be a different story entirely, and he‘d have a reason to tell the media to back off.
However, she was anything but a complete stranger, as we’ve come to find out, and while their ’relationship’ doesn’t give her license to try to suck $10 million out of him and fabricate details of their interactions, that’s where there’s a problem for Pitino.
Is the media having a field day? Sure.
Is it causing unnecessary problems for his family? Sure.
Are there better things to be talking about than this? Always.
But it’s not as if he’s some average Joe, and that’s also where the troubles lie for him.
We’re all prone to mistakes, no matter who you are or what you do, but the fact is that when you have the reputation that he does, when you’re a national name, a figure in the public eye like he is, this is what’s going to happen. It’s going to happen, whether or not you like it, even if the media has plenty of other things to talk about.
With that in mind, he did more harm than good than going further than his original apology, because as if he didn’t have enough unwanted attention in his direction already, this has brought even more scrutiny, more unneeded attention.
On one hand, you can understand that he’d want to say something, that he just wants the situation to go away, that he wanted to comment on behalf of his family.
But plain and simple, Pitino should have thought of the potential consequences of his actions before he got tangled up with Karen Sypher.
He didn’t, electing to use another part of himself instead of his brain, and the whole thing’s blowing up in his face. Not just because of the legal implications, not because it’s turned out that Sypher looks to be a little on the nutty side, not because that it’s knocked him off of the pedestal that he’d been on with many, but because of the impact that his actions, not the resulting media firestorm, would have on his family.
It’s not the media who’s caused hell for his family.
It’s not Karen Sypher who’s caused hell for his family.
That’s Pitino’s doing, his doing alone, and that’s why he should’ve kept quiet after his apology instead of stepping up to the microphone on Wednesday. He got this avalanche in motion by deciding to dip his pen in the wrong ink, and not only has he paid for it in more ways than one, but his family is paying for it by having to be unfairly dragged through something they had absolutely nothing to do with.
I’m sure that he wishes he could go back to that night and have not met Karen Sypher at all, or that he had thought with the right head and avoided trouble and temptation. Hindsight is 20/20, yada yada.
There wouldn’t have to be any apologizing to his family or to the masses after the fact, and he wouldn’t have to deal with rather unsavory details about his personal life coming out in the open.
But it’s happened, and he can’t take it back. With the way things have blown up from what they appeared to be initially, there’s a chance that it could get worse before it gets better. That’s no doubt the last thing he wants, but I’ve never known an avalanche that stopped to consider what destruction it’d leave in its wake.
Whatever happens, the media will move on, and we’ll move on. Another scandal will come along and grab the headlines, like it always does. There might be some Louisville fans who are soured on him for good because of this, but plenty will forgive and forget if the Cardinals keep on winning. All the same, those who loathed him before this will loathe him after this has blown over, albeit with something else to make their ‘Pitino Sucks’ signs a little more creative.
And from here on out, Wednesday’s comments should be his last on the matter until/unless it’s on a stand in a courtroom, and he should let things run their course and focus on repairing the damage done. Not with the media, not with the fans, not with recruits, but with those whose opinions and feelings matter the most past, present, and future – his family.
