If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else. | | | | The band's almost back together.
(John Parra/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”
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| | rantnrave:// RICK PITINO is one of the best college basketball coaches of his generation. Probably in history. He's the only one to win titles at two schools. He seemed even more unbeatable off the court -- no scandal could stop him. But even he couldn't win when the FBI got involved. Wednesday, Pitino was put on unpaid administrative leave by the UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE. Shorter: He was fired. He'll probably never coach an NCAA game again. All that's left is to haggle over is the money left on his contract. Seems fitting that the scandal that did him in didn't involve the NCAA -- the organization he made a career of skirting. Louisville hasn't gotten into any official trouble, yet. No assistant coaches have been arrested. Pitino says he's done nothing wrong. He always denies wrongdoing. He's been in trouble at HAWAII and twice at LOUISVILLE. He was caught up in an extortion plot, where he paid a woman to have an abortion after a tryst. He claimed ignorance about a staffer running escorts to players in a university dorm. There's a reason he was called Slick Rick. THE ATHLETIC's SETH DAVIS writes that Pitino's downfall was his ambition. Pitino was a masterful tactician and recruiter. Maybe he wasn't much different than his peers in working in the shadows of college basketball's recruiting system. But he got caught too often. And, ESPN's IAN O'CONNOR says, this is the one scandal Pitino couldn't talk his way out of. SportsSET: "The Scandal Rick Pitino Couldn't Beat"... If this is real, it's spectacular... Sometimes we get too cynical about sports. An FBI investigation into alleged fraud and bribery across college basketball can do that. Or a cheating in baseball. The NFL's concussion crisis. Widespread doping in the OLYMPICS. Then there are reminders that it's not right to paint athletes with a broad brush, and to pay attention to the positives. Like MARK CUBAN lending the MAVERICKS' team plane to JJ BAREA so he could deliver supplies to PUERTO RICO. Quarterback DESHAUN WATSON donating his first game check to three TEXANS cafeteria workers who lost everything because of HURRICANE HARVEY. The $37.1 million JJ WATT raised for hurricane relief for HOUSTON. It's not all bad out there... USAIN BOLT in lederhosen... That golf course is a dump. | | | - Mike Vorkunov, curator |
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 | REDEF |
| They called him Slick Rick. One of the best coaches in college basketball history. And charming -- like teflon to the NCAA. But even he couldn't win when the FBI got involved. | | |
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