CourierJournal- When University of Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich announced a new deal with athletic apparel giant Adidas on Aug. 25, a reporter asked him if some of the proceeds would be shared with the university.
“It’s for the athletic department,” Jurich replied. “It’s for these student-athletes. It’s been earmarked for them.” In fact, under the current deal with Adidas, which expires July 1, 98 percent of the cash provided by Adidas goes to one person: Rick Pitino, the now-suspended head coach. In 2015-16, for example, $1.5 million went to Pitino under his personal services agreement with the apparel company while just $25,000 went to the program, according to a contract obtained by the Courier-Journal under the state public records act. The year before, Pitino also got $1.5 million, while the department banked just $10,000. Under the existing contract and the new one, any money that Adidas pays to University of Louisville coaches under personal service agreements is deducted from what the company gives to the athletic program. “Players come here in part because of Coach Pitino. Coaching is part of what we give to student-athletes,” Klein said last month before a bribery scandal prompted the suspensions of Jurich and Pitino. -------- I don't know if it's a testament to Rick Pitino's Napoleon-esque stature that he was able to lurk below the grass long enough to slither his way into the 'Hall Of Fame', but I'll be damned if doesn't make a better snake than he does a college basketball coach. And honestly, that's not even a knock on his command of the collegiate hardwood. Like, pound for pound? May not be a more impressive weasel in the world of sports than the blood sucking son of a bitch that, ironically enough, looks like Dracula's vertically challenged brother. Sure, he was aided by the lack of conscience necessary to plead ignorance over, and over, and over again as someone who quite obviously had his finger on the pulse of everything that was happening under his watch, but you don't achieve that amount of success by being a run-of-the-mill pathological liar. No sir. I have met far too many people who are completely full of shit and not going down (literally) in sports history for me to think that Ricky Baby didn't have a special type of moral-less compass. I mean, we are talking about a guy that might as well have said "Adidas? Is that a type of Spanish food" in response to allegations that he was siphoning off the small percentage of their millions that he wasn't using to line his own pockets to purchase high prized recruits. Let's (three) strip(e) this situation free of the basketball for a second. It takes a virtuoso in the art of ethical compartmentalization to be able to go swimming in a pool of shoe company's cash only to attempt to wipe yourself clean of any nefarious affiliation with that mildly dirty money when the accusation against you is soaked in evidence. It's one thing to launder payments through a innocuous business venture like a good Italian boy. But to do so as a universally recognized public figure whose profession plays out on television? Man, it's a wonder that all the corruption he had stuffed in his closet didn't come out in the cleaners, and I think that technically makes him an expert (d)illusionary.
Sidenote: Yeah, we definitely shouldn't put aside funds for student athletes. You know, since the ever-marginalized universities are already "paying them in coaching". That money is way better spent supplementing the astronomical income of someone whose services are apparently also - in and of themselves - a form of currency? Don't feel bad, I had a tough time understanding that last sentence as I was writing it, and that speaks to the complete fucking shitshow that is the business of college athletics.
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