House of Cards
The Louisville basketball program is reeling after a book, “Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen,” by a self-described former escort hit the newswires this week. Katina Powell, 42, describes nearly two dozen stripping and sex parties from 2010 to 2014 inside Billy Minardi Hall, the on-campus dorm for athletes. According to the book, the team’s former graduate assistant coach Andre McGee arranged the parties for recruits and players. Said an unnamed former recruit, who ultimately signed to play elsewhere: “I knew they weren’t college girls. It was crazy. It was like I was in a strip club.”
Head coach Rick Pitino, although denying any knowledge of the on-goings, has a less than squeaky clean past himself. In 2003, the married Pitino admitted to having consensual sex with a woman named Karen Cunagin Sypher in a Louisville restaurant. He also admits to paying her $3,000 for an abortion.
If Larry Brown and SMU can feel the wrath of the NCAA to the degree they recently did for what was called “unethical conduct” and “lack of head coach control” for basically taking a test for a kid, I can’t imagine what is heading Louisville’s way….
There’s a Reason We Call Them Cheeseheads
Milwaukee Bucks forward John Henson says he was racially profiled recently at a Whitefish Bay, WI jewelry store. Henson posted an account of the encounter on his Instagram account, saying he intended to look at a watch at the store, but workers locked the door during normal business hours and told him to leave. Henson said he was then questioned by police officers about the vehicle he 
was driving and what he wanted to purchase.
The owner of the store came to the Bucks practice facility to personally apologize to Henson the next day, but the cynic in me has to wonder if he would have been so magnanimous if Henson had been, let’s say, a truck driver or fry cook instead of an NBA player……
Waiting Til Next Year…Again
It looks very much like the Cubs streak of 107 years without a World Series Championship will soon be sitting at 108. After losing last night at Wrigley Field to the Mets 5-2, and falling into a 0-3 hole in the best of seven series, all of us long suffering Cubs fans are now looking squarely at 2016 as our time – whether we want to admit it yet or not.
The all or nothing offense of the Cubs (home run or bust) hasn’t been able to produce the long ball against the Mets pitchers (only 5 runs in 3 games) to the same degree they did against the Cardinals, and it’s costing them. Now I’m fully aware that 
the 2004 Red Sox came back from an 0-3 deficit against the Yankees and ultimately captured their first World Series in 86 years, and of course Theo Epstein was guiding that ship just as he is the Cubs now….but it ain’t happening. The Mets are a just a better team this year. But there’s a difference this year then in 2008, 2007, 2003, 1998, 1989, 1984…well you get the point…previous Cubs playoff heartbreak years. This year we see REAL hope for next year, and the year after, and the year after that. This is a team of kids barely old enough to drink legally, and it will only get better. Just wait til next year!
