Rick Pitino and John Calipari are both charismatic guys.
I've seen them both on television countless times as well as in person on several occasions.
Back in the mid-1990s, when his team was beating up on Utah in the NCAA Tournament in consecutive years, I participated in several group interviews with Pitino, who was one of the few coaches who could give Rick Majerus a run for his money in the art of charming the media.
The two times I interviewed Calipari, it was just me and one or two other writers. The first came in a dingy hallway of a small gym in Puerto Rico where Utah defeated Memphis in a preseason tournament that drew about 50 fans. A few months later, Calipari was in a happier mood at the Huntsman Center, after his team got revenge with an NIT victory over the Utes.
I recall being impressed with both coaches and the way they presented themselves.
Not so much now.
Pitino and Calipari are probably the two most prominent coaches in college basketball these days. They happen to coach just 75 miles away from each other in Kentucky and both make scads of money -- nearly $4 million a year for Calipari and nearly $3 million for Pitino.
However, during the past month, I've become disgusted with both coaches and frustrated by the way these guys are given a free pass because, besides being charming fellows, they win a lot of games
Both Pitino and Calipari have found their names in the headlines recently for getting into trouble for past misdeeds.
For Pitino, it involved a sexual encounter with a woman in a restaurant and his payoff to her either for an abortion or "health insurance."
For Calipari it was the NCAA's stripping of his Memphis team's NCAA runnerup finish in 2008 and 38-2 record for using an ineligible player, who happened to be the star player. It marked the second time in Calipari's career that a team he coached had its Final Four season vacated, which means the season never happened in the eyes of the NCAA.
Pitino's indiscretion actually came six years earlier and only came to light earlier this year when the woman involved threatened to extort money from him. Pitino apologized for his mistake, while emphasizing that it was "six years ago," as if that made it not so bad.
Then last week, Pitino called a press conference to lash out against his accuser as well as the media after she suddenly came up with new allegation. I understand his frustration, but I couldn't feel too sorry for him since he got himself into the pickle in the first place.
The Louisville University president looked the other way. The athletic director looked the other way. Many of the Louisville basketball fans are looking the other way.
After all, Pitino is a one of the top coaches in the country and took his team to the Elite Eight last year.
But what if his team went 6-31 instead of 31-6? What if it went 19-18? Do you think Pitino would have received the same support he's gotten from the president, A.D. and fans?
Unfortunately, winning seems to always trump behavior.
Some say that Pitino's "problem" is common these days among politicians and CEOs and it shouldn't impact his job.
But it seems to me, a coach, who expects discipline from his players right down to the point that they can't be one minute late for practice without repercussions, should show more discipline in his own life and be a better example.
As for Calipari, the excuse is he's not to blame because he recruited a top player that anyone else in the country would have recruited and he didn't know the player had someone else take his SAT test for him.
Perhaps, but it has since been learned that Memphis also allowed this player's brother to travel with the team, which is also a violation.
And how about the fact that the last time Calipari was in the Final Four, when he coached UMass in 1996, one of his players was accepting cash before his eligibility was through and the team had to forfeit all of its wins.
As the old saying goes, where there's smoke, there's fire.
It may be too much to ask for all coaches to be squeaky clean in their personal lives. From what I know in my associations with each of the four coaches on the Wasatch Front, BYU's Dave Rose, Utah's Jim Boylen Utah State's Stew Morrill and Weber State's Randy Rahe are straight arrows who run clean programs that are above reproach. For that matter, so are the majority of coaches in college basketball.
I don't know what should be done about Pitino and Calipari, except maybe for fans and administrators to express a little more outrage.
Perhaps the punishment for Pitino and Calipari should be to cut their salaries in half. I think they could each get by with a million or two per year, don't you?
e-mail: sor@desnews.com