News reports suggest that the coach of the University of Louisville basketball program had knowledge of illegal payments made to a recruit to attend the school. That coach is Rick Pitino. He has been in the news various times over the years; sometimes good, and sometimes bad.

My mother and I both liked Rick Pitino. He's a charismatic guy, and has brought a lot of notoriety and success to U of L, but it's truly sad to me that things have gone haywire at U of L, both in the Athletics department and in scholastic administration. Pitino had a sex scandal that was forgivable because a lot of people can relate, but then he had a hookers for players scandal and that took it to another level, and now we have buying recruits to add to the mess. The University's lucrative Adidas shoes advertising deal will probably fall through because of this, and it probably should.

A sports department's problems are one thing, but when it comes to misappropriated funds, U of L's fundraising primary directive of supporting the school has apparently been ignored over years with the excessive salaries inside and the lackadaisical way in which the funds were invested.

In the middle of all of this, Kentucky's official governor's office has caused all sorts of chaos with regards to the appointments of a board of Trustees to guide the school. Even if U of L doesn't lose it's academic accreditation over this, the damage done to the reputation of the school is going to take a long time to fix, and in the meantime we lose good professors and will be unable to get good new ones.

As a 1990 graduate of U of L, and proud resident of Louisville, I'm passionately sad about all of this controversy, and while we may be embarrassed and try to shrug it off, the rest of the world is going to be a lot harsher on us.

I don't believe these things happened in a vacuum. A lot of people knew what was going on, and it's actually surprising it took this long to expose it. All of this stuff done in the dark just amazes me.

My question is whether the academic part of Universities should be separated from the sports? At least in the U.S., the two are bonded together, but I think it should change. It would mean the end of academic scholarships for athletes, but maybe that's good?

What do you think?

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

For the corrupted, the ends justify the means.

For the corrupted, the ends justify the means.

That would be the administration, who is after alumni $$$$$$ by having a winning sports program.

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My belief is that the Administrators know many, if not most of the 'problems'. As long there is an economic and/or prestigious benefit to the Universities by having a Sports Program, they will condone these actions. When exposed, the Sports Directors take the blame.

I agree. If you're at the level of administrator, you probably know what's going on throughout the organization, and you just conveniently choose whether to act or not, and it's safest and easiest to let the NCAA do the dirty work. The problem in U of L's case seems to be that the academic powers in charge are just as guilty in financial sins as the athletics administration, and they are inextricably intertwined.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

When I attended the University of Central Florida we had no intercollegiate sports. The president of the university thought that having a big sports program would adversely impact the academics of the school. But as the school grew and the president retired a new administration threw out those rules and UCF started an intercollegiate sports program. Now UCF is one of the largest university in the southern US and they have had a few minor scandals in recent times. I think the pressure to achieve notoriety just becomes too great from the alumni and coaches and administrators end up bending and eventually breaking the rules. I think college football and basketball, due to television, have become such big money activities they should be regarded as semi-pro sports and regulated accordingly.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.