Tim Sullivan article on whether or not Jurich was a bully. (Spoiler: he kinda sounds like a bully.)
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Pitino going to jail, should have kept his mouth shut and pleaded guilty when the time came. Instead, he's on TV lying saying he knows nothing, going to come back and bite him...Comment
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The only thing I don't get and I'll admit I haven't been following all of this that close but what about all of these other teams that were involved in the FBI allegations? Where is the pressure and heat on them? Why is UL the only one taking it right in the mouth? Wasn't Arizona and some others involved? What about the Preston kid at Kansas with the car wreck - nothing else has been said about that and what car he was driving (or that I heard)... I'm not saying I want all of these programs to be burned at the stake but I don't understand why the initial report was that a lot of people were getting named and only UL has been impacted so far. And yet - UNC gets cleared of their wrong doings...Comment
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I usually tune out everything Dakich says but he just had a great line during the UL-Purdue game.
"Pitino has denied so much he probably denies ever being the coach at Louisville."Comment
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Purdue's student section with shirts with the FBI on them was hilariousLast edited by TrueblueCATfan; 11-29-2017, 03:17 PM.Comment
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One thing i can say about Rick Pitino is that he is a competitor, he and Cal have been rivals now since way back in the 90's. I just wonder if Cal being at Kentucky put so much more pressure on Pitino to win at no cost and caused him to change, i don't think Pitino was like this back in his days at Kentucky, i just don't. Cal has beat him time and time again at Kentucky, out recruited him, erased what UK legacy Rick had and much much more. Rick prior to Cal had the attitude that he built Kentucky and that Louisville was not superior and there was nothing that UK could do about it....
Anyways, it's another wild conspiracy thought by me but i guarantee Cal dominating at Kentucky pushed Pitino and Jurich to the brink to win at all cost, i just do....
With that being said, when in the hell is Rick going to jail, he lying to the FBI and he's going to end up in prison if he doesn't come clean sooner or later.......Comment
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Extremism is so easy. You've got your position, and that's it. It doesn't take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left.
Clint EastwoodComment
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Interesting piece on ESPN about recent events at University 6. Unlike a lot of local coverage (from intimidated local media, it appears), this one talks about some of the gouging of taxpayers that has gone on - to an extent that hasn't been reported much locally.
Some of it:
"$2.77 million annually over the past seven years and approved several real estate transactions that benefited the athletic department. The Louisville Courier-Journal reported that Jurich's perks included tax "gross-ups" -- meaning the university paid some of his taxes -- membership in three country clubs and premium seats at the Kentucky Derby..."
"Out of 125 FBS schools required to report financial data to the U.S. Department of Education, Louisville is the only one that derives more than half of its men's sports revenue from basketball, says Jonathan Jensen, a sports marketing professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Much of that revenue comes from a $238 million taxpayer-funded arena, the KFC Yum Center, which opened downtown in 2010 and has become a heavy burden on taxpayers. The lease was negotiated by Jurich and the arena authority. Under the terms, taxpayer contributions make up 75 percent of the arena's operating income while Louisville gets to keep most of the revenue -- an arrangement that "blew our mind," says state auditor Mike Harmon, whose office examined the arena's finances. "It was like, 'This is ridiculous.' It's like co-signing the loan for a friend's home and then having to pay three-fourths of the mortgage."
"Denis Frankenberger, a local businessman who has dissected the lease in minute detail, calls it "the biggest taxpayer scandal in the history of Louisville."
"In the arena's first year, men's basketball revenue jumped 58 percent, from $25.9 million to $40.9 million, a trend that continued as the program became the richest in the country. Under the lease, Louisville keeps 88 percent of premium seat licensing, 97 percent of suite sales, all program revenue and half of concessions...
"As Louisville was growing richer, the arena was failing -- partly due to the lopsided lease, partly due to tax estimates based on "flawed data," Harmon says. By early this year, the arena required a bailout to keep it from defaulting on more than $300 million in bond debt. Jurich's athletic department agreed to pay an additional $2.4 million a year. The public, meanwhile, was saddled with another 25 years of arena-related taxes totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. In the end, the arena will cost more than $1 billion, with taxpayers funding most of it. Despite the bailout, some experts fear the FBI probe's effect on the arena's primary tenant could be catastrophic...
"F. Chris Gorman, a former Kentucky attorney general, says: "I think that the tragedy here is this is probably the only community that uses public money to fund a Division I athletic program. That's what led to all this corruption...
"Jurich and his supporters predicted that the rising tide that accompanied Louisville's migration to the ACC would lift up the academic boat. Yet the university, which is ranked 165th in U.S. News & World Report among national universities, continued to languish. Between 2008 and 2017, Kentucky cut state funding for higher education by 26.4 percent. The disparity between the athletic department's soaring budget and the realities of a shrinking university demoralized faculty; some referred to the chasm as East and West Berlin
"Jurich pulled in far more than the $1.4 million base salary that ranked him among the highest-paid ADs in the nation. Including other compensation, he earned $5.3 million in 2016, which, as The Courier-Journal points out, was more than the budgets of the biology, English, history and math departments. Jurich and his wife have vacation homes in Clearwater Beach and in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Their son Mark, a former pro baseball player, was paid an average of $133,545 to work as senior associate athletic director for development. To circumvent Louisville's nepotism policy, most of that salary was paid by the Louisville Foundation. Earlier this year, before the Adidas deal was announced, Jurich's daughter Haley, who has experience in sports marketing, was hired by the company to serve as a liaison between Adidas and Louisville.
"Jurich sought to neutralize the scandals and shape the athletic department's image by controlling the local media, according to interviews with more than half a dozen journalists and media executives -- many of whom requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals from Louisville, even with Jurich gone. They described consistent and aggressive efforts to influence coverage, including abusive calls to radio talk-show hosts and executives by Jurich and his surrogates; threats to get advertising pulled from stations; and attempts to influence hiring and firing. Jurich denies he sought to influence advertisers or pressure the media. Nearly all of the media members identified Bob Gunnell, a public relations specialist, as Jurich's main surrogate and attack dog. The Louisville athletic department has a sports information group that employs 11 people, but contracts obtained by Outside the Lines show Jurich paid Gunnell's outside PR firm, Boxcar, up to $130,000 per year dating to 2014. Shortly after Jurich was fired, Gunnell cut ties with the university. He now represents Jurich personally...
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Pitino also made the comment Papa John wanted him out but Papa John is the one who brought him to Louisville, not Jurich. Papa John and Rick played golf at Valhalla multiple times before Rick was hired, i saw this with my own two eyes, Papa John is the one who sold him on Louisville, not Jurich. Rick can blame everyone else for his downfall but for Papa John to wash his hands with Rick, Rick is guilty as all get out......Comment
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