Tuesday, September 1, 2009

The Third Strike in Kentucky Basketball Shame

 

The video is out there, and we'll see it someday. It'll show Billy Gillispie, months removed from leading the famous Kentucky basketball program, in an orange jumpsuit -- the kind worn by the prisoners picking up garbage on the highway. The video will show Gillispie in that jumpsuit, being arraigned last week on charges of driving while intoxicated.

Already the mug shot is out there, and it's startling enough. It shows Gillispie with puffy, heavy eyes. He looks 10 years older. He looks 20 pounds heavier. He looks drunk.

Billy Gillispie's mug shot from his most recent drunken driving arrest. (AP)

Billy Gillispie's mug shot from his most recent drunken driving arrest. (AP)

Still, I submit the following: I submit that Gillispie is one of the luckiest SOB's around.

If he was going to get arrested for DUI -- and this being Gillispie, he was going to get arrested for DUI eventually -- last week was the best week possible. It came shortly after two enormous basketball stories had already broken in that state. Just one week earlier, the NCAA had taken away the 2008 Final Four banner from Memphis and the former Memphis coach who replaced Gillispie at Kentucky, John Calipari. And that came after the revelation that current Louisville (and former Kentucky) coach Rick Pitino had a one-dinner stand with a woman who accused him of raping her, impregnating her, marrying her off to his personal assistant and then paying for the abortion.

Click to read.

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