A few months ago a University of Louisville student decided to sue the madam who's written the book about the Cardinals basketball program using her prostitutes as a recruiting tool, as well as the publisher of the book, on the grounds that the scandal is "limiting her degree, ability to repay student loans and find employment after graduation."
It would seem a bit of a reach and one can't help but wonder why Kyle Hornback - who was the 2015 Derby festival Princess - isn't suing U of L instead, since it is the program's alleged hiring of those prostitutes that's damaging the school's image.
But her general reasoning may soon gain traction as more and more major college athletic programs appear to be embarrassing their students and alums with all matter of deplorable behavior.
Or as Hornback initially noted: "Since this scandal damages the reputation of the university and all of its students, my degree - along with the degrees of all U of L students - has been devalued. When a third-party interferes with a contract (between myself and the university), I have a legal right under the Constitution to file a lawsuit."
There are too many lawsuits in this country already. Some lean toward the somewhat frivolous, such as Ms. Hornback's. Others - such as the federal lawsuit the University of Tennessee is now fighting over charges that its athletic department has long encouraged a "hostile sexual environment" on its Knoxville campus - are anything but frivolous or flimsy.
Instead, they are formidable obstacles to viewing any institution of higher learning as an honorable enterprise dedicated to education and preparation for a richer, fuller life.
Nor are these colossal messes unfolding only at Louisville or Tennessee. There's the North Carolina academic scandal, which supposedly had an 18-year run but seems as if it might take twice that long to conclude properly. There's a basketball recruiting scandal at Missouri that's already forced the school to sit out this year's postseason. SMU also will miss the postseason for all matter of wrongs.
And just to prove this isn't confined to colleges, we're nowhere close to settling the Ooltewah High School rape case involving older basketball players sexually assaulting younger teammates.
The one common denominator of all these embarrassments from the colleges' side: men. Men only. Men behaving badly. Very badly.
Exactly how we got to this point would take the death of a couple of rain forests to find enough paper to print the possibilities. Too many divorces. Too many men refusing to grow up and support - both financially and emotionally - the children they were only too happy to father. Too many coaches, teachers and secondary school administrators refusing to hold their outrageously gifted athletes accountable for much of anything at a young age. Far too many collegiate programs refusing to do more of the same as those kids grow into manhood.
One charge from the Louisville mess to make us all cringe: Prostitutes were sent not only to a Derby City hotel to entertain a recruit but also his, gulp, guardian.
It's like the endless stories of parents smoking marijuana with their kids. How do we expect them to learn right from wrong and smart from stupid when the parents/guardians are Dumb and Dumber?
As the institutions we publicly fund to shape our young adults into responsible citizens become more and more sullied by these male-made monstrosities, is it not time, if not past time, to consider what larger good major college football and men's basketball are doing for their athletes in particular and society in general?
Consider this single fact from investigative reporters Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian's 2013 book "The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football" - Football Bowl Subdivision schools such as Louisville and Tennessee spent more than $91,000 per athlete compared with just over $13,000 per student. Yet it's the regular students and their families being forced to swallow increased tuiton and fees.
Beyond that, less than 25 percent of Power Five Conference athletic departments run in the black. Throw in the potential for scandal and embarrassment and you wonder just how smart continuing down this path really is.
There's always another side, of course. As a counter argument to UT settling its federal lawsuit, a woman emailed me to tell of her son being falsely accused of sexual assault at a rival Southern university.
"The university was diligent and thorough," she wrote. "As the mother of the accused student, I didn't agree with the school's processes (I believe it was very biased against the accused), but in the end our son was found not responsible, which is a school's version of not guilty."
She added that it's estimated that there are more than 200 lawsuits in the courts involving male students suing their universities for unfair student conduct processes. She noted that you can view 110 of those suits at: http://boysmeneducation.com/lawsuits-database.
Again, not every accusation is true, but that doesn't greatly alter the public perception that we've lost our way regarding the role of athletics in education.
Or as Louisville professor Ricky Jones said of his school's scandal: "There's this idea among some people that it's just this kind of lawless environment with people running amok."
Imagine that.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.