The Louisville bench celebrates during the first half of a second-round game against Michigan in the mens NCAA college basketball tournament in Indianapolis, Sunday, March 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Mark WiedmerAre you a parent of a teenaged boy? Is that young man a promising athlete, perhaps one day worthy of earning an athletic scholarship to a major university in either of the glamour sports – basketball or football?
How do you think you’d feel if your son came home from a recruiting trip to Big State U. with stories of being entertained by a prostitute during his time there?
Wouldn’t you be a wee bit upset? Might you want that program shut down for a lengthy period of time, or at least buried under a mountain of penalties by the NCAA?
You bet you would. At least you should. And the NCAA apparently felt exactly the same way Thursday when announcing its proposed sanctions regarding the University of Louisville basketball program for its alleged use of prostitutes and strippers in its basketball dorm while hosting recruits.
Though the Cards brass has announced it will appeal the penalties, the Infractions Committee hit Louisville with everything from suspending Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino for the first five Atlantic Coast Conference contests of the 2017-18 season, to placing the program on probation for four years, to scholarship reductions, to recruiting restrictions, to forfeiture of money received through conference revenue sharing from the 2012-2015 NCAA tournaments.