There Needs to Be a New Sheriff in Town

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There are several states where the joke, of sorts, is that a certain sport -- precisely, college sport -- is the "official religion." I live in one such state. Here it's college basketball. Every year I tell people to not bother calling anyone in the state because they're watching the NCAA tournament selection show. But DANG. In the past year or so the University of Louisville has been in the headlines for a ton of the wrong reasons. *Former university president James Ramsey was also the president of the University Foundation, and millions of dollars have disappeared. Anyone else would be under investigation for embezzlement, but he waltzed off with a settlement...and that was only after the new governor of Kentucky intervened (while the state attorney general sued, saying he didn't have a right to do that!). *As a result of the way the former president of the university handled things the University of Louisville is now on academic probation. Think about that: the oldest university in the Commonwealth of Kentucky (founded in 1798) and the oldest public university in the country is in danger of having the academic degrees of the people paying good money to attend and (ostensibly) learn turn into toilet paper because of the way the leadership has acted! No legal action has been taken as of now. *Then there's the basketball team. A book, Breaking Cardinal Rules, detailed how basketball recruits were enticed to play for U of L...by having their campus visits augmented with visits by hookers. After vehemently denying this, the university turned around and imposed sanctions on itself to hopefully keep the NCAA from vacating their victories (including the 2013 National Championship) during the years this was happening. *Most recently -- this week -- it was learned that the football team, which is led by the 2016 Heisman Trophy recipient Lamar Jackson, was given plays by a disgruntled former coach-turned-broadcaster at Wake Forest before their game. Louisville was getting its clock cleaned in the first half, then mounted a great comeback and won the game. First the school Athletic Director denied they got anything from the Wake Forest broadcaster, then said, "Oh, yeah, we did, but we didn't use the play, and why are you bothering us with this before the Citrus Bowl??" After the outcry over the flippant response the school suspended the defensive coach who received the leaked plays....for one game. *And then there's the shooting of two U of L football players a few hours after an off-campus "watch party" for Jackson's Heisman award. A cheerleader was also shot. The only things known about this are what local news media has gleaned from friends and social media. The university has said NOTHING, including refusing to issue a warning about an "active shooter" for two hours following the shooting. Oh, and despite the fact that all three suffered non-life-threatening injuries, no arrests have been made. The University of Louisville needs a new sheriff in town to clean it up. The sad thing is that a lot of die-hard fans say that none of this matters....as long as the teams keep winning. And then they wonder why there've been a record number of homicides in the city this year? And now for a little levity, here's Linda Ronstadt's cover of the Knickerbockers' song "Lies" (an appropriate song in this case). I love this video, primarily because of the faces Danny Kortchmar h is making in the background while Linda's singing.